As innovations in the disaster recovery space take place, Disaster recovery is no longer a major spend thanks to the advent of cloud.
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| Surajit Sen, Country Manager - BRS at EMC |
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| Vamsicharan Mudiam, Country Manager, Cloud Solutions, IBM, India/South Asia |
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| Guna Sekaran R, Country Manager, Quantum India & Sri Lanka |
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| P Sridhar Reddy, CEO & Founder, CtrlS |
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| Alok Gupta, Managing Director of Unistal Systems Pvt. Ltd |
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| Huzefa Motiwala, Regional Head, Technology Sales, Symantec |
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| Neeraj Mediratta CEO, Ace Data Devices Pvt. Ltd |
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| Yogesh Sawant, Director, Partner Sales and Field Alliance Organization, India, Hitachi Data Systems |
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| Anand Ramakrishnan, Business Head- Infrastructure Management Services, Cloud & Microsoft Business Unit, HCL Infosystems. |
A recent survey shows that businesses are losing billions due to poor data disaster recovery planning. The lot is harder for the SMBs for whom it becomes all the more difficult to recuperate after a loss. Needless to say, an opportunity lies here for the IT service providers to offer disaster recovery services.
Surajit Sen, Country Manager - BRS at EMC, says, “For many companies Disaster recovery is an insurance policy that they did not think they required, until they needed it. But now there is the realisation that it is in the essential fitness of things to have a disaster recovery plan, especially from a compliance point of view.”
With the advent of the cloud services, a new mechanism in disaster recovery has emerged. When it comes to offering the clients with cloud-based disaster recovery system, the opportunity seems promising.
As organizations deal with downtime due to disasters, storage failures, network issues, maintenance or power outages, they need an off-premise solution that provides fast recovery to keep their applications and data available to users. “Symantec’s SMB DP survey found that one in two Indian organizations that adopted the cloud experienced improvements in disaster preparedness. Cloud-based services are gaining interest and traction in the Indian market due to reduced costs, flexibility, strong SLAs that guarantee that RTOs and RPOs, and reduced management overhead so Indian organisations are extensively adopting DR-as-a-Service,” says Huzefa Motiwala, Regional Head, Technology Sales, Symantec.
Drivers for Growth
Increasing threats to business continuity like natural calamities, data theft and other catastrophes make it imperative for every Organization to have a BCP in place, irrespective of Industry or Location. “DRaaS provides a lot of value to the BCP portfolio as it gives a cost advantage and offers flexibility of data recovery within minutes or seconds. Further, this leads to predictability in cash outflows which is a huge advantage for every Organization.
As per market study report by Markets & Markets, the global DRaaS and cloud based business continuity is forecasted to grow from $640.8 million in 2013 to $5.77 billion by 2018, at a CAGR of 55.2%.
“With data becoming increasingly dynamic, in addition to business resilience and security, risk management has emerged as a top priority in many organizations,” says Vamsicharan Mudiam, Country Manager, Cloud Solutions, IBM,
“Stringent regulatory compliance in some sectors as well as investor demand for stronger risk management has made BCP an imperative for organizations. These factors will also drive the DRaaS market in India,” says Anand Ramakrishnan, Business Head- Infrastructure Management Services, Cloud & Microsoft Business Unit, HCL Infosystems.
Though the market potential for India has not been evaluated through a comprehensive research, it is well understood that all Small, Medium and Large-sized technology-dependent enterprises will suffer heavy losses even from small data disruptions. “The present trends in this segment clearly indicate that there will be a meteoric rise in the growth of the data recovery industry. Natural disasters, risk to reputation and the need to stay competitive will push companies to adopt more robust Disaster Recovery Policies than mere compliance,” says P Sridhar Reddy, CEO & Founder, P Sridhar Reddy, CEO & Founder, CtrlS.
Alok Gupta, Managing Director of Unistal Systems Pvt. Ltd says, “There is huge Market Potential of Data Recovery as a Service (DRaaS),because still most of the companies kept their data servers in their own campus. Data Loss can occur anytime due to any accidental, natural or manmade disaster. So in such scenario DRaaS comes into picture.”
During the past few years in India, the DRaaS market has rapidly evolved from a traditional DR Cap-ex Investment model to a Cloud based DR model due to the emergence of several pure play Cloud providers. “Large managed service providers like HCL Infosystems are collaborating with technology vendors like Sanovi to provide customers with the best in class DRaaS solutions, “ says Anand Ramakrishnan of HCL Infosystems.
