- Best for AI-based backups and disaster prevention: Unitrends Backup and Recovery
- Best for easy disaster recovery planning: Microsoft Azure Site Recovery
- Best for protection against ransomware: VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery
- Best for simplified backup, archiving and compliance: Druva Data Resiliency Cloud
- Best for easy and secure cloud data management: Zerto
With Disaster recovery as a service, organizations can use a cloud-based service provider to handle their disaster recovery planning. DRaaS can provide a quick way for organizations to restore their data and applications, providing business continuity after a natural or man-made disaster has interrupted or halted IT operations.
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Top disaster recovery as a service providers: Comparison table
The following table highlights and compares key features among the top DRaaS solutions:
| Product | Pricing | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unitrends Backup and Recovery | Contact vendor |
|
|
| Microsoft Azure Site Recovery | $16-$25 per month, per instance protected |
|
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| VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery | From $8.3250 per month-$94.3890 depending on level of service |
|
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| Druva Data Resiliency Cloud |
|
|
|
| Zerto | Contact vendor |
| While the company doesn't disclose pricing, some users report the service is expensive. |
SEE: Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plan
Unitrends Backup and Recovery: Best for AI-based backups and disaster prevention
Unitrends offers all-in-one backup appliances to help businesses or organizations simplify data and server backup with a smarter approach that keeps threats away. These solutions include AI-backed analytics to detect, predict and prevent outages before a disaster strikes. Furthermore, this software can alert users about potential ransomware infection and hardware failure.
Pricing
⦁ Potential users should contact the vendor for more information on Unitrends prices.
⦁ A free trial is available.
Features
⦁ Proactive ransomware detection.
⦁ Self-service for application owners.
⦁ Physical and virtual machine recovery (instant, full and file-level).
⦁ Supports global deduplication.
⦁ Provides local backup copies.
⦁ Provides WAN-accelerated replication.
⦁ Centralized multi-device management.
⦁ Security-integrated Copy Data Management.
⦁ AES-256-bit encryption (physical and virtual appliances).
Pros
⦁ User-friendly interfaces.
⦁ Multiple features.
⦁ 24/7 customer support.
⦁ Consistent performance.
⦁ Supports over 200 operating systems, applications and hypervisors.
Cons
⦁ Troubleshooting problems when backups fail can be challenging.
⦁ Can be costly, some report.
Microsoft Azure Site Recovery: Best for easy disaster recovery planning
Microsoft Azure Site Recovery is one of the best options for those who want to build a solid disaster recovery infrastructure, as it offers plans that can be as simple or advanced as their businesses require. This DRaaS software keeps users’ apps running during outages to ensure continuity and replicate workloads on both physical and virtual machines . With this solution, you can fail over to a secondary location when a disaster strikes and fail back to the primary location when it’s up and running again.
Pricing
⦁ Price depends on how many instances need to be protected.
⦁ $16-$25 per month per protected instance after the first 31 days.
Features
⦁ Supports VM (including VMWare) and on-premise replication.
⦁ Provides data resiliency.
⦁ Offers customized recovery plans.
⦁ Delivers flexible failovers.
⦁ Allows disaster recovery testing without disrupting production.
Pros
⦁ Seamless integration for existing Azure customers.
⦁ Good performance in each phase, including protection, failover and data recovery.
⦁ Easy migration.
⦁ User-friendly console.
Cons
⦁ Initial setup can be a little complex.
⦁ Limited integrations with other platforms.
VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery: Best for protection against ransomware
As a VMware-delivered DRaaS, VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery protects on-premises vSphere, virtual machines, and VMware Cloud in AWS Software Defined Data Centers. This on-demand solution offers cloud economics to help businesses and individuals create and run an effective disaster recovery plan at a low cost. Furthermore, it’s considered an outperformer in ransomware recovery.
Pricing
⦁ Prices are a combination of per-TiB charge according to the protected storage capacity and per-VM charge based on the number of protected disaster recovery VMs.
⦁ This service is available on demand or as 1-year or 3-year subscriptions.
Features
⦁ Provides Smart Disaster Recovery feature.
⦁ Offers flexible deployment options.
⦁ Provides accelerated ransomware recovery.
⦁ Sets up failover capacity 100% on demand or with a minimal footprint.
⦁ Offers detailed DR reports.
⦁ Supports instant power-on to store replicas via mounting Scale-out Cloud File System directly to the SDDC.
⦁ Provides immutable snapshots.
⦁ Offers frequent DR health checks.
Pros
⦁ Easy setup.
⦁ Responsive customer service.
⦁ Automation capabilities for rapid recovery, even in wake of a natural disaster.
Cons
⦁ No analytics.
⦁ No AI-predictions.
