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3 Ways DRaaS and Bare Metal Recovery Differ

3 Ways DRaaS and Bare Metal Recovery DifferThe Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) market is growing exponentially and predicted to hit $20 billion by 2020. However, the growth is creating confusion on how DRaaS differs from bare metal recovery (BMR) in the enterprise, according to Infrascale.

So let’s dive into both terms a bit more. BMR allows a user to backup a physical server disk image is in its entirety, including the operating system and its settings, files, folders, apps and more. With BMR, re-installing everything from scratch becomes unnecessary.

DRaaS is essentially the same thing but with additional benefits, including the ability to run that system in a virtual environment during a catastrophe. DRaaS enables a user to boot a protected server or site in seconds.

Infrascale also provided the following key differences between the two terms:

  • Speed

The largest difference between the two terms is the amount of time it takes to get up and running if a server crashes. With BMR, users have to restore the image to a server and then boot the system; that could take hours. On the other hand, with DRaaS, the system morphs into a virtual machine and can be booted right away.

  • Scale

When it comes to BMR, the number of servers you have is directly related to the amount of time it will take to become fully functional again.

“This can take considerable time and is not terribly scalable if you have lots of large servers,” according to Infrascale’s VP of Marketing Dean Nicolls.

However, with a DRaaS tool implemented, users can boot all systems simultaneously and be up and running within minutes. This is especially true for those with an elastic cloud infrastructure.

“You will still have to consider the orchestration of what needs to be booted first and in what order,” Nicolls advised.

  • Solve Different Downtime Goals

Both BMR and DRaaS have different goals: BMR is primarily used to recover a system that is meant to be used in production, but DRaaS is utilized to get you back up and running as quickly as possible and restoring systems for production become secondary priorities.

“While Bare Metal Recovery is important in your overall data protection planning, it is not a suitable replacement for on-demand failover. With DraaS, you can now deliver fast recovery times –usually measured in seconds to minutes — for the cost of traditional backup,” Nicolls said.

If you’re looking for a DRaaS provider, take a look at our Backup and Disaster Recovery Buyer’s Guide for an overview of the market, vendor profiles and questions to ask.

Download Link to Data Protection Vendor Map

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