Any technology-dependent business that would be affected by downtime should go for a cloud-based disaster recovery. This includes companies from verticals like BFSI, e-Commerce, Telecom, Infrastructure, Media & Entertainment, Manufacturing, etc. Business Continuity Experts state that even small and regular outages affect profits of a business and shake customer confidence. A 24-hour disruption decreases the chance of a company’s survival by 50%. A 3-day disruption could close down a business completely.
Past perceptions required every new technology implemented to have a positive ROI or reduce costs. While cutting costs is still a priority, it is not all the reason why companies deploy innovative solutions. “DRaaS is one among the solutions that ensure the very survival of a business, during times of calamity. As cybercriminals become more sophisticated and natural / manmade disasters continue to threaten companies, decision makers need to have innovative backup strategies in place,” says Sridhar of CtrlS.
SMBs can benefit from the cloud based DR model as this reduces the need for Data Center space, IT Infrastructure and IT resources etc., which leads to reduction in costs and the implementation becomes easy.
Disaster Recovery is important for everyone. Though not specific to the size of company or industry, it is an opportunity SMBs are looking for. “While DRaaS is an advisable solution for any organization, the specific set of businesses to benefit from it can be SMBs, since they are usually not in a financial situation to support their own infrastructure,” says Huzefa of Symantec. DRaaS gives them an option to establish some form of back up, as opposed to standing the risk of losing all their data in case disaster strikes. Besides, information is an asset for these organizations and they do not tend to realize it. Operating on a small scale doesn’t mean reduced damage in case the data is lost. This data needs to be protected, backed up and restored as in any organization.
Why DRaas?
As technology and networks grow in complexity, there is a chance for more threatening situations to affect organizations. For this reason, a typical enterprise is likely to spend a large chunk of its Information Technology budget on disaster recovery. Traditional Disaster Recovery Plans (DRPs) come riddled with costs. It is safe to say that an in-house DRP is expensive and practically inaccessible for small and mid-range businesses. DRaaS allows for a customized, subscription based and need-based service.
DRaaS offers several advantages over in-house plans. If an enterprise is not equipped with its own disaster recovery expertise, a team of DRP specialists can configure an effective plan. This lets the third party service providers implement the DRP in the worst possible cases, even the total shutting down of an enterprise in case of a natural disaster. Keeping in mind the expenses and the negative implications downtime can have on a business, it is safe to say that DRaaS is a viable option for businesses of varying scales.
Reduced costs: Due to the subscription based pricing, the CapEx required to invest in hardware and software is completely negated. The initial investments and modus operandi of the service provider help achieve economies of scale.
Access to Expertise: When subscribing to DRaaS, clients are in a position to leverage the expertise of professionals who offer these services to several clients – every single day. These professionals not only handle failover, but also monitor datacenters and alert clients to impending failures. When disaster strikes, they know exactly how to manage both the failover and the recovery process. Their experience across various instances ensures that operations are carried out as per best practices.
Faster recovery: In case of an eventuality, systems required to support the business can be up and running in less than an hour. SLA documents today are drafted to assure clients that disruptions will be restricted to a bare minimum.
Scheduled and Regular testing: Technological advances allow clients and service providers to simulate scenarios and test the effectiveness of their DR plans. This creates the confidence that operations will be back to normal as quickly as possible, should a disaster strike.
Improved flexibility: DR plans today are aligned to the needs of the client’s business. Should the needs of the business change, the DR plan could also be changed alongside.
Cons of DRaaS
“While this is all a pretty picture, there is a need to understand that not every system is compatible with cloud based disaster recovery services. There may be applications that are not virtualized and hence cannot be backed up through this method,” says Huzefa.” This mismatch needs to be recognized, and the services incorporated into the DRP accordingly. Another aspect to pay attention to is where DRaaS is most required and where it is not. Companies must prioritize their data and seek disaster recovery for those more urgently than non-critical applications,” he adds.
Disaster Recovery processes must provide for an increasingly complex Information Technology scenario and must be able to provide services across platforms and data formats. Also, companies tend to relax once their disaster recovery plan is outsourced. This is not the case. To ensure readiness, organizations need trained personnel and repeated testing of recovery processes in order to make an easy transition from traditional DRP to DRaaS. Security is another concern that organizations express inhibitions about. They feel more in control of their data, while it is in a secondary site in their own setup. This keeps them from actively pursuing the idea of DRaaS for their data.
