Public cloud simplifies and accelerates the DR process and cuts costs by replacing standby hardware with on-demand cloud resources. If the primary hosting site fails, the disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) system automatically launches applications by initiating the necessary cloud infrastructure, installing application images, and attaching databases and volumes.
AWS and Microsoft have released competitive products. Google only provides documentation on building your own cloud-based DR, not a full-fledged offering. Organizations will first look to cloud providers for a solution since DRaaS is already built on cloud infrastructure.
AWS acquired CloudEndure in 2019, whose products now comprise AWS’s cloud-based disaster recovery and workload migration offerings. CE DR agents can replicate workloads from on-premises or other IaaS environments to AWS or between AWS regions. It provides:
- Continuous data replication.
- A low-cost staging area.
- Automated machine conversion to a supported AWS format.
- Support for popular enterprise software and OS.
- Point-in-time recovery.
- Non-disruptive DR testing.
In 2014 Microsoft Azure used technology from InMage to bolster Azure Site Recovery. Administrators can replicate applications from on-premises systems running on Azure Stack or another virtualization platform. Site Recovery can also replicate between Azure cloud regions or even from AWS Windows instances to Azure. It supports the on-demand creation of VM instances during recovery incidents, non-disruptive DR testing, and customized targets for recovery point objectives and recovery time objectives. It also supports customized recovery plans and runbooks that can take advantage of Azure Automation or PowerShell scripts.
Google Cloud does not offer a packaged DRaaS. It provides documentation on cloud-based disaster recovery planning and how to use GCP services as a DR platform. Google’s documentation focuses on various automation tools to eliminate manual DR processes when replicating and failing over an external environment. GCP services useful to a DIY DR process include Cloud Monitoring and Cloud Status Dashboard, Cloud Deployment Manager, and Third-party templating and configuration software.
The GCP partner directory also lists several companies that provide DRaaS or DR managed services on top of GCP infrastructure.
