One of the major causes of IT problems is human error. This is true during disaster recovery, too, and unfortunately a small mistake can turn a straightforward recovery process into a nightmare.
The way to cut down on human error is to reduce the manual effort required. Automation and orchestration ensure procedures are completed completely, consistently, and without the risk of human error. When automation is combined with disaster recovery to deliver Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS), businesses access a robust, reliable, efficient recovery process that helps meet recovery objectives.
DRaaS brings automation throughout the disaster recovery process.
1. Defining the recovery process. While creating plans still requires manual effort, discovery tools help automate the process and update the appropriate documents and configuration files.
2. Backing up data needed for recovery. Recovery doesn’t work without files to restore. DRaaS lets teams automate the backup process, too. Eliminating manual backup procedures makes the process far more reliable and ensures the files will be there when needed.
3. Handling backup server management. Truth is, you don’t know how the DRaaS provider manages the backup servers. But even if they are supported manually (which is unlikely), from your perspective, as a client using that equipment, it’s effectively automated. Necessary support like security patches and upgrades happens without any involvement from your team. In addition, whenever you need additional backup capacity, it’s just there, without your team doing manual provisioning.
4. Performing recovery procedures. Execution of the process, once created, is fully automated, with all dependencies adhered to, so systems are brought up in the correct sequence. Fallback is just recovering to a different set of servers, so that critical process can also be automated.
5. Testing disaster recovery. Even testing can be largely automated, allowing tests to recur on a regular schedule and eliminating the risk that untested recovery plans won’t work. This is a significant benefit, because surveys consistently show that very few businesses test their DR processes.
IT teams are almost always overloaded, and backup and disaster recovery tasks often get short shrift. DRaaS allows businesses to implement a reliable recovery process without straining IT teams even further, since high levels of automation and orchestration mean teams have few manual tasks to perform.
VAST IT Services offers a high-performance DRaaS solution that eliminates the pain of manual disaster recovery procedures. Contact us to learn more.
