There will always be fears or concerns about information management or its safekeeping in a highly technological business and commercial world.
For this reason, technology providers have rushed to implement cloud services such as BaaS (Backup as a Service) and DRaaS (Disaster Recovery as a Service).
These BaaS and DRaaS services represent necessary complements to EDR and EPP in protecting and safeguarding business continuity.
Each of these services and their positive impact on your business will be explained below:
What is BaaS?
Each company should follow “the 3-2-1 rule” when backing up information. This rule is based on making 3 copies of data in 2 different media (hard disk, USB memory, DVD, etc.) and having 1 copy in a different location.
In point 1 of the rule, it can be inferred that the application of BaaS is a critical strategy to establish any essential information quickly in the commercial or industrial operations of the company.
BaaS can correspond to the backup held in the cloud under the safekeeping of a qualified and certified service provider.
This backup is done in various ways, but the most appropriate is through a dedicated Internet line that connects the client directly to its information.
The two locations will be communicated through other security services to guarantee the integrity of the backed-up information and the speed of the process.
IBM says that every company or entrepreneur should have a business continuity plan, considering the degree of technological integration in the cloud.
Among the elements of this plan should be the protection of its operations and critical data through services such as BaaS.
He also mentions that, even if it is not an alert, security measures should be taken in time to be forewarned and ready for any future incident in the business.
When generating a backup, it is always necessary to take into account the purpose of the jam and how often it should be planned to improve the number of orphaned data in the RPO (Recovery Point Objective),
The fewer remote backups in time decrease the RPO rate and generate more planning, time, and space to save such data.
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What is DRaaS?
The disaster recovery service (DRaaS) allows creating in the cloud a copy of the data and the infrastructure that the organization has linked to that data.
In this case, you must have a solid plan supporting a fatal data situation in the organization, where what must prevail in the recovery time and the integrity of the information.
For the above, it must be taken into account that the location of the backed-up data must be in a different area to the destination to guarantee its recovery.
All these alternatives and strategies must be contemplated in the DRP (Disaster Recovery Plan), allowing the company to recover operations with customers and suppliers almost transparently.
This process is invisible to the business will depend on the RTO (Recovery Time Objective) indicator, which measures the time it takes per volume of data to restore a node or system and become operational again.
Business Continuity applying BaaS and DRaaS
In this part, it is valuable to see all the factors that can be related when planning an effective disaster plan.
The level of criticality of a DRP is measured by the period from the last backup date to the date on which the business operations are restored or recovered.
- COLD LEVEL: These are DRP systems based on tape backup where the RPO and RTO are high, and the application of a DRaaS can take days. It does not represent a good Cloud service.
- TEMPERATE LEVEL: It can have backups stored in the cloud or on alternate servers that allow medium RTO and RPO indicators, where the application of a DRaaS can take a few hours.
- HOT LEVEL: This level is based primarily on cloud services. The client has two operations infrastructures (one physical or virtual, and a copy of the same in another virtual space). It allows to have almost zero RPO and RTO indicators and in contingency cases. Your success will depend directly on the quality of the BaaS and DRaaS services provided by your provider.
A disaster recovery plan can never be executed if there is no data to recover; therefore, DRaaS must operate in conjunction with BaaS in a planned manner.
Differences between BaaS and DRaaS
In our age, information is power, and power generates money and wealth. But all information is based on data, so data is the key to any company or business.
Therefore, both BaaS and DRaaS depend on this data (quality and availability) to consider the acceptance of their purpose.
The following are the most salient differences in these services and how they are essential to ensure business continuity.
The durability of asset backup
BaaS backs up data maintained for the long term, while DRaaS replicates data quickly, creating a mirror of the data to preserve the infrastructure.
Type of asset protection
Both options use cloud services for their operation, and both use a technology provider to manage these assets.
BaaS safeguards data by backing it up to a local device and the cloud for secure storage. If a disaster occurs, specific restoration of what is required can be done from the backup to its original location.
DRaaS is based on a speed of recovery and, it uses replication of new and updated data continuously in a cloud storage environment. In this way, every last piece of updated data can be retrieved securely without impacting the business.
Cost and speed of asset recovery
DRaaS will always be a more expensive service than a simple cloud backup, but you can manage your costs and recovery speed by placing your most critical systems and data in the highest tier to be backed up more often. It will allow you to optimize recovery times effectively.
BaaS can be an exciting alternative for the lowest recovery level or in a small to medium infrastructure business, as it is a more cost-effective solution than DRaaS.
In conclusion
Both BaaS and DRaaS services are essential to ensure business continuity that positively impacts the enterprise. It is now a matter of determining for which company one or the other should be used.
The following is a summary of the services:
BaaS has greater applicability in the following type of enterprise:
- Where the information stored does not change very frequently.
- Having an IT staff prepared to restore the infrastructure in the event of a disaster.
- Where BaaS services can be outsourced for IT staff to perform other activities.
- Companies that can be inactive for a certain period without causing a significant impact on the business.
- When the effect of data loss has a considerable margin of tolerance to the last backup performed.
- For companies that do not have long-term cloud services.
DRaaS has greater applicability in the following type of companies:
- When fast and complete recovery of data and infrastructure is required.
- Companies that have expert personnel in DRP or outsourcing of the service to apply the contingency.
- When continuous DRP testing is necessary to ensure its effectiveness and adjust it over time.
- When data is constantly changing or updating.
- Companies that cannot afford to lose idle time waiting for incident response.
- When the latest version of the information is needed for business activity.
- The company has a long-term cloud strategy.
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