Druva, the cloud data protection and management vendor, just unveiled its latest disaster-recovery-as-a-service offering, DRaaS 2.0, with a wide range of improvements for enterprise users. They include failover and testing that can be started with one click; faster data recovery after a data-loss disaster; and enhanced automation for disaster-recovery testing.

Built and running on an Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure, the new features provide one-click failover to the cloud for on-premises workloads and all-new recovery for cloud workloads with cross-region/account support, the company said.

“Our next-generation disaster-recovery-as-a-service offering represents significant enhancements to multiple existing capabilities, and an orchestration of services that did not previously work together,” Mike Palmer, Druva’s chief product officer, told Channel Futures. “We’ve been supporting things like testing and recovery, but these can be odious tasks and our new one-click recovery with runbook execution makes these processes incredibly simple for customers during what can otherwise be a stressful event.”

Using the improved features, IT teams can quickly test their disaster-recovery system and confirm everything is running properly before a disaster strikes, said Palmer.

Druva launched its initial DRaaS product early last year and some 30 percent of the company’s customers began using it, he said.

Druva’s Mike Palmer

“But we knew there was more functionality we could add to make it an even better experience. These new features are going to significantly impact the cost agility and time to value for DR,” including cost savings of up to about 60 percent compared to buying, configuring and running physical hardware and software, said Palmer.

Druva says it’s committed to working with the channel and supporting partners that are building cloud practices.

“DR has long been an on-premises model that relied on tremendous amounts of investment. With our new offering, DR is available to a much wider customer base, including small businesses and expands to protection for native applications in the cloud,” said Palmer.

With Druva DRaaS 2.0, partners have more opportunity to grow their customer bases and move more businesses into their growing cloud practices. Many customers and partners offered feedback about improvements that were needed, which were then incorporated into the latest offering, Palmer added. Customers were asking for features such as the ability to simplify complex orchestration processes like recovering systems in a certain order or failing over to a different region.

“Our focus is on increasing value for all our customers, whether it is those we work with directly, or those gained through our channel partners,” said Palmer.

“Druva’s [customer] target is anyone who has a cloud initiative and is looking for a better way to protect their business with a cloud-based solution that delivers an RPO of an hour and an RTO of minutes,” said Palmer. “With our architecture and scalability, we can support customers of any size, from the Fortune 10 to agile SMBs.”

The company’s improved DRaaS services will be generally available in …

… the second quarter within Druva Phoenix and Druva CloudRanger. Druva has about 4,000 customers of all sizes, from small business to large enterprises, and does about 40 percent of its business through the channel. Druva products and services can be used in the cloud or on premises.

Giles Westie, founder and president of DataPivot Technologies, a North Andover, Massachusetts-based VAR and data center and cloud technology vendor that serves medium to large companies, told Channel Futures that the new features in Druva’s DRaaS offering address demands that customers have in the marketplace.

DataPivot’s Giles Westie

“We have a lot of customers who have done unsuccessful DR tests or failed recoveries,” said Westie. “It’s expensive. It’s a huge pain. But this automates and improves DR testing and real DR situations, and it lowers the cost and amount of time to do it.”

For customers, Druva’s DRaaS service is good news because by using the cloud and AWS customers only have to pay for the time when they are doing their testing using the system, said Westie.

“Druva has tested it; they are pros at DR in AWS and they’re doing it right the first time instead of using trial and error. This is exciting and it takes a very painful task that has high visibility in organizations and slashes the cost and makes it drastically easier.”

Steven Hill, an infrastructure and storage analyst with 451 Research, said DR services from companies like Druva can be valuable because hybrid IT can have so many moving parts.

“Approaches like Druva’s can manage that complexity by automating failover, failback and testing for both on- and off-premises workloads and provide a model that’s both flexible and easy to adjust as an IT environment grows,” said Hill. “Simplifying the process of DR and business continuity in an increasingly hybrid IT environment is a win-win for partners and customers alike.”

The combination of automation and the public cloud is the real game-changer here, though, said Hill, because the emphasis today is on assured application availability as well as data protection.

“A viable disaster recovery/business continuity plan is a formula that needs to evolve with the business itself, and I believe DRaaS is an opportunity for channel partners to bring their experience and vision to help solve their customers challenges,” said Hill. “DRaaS can and should be more than just a menu of products to choose from and must be able to address the growing need for business-based compliance for both workloads and data protection.”