Disaster Recovery as-a-Service (DRaaS)

Service description

A Service Provider can build a Veeam-powered service to provide Disaster Recovery as-a-Service (DRaaS) to his customers allowing them to focus 100% on their business.

A customer can consume DRaaS:

as a DR Site, hosted at the Service Provider using Veeam Cloud Connect.

In this scenario, the customer no longer has to think about building a DR site and everything that comes with it (servers, connectivity, power, networking, software, licenses and more). The Service Provider can leverage the existing hosting infrastructure (IaaS) or may build a new and dedicated infrastructure for the service. Resources (such as CPU, Memory, Storage and Networking) can be offered as shared, (partially) reserved or dedicated to customers.

Throughout the sections, we will refer to this option as Cloud Connect DR.
as an (additional) IaaS offering, hosted at the Service Provider OR implemented in one or more data center locations at the Customer.

In an IaaS scenario, the customer already consumes IaaS and the SP provides DRaaS next to the existing Backup-as-a-Service to provide business continuity to its customers. The service can be all-inclusive or custom tailored to each customer.

In a customer scenario, the customer already has multiple data center locations and leverages the Service Provider’s expertise to build DRaaS on their own dedicated infrastructure. It is practically the same design as the Site-to-Site DR, only that the infrastructure at source and target are owned and hosted by the customer.

Throughout the sections, we will refer to this option as Site-to-Site DR.
as a DR Site, hosted in Microsoft Azure.

In this scenario, the situation is similar to the Site-to-Site DR, however the machines are restored to the public cloud. Therefore, we will describe it as a separate use case.

Throughout the sections, we will refer to this option as Azure DR.

When disaster strikes, the customer can use a web-based portal to initiate a full site failover or contact the Service Provider to put the DR plan into action.

Additionally the service can include, but is not limited to:

Replication of VMware vSphere VMs at the customer into VMware vSphere or Cloud Director at the service provider.
Replication of Microsoft Hyper-V VMs at the customer into Microsoft Hyper-V at the service provider.
Universal (CDP) Replication of (physical) Windows and Linux Servers to a VMware vSphere or Cloud Director platform.
The customer can choose to use the service provider only as a DR target, thus taking responsibility of configuring replication jobs and defining RPO. The service provider is only responsible for the availability and uptime of the DR target itself.
The customer can choose to have the service provider manage also the on-premises installation. The service provider is responsible for configuring replication jobs, defining RPO and provides an SLA to the customer for each part of the service.
Create an effective Business Continuity and DR Plan. Once created, the most important part is to keep it as up-to-date as possible and test regularly.
Frequent failover and failback tests. To guarantee proper delivery of the service, the service provider can schedule frequent testing in cooperation with the customer.

High-level diagram

DRaaS Use Case

Value proposition

Service Provider main benefits:

No upfront costs. Pay only for the licenses consumed by the customer.
Leverage IaaS investment. Next to providing IaaS to customers, also offer DR services on the same platform.
Expand services. Start with offering only a DR site target. Expand into Off-site Backup, fully managed MSP and other services.
Automation. Fully manage and automate the solution via PowerShell or RESTful API.

Customer main benefits:

Business focus. Focus 100% on business needs and let the service provider take care of the rest.
DR expertise. DR is much more than just “copying” some machines off-site. The service provider handles the infrastructure, documentation, testing, failover and failback. In return the customer receives an SLA that identifies both the services required and the expected level of service from the service provider. Leverage existing data center locations. Using Active-Active or Active-Passive deployments, DR can be implemented on existing data center locations to fully leverage investments.
Self-service failover. Easily initiate the DR plan via a web-based console.

Veeam Solutions

The service is built with the help of the following Veeam solutions:

Licensing and pricing

Veeam offers the following:

Pay-as-you-grow pricing plans that offer consumption-based licensing
Automatic license update capabilities to maintain license distribution
Purpose-built products and partner portals to facilitate monthly usage reporting

Please check our Veeam Rental Licensing and Usage Reporting Reference Guide for more details.

Service Providers can charge for the Veeam-powered service in different manners. Options can include, but are not limited to:

Per machine protected, optionally including:
- storage
- management
- support
- monitoring
- reporting
Storage consumed (e.g. per GB/TB)
Separately per machine protected and storage consumed
Fixed fee for the entire environment
Per recovery test (e.g. every quarter)
Creation/Update/Test of the Business Continuity and DR plan
When leveraging VCD behind VCC, allocation models allow for even more flexibility:
- Allocation Pool: Lowers the price for the customer as only a percentage of the allocated resources is committed (guaranteed).
- Pay-As-You-Go: Customer only pays for what is consumed at the time of DR. No guarantee enough resources will be available at that time.
- Reservation Pool: Increases the price for the customer as all resources are 100% committed and are not shared with other customers on the platform.
- Flex Allocation Model: In essence a Pay-As-You-Go-like model along with VM granular control.

Want to know more?

Enroll in our online Veeam University to learn more about the DRaaS use case & other Veeam solutions.

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