BaaS vs DRaaS: What are the Differences?

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BaaS vs DRaaS what are the differences

Cloud technology has become far more accessible in recent years as private and enterprise clouds have become cheaper and easier to configure and manage than ever.

The popularity of IT recovery solutions has seen a similar increase due to advancements in modern hardware and infrastructure needed to provide reliable backup services either on-site or remotely, with an enterprise private cloud.

Backup as a Service (BaaS) and Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) are the most common cloud service models used by organizations looking for managed off-site IT recovery solutions.

The two are commonly conflated; however, there are some significant differences between these two cloud computing models.

What is BaaS?

BaaS is a fully-managed enterprise cloud backup service. Most providers offer off-site data storage allowing organizations to backup critical data over the internet.

The primary purpose of a data recovery tool is to facilitate the recovery of data as soon as possible in the case of a full or partial data loss in a business’s production systems.

BaaS solutions are designed for cost-efficient long term storage of large amounts of data; due to this, they tend to be slower in recovering data when compared to a typical disaster recovery solution.

One of the renowned backup solution brand is Veeam. It allows you to get to your physical and virtual backups offsite to a remote, dedicated cloud repository through a secure SSL connection.

What is DRaaS?

DRaaS cloud offerings are designed with the singular aim to quickly pull an organisation out of the worst possible situations. Disaster recovery is heavily focused on the speed of recovery and the minimization or total prevention of data loss.

It is possible because DRaaS creates a copy of the stored data and the whole operating system, including applications, servers, and everything in it.

In the case of a data disaster, a private cloud using DRaaS will able to provide a cloud-based virtual copy of the entire system that can be accessed immediately.

Differences between BaaS & DRaaS

The following are the primary differences between BaaS and DRaaS in terms of functionality:

1. Data Protection

Data is perhaps the most essential component of any modern business, and most organizations rely heavily on data to provide even core services.

With the adoption of AI, machine learning, and heavy reliance on analytics across many different industries, data security and the minimization or prevention of data loss has also become hugely important.

The purpose of both BaaS and DRaaS is to retain as much data as possible when an emergency happens.

However, the primary difference between these two cloud services models is that BaaS is mainly focused on long-term data retention.

In contrast, DRaaS is commonly used for quick and short-term data retention and leans on replication technology to ensure backups are as in-sync with production data as possible.

In addition, DRaaS’ are designed to quickly recover the entire state of a system from a snapshot, including its settings, and all data and application states.

2. Cost

Since DRaaS is focused on the rapid recovery of the data and business-critical applications, it is usually a more expensive option than BaaS.

This is primarily due to the necessary tradeoff between cost-efficiency and the recovery speed offered by the high-availability data storage and rapid data transfer, backed by complex security models.

BaaS is the perfect low-cost solution for small companies where some data loss or downtime is acceptable, such as startups that are looking for a cost-effective recovery option.

However, if an organization has a sufficient budget, and the cost of downtime, either financially or in reputation, outweighs the investment cost, DRaaS quickly becomes an obvious choice.

3. Method of Data Backup & Recovery

Both DRaaS and BaaS are very different from previous disaster recovery and back up methods like disks or tape drives.

Instead, these modern methods are cloud-based services offered and managed by efficient and renowned enterprise cloud services providers.

In BaaS, the data is often backed up to a local appliance, which can then be moved to a remote location for safe storage, or backups can be done over the internet using an encrypted private network.

In case of a data disaster, the user can choose the relevant datasets and copy them to the original environment.

This restoration can be a lengthy process from a BaaS backup because it focuses on reducing the cost of storing data rather than data availability.

On the other hand, DRaaS’ primarily focuses on ensuring that data is accessible and up-to-date by using replication technology.

A third-party private cloud services provider automatically synchronizes snapshots of the client’s system to their cloud storage environment.

In the case of the data loss, the latest copy of the complete system, including the latest settings, applications, data, and security protocols can be rapidly and sometimes automatically restored.

The Bottom Line

DRaaS and BaaS have their own set of advantages and disadvantages that make them suitable for different kinds of data across different kinds of organizations.

Generally, BaaS is suitable for a business’s long-term cloud backup strategy, while DRaaS is suitable for quick recovery of small amounts of data in case of a disaster.

Some companies also choose to use a combination of both of these enterprise and private-cloud-based solutions to establish a balanced data recovery strategy, implementing multi-tiered data recovery solutions based on the criticality of the data in question.

Ultimately such a decision depends on the specific requirements and budget of an organization.

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