Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) is a predetermined set of processes offered by a third-party vendor to help an enterprise develop and implement a disaster recovery plan (DRP). An increasing number of DRaaS providers have emerged recently as the need for disaster recovery has been underscored by major adverse events.

An enterprise DRP, sometimes called a business continuity plan (BCP) or business process contingency plan (BPCP), comprises precautions intended to minimize the impact of a disaster on actual company operations, and maintain or quickly resume the most vital functions. As devices, systems, and networks grow increasingly complex, more things can go wrong. In addition, some people believe that the risk of a massive, widespread disaster, either natural or human-made, has increased in recent years and will likely continue to increase. For these reasons, a typical enterprise may spend 25% of its IT (information technology) budget on disaster recovery.

DRaaS offers at least two substantial advantages over in-house DRPs. If an enterprise lacks disaster recovery expertise among its personnel, a third-party team of DRP specialists can provision, configure, and test an effective plan. In the event of an actual disaster, an offsite vendor will be less likely than the enterprise itself to suffer the direct and immediate effects of that disaster, allowing the outside entity to manage the DRP even in the event of the worst-case scenario: a total or near-total shutdown of the affected enterprise.

09 Nov 2012