Druva Data Resiliency Cloud: Best for simplified backup, archiving and compliance
Druva Data Resiliency Cloud is another DRaaS software developed to offer comprehensive and effective data protection and eliminate the risks that companies and users face when storing data within cloud applications. It provides a centralized system for user data management, governance and recovery regardless of the storage resources used.
Pricing
⦁ Pricing starts at $2 per user, per month for SaaS applications, $7 for AWS infrastructure, and $8 per month for endpoints.
⦁ A free trial is available.
Features
⦁ Simple, scalable, and secure data protection.
⦁ Accelerated ransomware recovery.
⦁ Air-gapped backups.
⦁ At-scale recovery.
⦁ Incident response readiness.
⦁ Automated, predictive intelligence for data governance.
⦁ eDiscovery support.
⦁ Compliance monitoring.
⦁ Federated search.
Pros
⦁ Comprehensive and versatile data protection capabilities.
⦁ Robust data resiliency.
⦁ Global deduplication technology.
⦁ Unified platform to manage backup and recovery across different environments.
⦁ Simplified backup management and monitoring.
Cons
⦁ No option to delete the most recent snapshot.
⦁ Limited integrations.
⦁ Azure and AWS configuration required.
SEE: How to Get the Most Out of Your Cloud Disaster Recovery Plan
Zerto: Best for easy and secure cloud data management
Zerto has developed a solution for disaster recovery planning and execution designed to eliminate the risks and challenges posed by the modernization and complexity deployed across hybrid, private or public cloud environments. This software is easy to use and offers continuous data protection at scale to converge data mobility, backup and recovery.
Pricing
⦁ Zerto doesn’t post pricing but encourages potential customers to contact a partner for information about the service.
Features
⦁ Fully automated backup and recovery.
⦁ Multiple integrations with other apps and software solutions.
⦁ Provides 24/7 access to data and applications.
⦁ Claims near-zero data loss or downtime.
⦁ No complexity in data protection.
⦁ Always-on replication.
⦁ No performance-sapping snapshots.
⦁ No micromanaging backup windows.
⦁ Fully orchestrated data mobility.
⦁ Granular journal-based recovery.
Pros
⦁ Considered a leading solution in recovering from ransomware attacks.
⦁ Users can spin up the environment in disaster recovery without affecting production.
⦁ Quick process to help businesses and individuals save time.
⦁ Easy file restoration.
⦁ Seamless data center migration.
Cons
⦁ While the company doesn’t disclose pricing, some users report the service is expensive.
Key features of disaster recovery as a service software
Physical and virtual file protection
Besides attacks and cybersecurity problems, companies and individuals may be at risk of losing their data due to natural disasters. Therefore, comprehensive disaster recovery plans should include a solution offering backup data replication through virtual and physical servers. Hybrid solutions could also work, as organizations’ infrastructure often relies on both.
Encrypted storage
Most organizations use cloud storage to keep records and other information protected, but this data is often vulnerable. Therefore, DRaaS providers are relying on encrypted storage to make sure users’ information is always safe.
Automated failover
The term “failover” describes when an application is moved to a standby server during a system failure or disaster. This feature is crucial for businesses and individuals who want to preserve uptime when something goes wrong.
Failback capabilities
Failback happens when data is moved from the disaster recovery site or the secondary site controlled by the DRaaS provider to the original site after the event that affected the organization’s operations is controlled. Many of the best solutions automate this process.
Ransomware prevention
DRaaS can also act as a restoration strategy for ransomware attacks and other cyber events that may affect individuals’ or businesses’ data. If you choose a DRaaS solution with ransomware prevention features, which may include anti-malware software and frequent file backups, you can be sure that your information will always be protected.
Benefits of Working with Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) Software
Many businesses and individuals understand that they need disaster recovery plans but don’t have the time or resources to research, design, test, and implement them. Fortunately, DRaaS takes this burden off the organization and is less costly and more effective than traditional solutions.
How do I choose the best disaster recovery as a service software for my business?
While you can find many DRaaS solutions, they’re all different. Therefore, you should analyze each one in-depth and check its features to choose the one that suits your needs, requirements and goals.
The best disaster recovery as a service software doesn’t focus only on data backups and recovery but on actually protecting a business’s operations by reducing downtime and offering prompt responses to a crisis.
Ideally, a comprehensive DRaaS software solution should simplify the process but provide protection across virtual and physical servers and against multiple events, including natural disasters and cyber attacks. In addition, these products should use up-to-date encryption technology to keep users’ data secure.
Automation and the use of AI technology can also add value to a DRaaS software product, as they could offer useful predictions and facilitate response in crisis mode to keep businesses always running.
Methodology
The DRaaS software products listed here were reviewed, ranked and compared based on their features, pricing, and technology, prioritizing the ones that focused on maintaining business operations rather than just storing and retrieving data.
Read next: Best cloud backup services and solutions