3 Reasons to Choose Hybrid Cloud DR over Traditional DR Solutions

Published On May 16, 2017

90% of organizations will experience disaster-related downtime. Learn about the benefits of hybrid cloud disaster recovery solutions.

Maybe you don’t know it by name, but you’ve heard of the optimism bias before. It’s the fallacy that somehow, someway you are less susceptible to negative events than your peers. It can be a dangerous line of thinking. Especially when it comes to disaster preparedness.

That’s because far too many businesses shrug off cyber-attacks, data leaks or damage from natural phenomenon as statistically unlikely to affect them and, as a result, either underinvest in disaster recovery solutions or believe that their current, on-premise infrastructure will suffice. But the simple reality is 90% of organizations[1] will experience disaster-related downtime at some point, and when that happens, traditional, on-premise only disaster recovery (DR) solutions won’t cut it.

Here’s why:

It’s a burden to IT

Obviously, on-premise only DR requires investment in on-premise hardware and IT infrastructure. And while your current configuration maybe serviceable, as the amount of data an organization must account for expands (some experts estimate a 10x growth from 2014 to 2020[2]), so too will the need for more hardware, space to store said hardware, maintenance and management, and dedicated IT support.

Invariably you’ll be left with two options—either spend the capital to scale hardware and staff to make sure you have a holistic on-premise solution, or don’t, and pray you never experience any significant downtime. And we already know what those odds are.

Hybrid Cloud DR, on the other hand, scales and shrinks with demand without changes to the infrastructure. You’ll be able to simplify budgeting and avoid significant expenditures, which is major advantage for smaller organizations that may lack the necessary capital or management to make repeated changes to on-premise only DR. And by leveraging a scalable, multi-tenant environment that features point-and-click and self-service data restores, you can be assured all your sensitive information is secure all the time.

It’s costly

There’s really two ways to look at the cost of an on-premise only DR solutions. One is the increased capital investment needed to expand hardware and IT infrastructure, which we covered above. Two is the potential costs should a disaster occur.

Let me explain:

The average cost per hour of a disaster-related downtime is approximately $8,000 for small businesses, $74,000 for mid-sized companies and $700,000[3] for large businesses. The average length of a downtime when running traditional, on-premise only disaster recovery is at a staggering 18.5 hours³. Which means, depending on the size of your business, you’re looking at an average cost of anywhere from $148,000 to $12.9 million per downtime. To put that in prospective, it’s enough of a blow to ensure 75% of businesses never recover[4].

Because it’s in the cloud (and thereby not only on-premise), Hybrid Cloud DR is significantly less susceptible to outages. That way, should disaster strike, your organization can be up and running instantaneously, rather than in hours. It’s such an advantage it can literally mean the difference between businesses as usual and out of business entirely.

It doesn’t account for all your data

Until now, we’ve been operating under the assumption that all of your data is housed in a single, central repository. However, the reality for most organizations is valuable information is also contained in various other mission-critical applications; structured and unstructured data, data originating from Internet of Things, big data applications, etc. Without making changes to your existing IT infrastructure, this data would not be protected by traditional on-premise only DR solutions.

Hybrid Cloud DR can backup mission-critical applications and ensure that all your data is preserved in the event of a disaster, ensuring business continuity. Not only does this save on costs and the length of potential down times, but can help alleviate the burden of IT staffs who may have to otherwise mainly account for and manage a growing number of applications.

Hybrid Cloud DR is the future of DR

Disasters do happen, and 90% of organizations are likely to experience some level of downtime at some point. To protect themselves, they’d be wise to invest in a cost-effective Hybrid Cloud DR solution that can reduce the burden on IT staff and infrastructure, reduce or altogether eliminate downtime, and ensure business continuity.

Ready to learn more? Read about the value of hybrid cloud backup.

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[1] http://www.adweek.com/digital/90-percent-companies-experienced-unexpected-downtime-infographic/

[2] http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240217788/Data-set-to-grow-10-fold-by-2020-as-internet-of-things-takes-off

[3] Aberdeen Group, “Downtime and Data Loss: How Much Can You Afford?” 2013

[4] Disaster Recovery Preparedness Benchmark: “The State of Global Disaster Recovery”

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