Not every DRaaS provider is a DR Expert. Most DRaaS providers operate on a shared-hardware approach, assuming that all their clients will never be affected simultaneously. “Such providers offer less expensive, but riskier services. Subscribing to such services could actually be detrimental to business, if a large number of the service provider’s clients are affected at the same time. It is imperative to choose a service provider who is geared to handle such challenges,” says Sridhar.
Offerings By Vendors in the Disaster Recovery
Symantec helps customers implement cost-effective, reliable disaster recovery options. We provide organizations around the world with solutions to help protect data. To provide customers with reliable and cost-effective disaster recovery (DR) options, Symantec has created a disaster recovery solution that usesWindows Azure. The solution, which is built on Symantec’s Veritas Storage Foundation High Availability for Windows offering, can deliver a cost-effective, automated, and reliable way to reduce disaster recovery and complexity by moving many DR tasks to the cloud. The solution also makes disaster recovery options more affordable for small and medium-sized organizations.
By offering private or public cloud-based backup services, IBM enables the users to choose and implement a plan for backup, retention and retrieval so that you can gain security-rich, around-the-clock access to information.
IBM SmartCloud Virtualized Server Recovery helps enterprises build cloud-based business resilience and meet their business demands at a lower cost. This is a fully managed cloud service that provides clients an easy-to-use portal for remote access to restore business operations on IBM’s recovery infrastructure. It replicates both server software and associated data continuously. The service provides more flexibility and shorter recovery times than traditional disaster recovery solutions. By incorporating automation and cloud technologies, this service helps reduce the complexity associated with recovering to unlike hardware and helps improve reliability.
CtrlS is among the first companies in India to offer DR on Demand. DR on Demand is an offering that was born out of the insight that most assets invested in by a company are used only in the face of calamities. “The DR on Demand is a pioneering concept that has changed the way enterprises look at DR. It ensures that our customers enjoy the critical functionalities of a complete DR site, at a fraction of the cost. The savings is certain instances are as high as 40%,” says Sridhar.
Quantum's backup appliances have built-in RAID 6 hardware. Moreover, replication to one or more remote targets ensure that even if the primary data is lost due to a natural disaster the copy of the data can be easily restored. In the case of Quantum's vmPRO appliances, no software is even required to restore as the data is stored in its native format. “This is particularly useful for quick recovery after a natural disaster,’ says Guna Sekaran R, Country Manager, Quantum India & Sri Lanka.
Neeraj Mediratta- CEO, Ace Data Devices Pvt. Ltd. Says, “Our tools run background verification checks for all the data that we backup. Apart from the continuous regular checks, we do additionally run data integrity and restore validation processes to ensure that the data is recoverable. All our customers enjoy regular recovery drills of the data and methodology of their choice to ensure data recovery.”
He adds, “ Our cloud solution is fully secure with FIPS certified AES 256 bit encryption before moving the data out of the customer’s network. This helps us ensure that data is secure. The encryption keys are defined by the customer’s system administrator. Apart from these key software features, our environment is protected with firewalls, security tools and anti-virus tools being updated regularly to ensure that the data is safe.”
Hitachi Data Systems recently unveiled Hitachi Content Platform Anywhere, the industry’s first integrated file sync and share solution for the enterprises. It is built, sold and supported entirely by a single vendor. Yogesh Sawant, Director, Partner Sales and Field Alliance Organization, India, Hitachi Data Systems, says, “HCP Anywhere makes it possible for anyone to perform any task, access any data, from anywhere, at anytime, but it also puts the power back in the hands of the business and ensures that end-to-end file sharing solutions are deployed safely, securely, and with corporate oversight.”
Channel Role
As a trusted advisor and knowledge partner, the reseller community can lead the way in assisting Indian SMBs in managing their technology needs better. Partners play a crucial role in providing the right guidance for business-owners in protecting their information from physical and digital disasters in the right manner. Particularly in emerging cities, the role of the channel bridges the customer’s need with the relevant solution. The good news is that technology trends can provide a great deal of assistance in information protection.
Leaders in the channel community in India are taking advantage of these developments to advise their customers on technology deployments, thereby also growing their own business and generating revenues – a win-win situation for all that leads to improved protection of business information in India.
Any VAR who can work with a DRaaS provider to address his customers’ needs is no longer seen as a vendor but as a partner, since it involves providing a right solution that is critical to the customer. “As a result his / her stickiness with the Customer increases and leads to a long term relationship with the Customer. This is a significant benefit for the VAR,” says Anand Ramakrishnan of HCL Infosystems.
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