Disaster Recovery as a Service, often abbreviated "DRaaS,” is a designation for cloud-based network recovery options. Today, cloud computing has come to characterize many core aspects of businesses. It’s really no wonder, there are many savings to be had through cloud solutions:

• Internal networks can be outsourced (so can the collateral expenses which silhouette them)
• Backups can be solidified through the cloud without the need for an on-site backup solution
• Businesses conserve expenses in terms of testing, troubleshooting, and repair

More Than a Last Resort

One of the reasons DRaaS is being emphasized in this writing is because many see it as a last resort. What they don’t realize is that within a three to five-year span, it is almost a certainty that they will need to do a full reboot and recovery. Perfect firewalls, total employee education on internet usage, and best practices when using mobile devices, antivirus software, continuous monitoring, and support can’t stop the forces of entropy. True, continuous monitoring can help identify where an issue may arise and deactivate a server or an array of them before the natural breakdown occurs, repair the issue, and then reactivate the affected machines. Even in this situation, the human element is apt to be impugned by natural disaster, natural human error, or steep political upset. In short, while it’s not like playing the lottery, the odds are definitely stacked against you getting through years of continuous operation without experiencing a real crash.

Disaster recovery as a service only needs to totally save your operation one time to pay for itself several times over. Since it’s hosted through the cloud, you do see the likelihood of a diminishing breakdown. Compact Discs, or CDs, have a shelf life of five to 10 years, most of them maxing out around 20. Bumping a hard disk can totally dismantle it. This is one reason solid state drives are increasing in popularity. If you can cut the risks of transportation and entropy through the cloud, why wouldn’t you? Proprietary data. Yet, there are options here, too. Private clouds are available and you could hybridize between a private and public option. If you’re operating a private cloud, you’re the only client on that server array. It’s more expensive but you get the data protection, utility, and speed of the public cloud. You also get the security of an internal solution wrapped in tech support from professionals, whose core directive is to maintain whatever cloud option they’re selling.

Conversely, you could maintain the absolutely delicate data on your own desktop computer, internally housed. The likelihood is, most of your operations are infrastructural to computer involvement. That information isn’t always as sensitive, as many would say. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t.