Disaster Recovery as a Service for small businesses

Disaster Recovery as a Service  (DRaaS) can be a cost effective insurance policy for small businesses. Instead of having to buy and maintain separate servers, SAN, storage, network, firewall, rack space,  the business can store copies of data and backups of that data on remote cloud-based services. This offers redundant methods of recovery  from a wide range of infrastructure failures in the event of a disaster.

SMBs that go this route can pay less per month to have this available than it would be buy on-site equipment. Buying the equipment may mean that you aren’t using all of it as well.

Notable providers of this service include Azure, vCloud Air, Cirrity, Acronis, Norton and Carbonite. For the smallest businesses like mine, perhaps with only one user operating on one primary computer and a few mobile devices, OneDrive and Google services may be adequate. For those using Windows 10, an easy option is to use the built-in features of File History and OneDrive. Microsoft’s File History provides automatic ongoing backup of data files – including those on a remote server – to a physical drive connected to your computer. This gives both a physical and cloud copy of all data files on an automatic and ongoing basis. If we combine this with occasional manual backup (using the old Windows 7 backup system, for example) and creation of a System Image disk, then this would give a 3rd independent copy of data and files.

I encourage small business owners to review their backup system with their accountant to look for weaknesses and opportunities for improvement. I offer this service as part of the concierge advisory package described at www.wealthmanagement.us.com.

Editing note: The beginning passage in this post is adapted from online post appearing in different locations and attributed to more than one author. While a citation is due because of the amount of unoriginal content used here, the actual source of the material is unclear. The original author is possibly Swaroop Hazari, Director at Hermes Infosoft who posted on LinkedIn).