Businesses can transmit data as much and as fast as they’d like, but at the end of the day, it needs to be stored. Where exactly such information is kept is a decision organizations must not take lightly. Accessibility, security and redundancy are all important factors to take into consideration when choosing a storage option for critical business data. Fortunately, new and innovative solutions to this classic issue can now be found in the cloud.
TwinStrata has been bringing cloud storage to businesses in a way that looks and feels like local storage since 2010. At Cloud Expo in New York, CEO Nicos Vekiarides sat down with MSPToday to talk about the company’s newly released Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) feature.
Traditionally, companies would need to send tapes off site – a painful and slow process. In the event of a disaster, it would take days to restore data and applications. Otherwise, Vekiarides explained, companies could run a backup hot (or warm) site in parallel with their production environment, allowing for immediate cutover in case of damage to the primary site. Fully replicating a production environment, however, requires significant investment in infrastructure and hardware.
TwinStrata’s CloudArray Disaster Recovery as a Service, however, eliminates the need for secondary infrastructure or backup sites. Designed for users of VMware, the service enables small to medium sized businesses to implement an enterprise-class disaster recovery strategy for a fraction of the cost. Complete applications, servers, and data can be restored and spun up in as little as two to four hours, allowing your business operations to resume as normal.
As a result, Vekiarides said, a company can save up to 90 percent over traditional recovery solutions. Moreover, it can help a company stay in compliance with data integrity regulations like HIPAA.
“Before this service, we found that ‘cloud DR’ options were not particularly viable for fully virtualized IT environments, and those few that were integrated for VMware came at prohibitively high costs,” he said, in a statement. “Our cloud disaster recovery service enables VMware users to recover data and applications seamlessly at a fraction of the cost, making disaster recovery, business continuity and compliance with recovery objectives and regulations attainable for nearly any organization.”
This solution is ideal for resource-constrained businesses. Indeed, Vekiarides reports that nonprofits and educational institutions have found it particularly attractive. With restricted IT budgets and personnel, a managed cloud service such as this is a huge asset.
The uptake has been strong in other verticals as well, including the medical field. Over 50 percent of new customers are electing for the service, and many existing customers are opting to upgrade. It’s no surprise, as the uniqueness of an on-demand, pay-as-you-go data storage and disaster recovery service makes TwinStrata a boon for business of all sizes.
Edited by
Rory J. Thompson