Cloud 'killer app' gains momentum

cloud 'killer app' for disaster recovery, recovery as a service (RaaS) will see increased adoption from midsize firms, as larger organisations already have existing systems that are difficult to migrate to the cloud, while most smaller firms do not have disaster recovery strategy, ZDNet says.

According to a Gartner report, released on Monday, while only 1% of midsize companies - businesses with annual revenues between $150 million and $1 billion - have adopted recovery in the cloud today, this figure is expected to rise to 30% by 2014.

Larger companies - encompassing those with annual revenues of $1 billion or more - are more likely to have invested in recovery management equipment, infrastructure and support teams, which are too complex to be moved fully to the cloud.

“RaaS has been hailed as a 'killer' cloud app for disaster recovery, but the reality is that there has been much hype and some truth,” says John Morency, research VP at Gartner, eWeek notes.

“Certainly, it addresses well-recognised 'pain points' in IT disaster recovery management, including the need for frequent recovery-readiness testing and the cost of dedicated recovery floor space and facilities.”

Among the midsize companies using RaaS at present, two camps are forming, Morency explained. The first is using server virtualisation recovery features and SAN-based replication to deploy in-house disaster recovery solutions for some applications. The second is implementing initial pilots for the use of cloud services as an alternative to more traditional disaster recovery resources.

Morency adds: “For organisations that have not yet trialled RaaS, Gartner recommends commencing cloud infrastructure due diligence, especially for systems that already reside primarily outside their data centre,” CBR Online reveals.