The 2017 hurricane season was one for the record books. With 17 named storms – 10 of which became hurricanes – Harvey, Irma, and Maria are names we won’t soon forget. For businesses that were in the paths of these horrific storms, there was little they could do to prevent the devastation that rained down on their physical office locations. You can’t stop Mother Nature.

With the next hurricane season just around the corner, many businesses are learning from the disasters of last year and putting plans in place to protect their network, data, and communications systems. Disaster recovery (DR) and Business Continuity (BC) help businesses maintain and quickly resume mission-critical operations both during and after a disaster. But, as with many technologies, there’s more than one way to accomplish DR/BC. It’s essential that organizations evaluate their DR/BC options to ensure they have a solid plan in place in the event of unplanned downtime.

On-Premise Backup Services 

Backing up data is an integral part of DR. A backup service takes a snapshot of your data, typically on a daily basis, and stores it in a location separate from the primary system. While on-premise backup allows for tighter control over the server and the ability to retrieve the data without internet access, merely backing up data to another server offers minimal protection if the physical building is affected by an outage. Moreover, on-premise backup requires increased investment in hardware and infrastructure, the additional cost of maintenance and support, and potential for data loss in the event of a disaster.

Cloud-Based Disaster Recovery 

Cloud DR is an evolutionary step in the traditional disaster recovery process. By regularly backing up, storing, and maintaining data, systems, and applications in a cloud environment; organizations can seamlessly recover data onto physical or virtual servers in the event of a disaster. With Cloud DR, there are no onsite hardware costs and the service is typically scalable, allowing you to add more storage space as your business grows. You can also easily connect to the cloud from anywhere to access data when needed. However, Cloud DR doesn’t offer a live IT production environment, so there is no opportunity to host your applications until your primary system is restored.

Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS) 

DRaaS takes Cloud DR one step further by adding failover to the backup and recovery processes. In doing so, organizations can spin up a live DR site on either a public or private cloud, allowing them to mimic their production environment during and after a disaster. Accessible through the internet, mission-critical applications are available almost instantaneously, providing business continuity throughout the organization. Additionally, DRaaS offers a scalable infrastructure that requires fewer operational resources, resulting in significant cost savings in software licensing and hardware while also providing the flexibility and reliable security that organizations demand for their valuable, mission-critical data.

Whether a natural disaster, human error, or service provider outage, your organization can’t afford downtime or the costly effects of an inadequate disaster recovery plan. Let LanYap Networks help you chart a course for business continuity and disaster recovery. Give us a call.