DRaaS could be the cure for the cloud migration headache, says Databarracks
Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) has the ability to act as the gateway for companies migrating applications into the cloud according to Peter Groucutt, managing director of cloud service provider, Databarracks.
Cloud adoption has never been higher according to the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF), with the latest figures suggesting that 84 per cent of organisations have formally adopted at least one type of hosted or cloud-based service.
But despite the high rate of adoption, recent industry research has revealed that 38 per cent of organisations still struggle with the complexities of cloud migration – something which is also backed by Alex Hilton, CEO of CIF:
"The transition to cloud services has, for many, not been as straightforward as expected. Our latest research indicates that the complexity of migration is a challenge for a significant proportion of cloud users, resulting in unplanned disruption to the business.
"There may be a case that cloud service providers (CSPs) need to be better at either setting end user expectations or easing the pain of migration to their services. But equally, it's important that end users equip themselves with enough knowledge about cloud to be able to manage it and ensure that the cloud-based services rolled out can support business objectives, not hinder them."
In order to address this Groucutt, from Databarracks, which was recently recognised as a niche player in Gartner's 2015 Magic Quadrant for DRaaS, suggests firms should look to DRaaS as the ideal method to migrate to the cloud:
"Cloud services are now often the default choice, yet when it comes to the actual migration process it can still be a daunting experience.
"DRaaS is one of the most popular cloud services for its own ends. Cloud DR offers faster recovery at lower costs than traditional alternatives. In addition, we see a lot of businesses who look at it additionally as a method to ease cloud migration. Moving a production system to the cloud is a high-stakes endeavour. Moving to cloud DR however is a far lower-risk project. At the end of that project, the business will have gone through the same process of migration and testing but without any noticeable impact to day-to-day operations.
"The benefits of adopting DRaaS are that migration can be carried out behind the scenes with minimal impact to your business. Once completed, you can use DRaaS to move applications out of your own data centres without the risk of lost time or efficiency.
"An important part of a successful migration is trusting the service provider you have chosen to work with. By starting with DRaaS, you are essentially moving to the same cloud platform you would for full Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Once that trust has been built up, and your team is comfortable with and knowledgeable in the technologies used by your provider, the next step to IaaS doesn't seem so big. The unintrusive nature of DRaaS in one of the key reasons organisations use it as their stepping stone into the cloud."
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About Databarracks
Databarracks provides ultra-secure, award winning Disaster Recovery, Backup and Infrastructure services from UK-based, ex-military data centres.
Databarracks is certified by the Cloud Industry Forum, ISO 27001 certified for Information Security and has been named as a "Niche Player" in Gartner's 2015 Magic Quadrant for DRaaS. For more information, please see: https://www.databarracks.com/
Contact:
Nick Bird/Tom Harvey
Spreckley Partners Ltd
Tel: +44 (0) 207 388 9988
Email: databarrackspr@spreckley.co.uk