Filling the Gap in the Disaster Recovery Market for SMBs
As it stands today, the market for disaster recovery technology is split in two major areas: Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Disaster Recovery and Enterprise-grade Disaster Recovery. On the lower end you have solutions ranging from tape backup, cloud storage and other forms of backup, which — in a disaster scenario — an IT administrator is stuck patching together a recovery solution usually accompanied by lengthy time to recovery (RTO). On the higher end we see high availability and continuous data protection services that ensure no downtime but often come with a six-figure price tag, and require in-house staff who is dedicated to maintenance.
In a recent webcast by Forrester, An Infrastructure and Operations Pro’s Guide to Cloud–based Disaster Recovery Services, Analyst Rachel Dines covers the current state of disaster recovery and the new model that is emerging, Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS), which addresses the gap that exists today. Here at Doyenz, we view the “gap” as a growth category representing a major opportunity for the channel.
As we’ve seen in other markets — Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software in particular comes to mind — the cloud has made enterprise-grade technology affordable for small and mid-sized businesses. Emerging cloud-based disaster recovery technologies are beginning to fill that gap, however what’s still missing for the SMB is the budget for internal IT staff that is required to manage cloud recovery services. And therein lies the major opportunity for the channel and local service providers.
A recent study commissioned by Microsoft suggests that local service providers are key to the projected SMBs adoption rates over the next three years. Many SMBs know they should adopt the cloud but are unsure which services make sense for their IT needs. vExpert David Davis recently penned a blog post identifyingthe 10 reasons that Disaster Recovery as a Service is essential for the SMB.
According to Forrester, only 11 percent of companies today have adopted DRaaS (Disaster Recovery as a Service). If you are a managed service provider and are looking to grow your business, my bet is on DRaaS.
Eric Webster is chief revenue officer at Doyenz, a provider of cloud-based disaster recovery services. Monthly guest blogs such as this one are part of MSPmentor’s annual platinum sponsorship.
