Otava quoted in TechTarget article on DRaaS benefits, challenges

Disaster recovery as a service, or DRaaS, is a cloud-based data protection approach that has become increasingly popular. DRaaS offers an alternative to traditional disaster recovery methods, in which a business must set up, equip and operate off-site DR facilities. DRaaS shifts that responsibility to third-party providers, which harness private or public cloud storage.

These as-a-service offerings aim to provide disaster recovery to a wider range of companies. Indeed, the penetration of DRaaS is growing among organizations. An Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) survey of IT professionals in 2016 found that 39% were using DRaaS. In 2019, that portion had climbed to 53%. “It’s absolutely gaining a lot of ground,” said Chrisophe Bertrand, a senior analyst covering data protection at ESG, based in Milford, Mass.

… Bandwidth, or the lack thereof, is another potential DRaaS pitfall. DRaaS vendors’ cloud bandwidth can handle sporadic DR events, but most providers aren’t set up to perform recovery operations for all of their customers simultaneously, suggested Brien Posey, a technical writer and former CIO.

“Bandwidth becomes a concern when organizations consider DRaaS,” said Jeremy Bigler, director of product management at Otava, a cloud services and DRaaS provider based in Ann Arbor, Mich. “Given the technology is continuous data replication versus snapshot or other point-in-time methods, bandwidth utilization is a concern. This is especially valid for high data-change-rate VMs, such as SQL or other applications.”