Any good DRaaS suggestions?
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I basically just want to replicate our local backups of 5-10 servers to a cloud service for warm storage and the ability to stand up and run systems in the cloud via VPN connection in the event of a DR scenario.
Our current backup product is StorageCraft's ShadowProtect SPX with ImageManager, so naturally I've been looking into their Cloud Services offerings. I've been having a ton of trouble getting much our of them and now it looks like the company may be falling apart from the inside so I'm moving on from them. I've also been looking into Veeam but that also requires me having to pick out a cloud vendor as well. It's not off the table yet but I want to see if there are any better options.
I'm just looking for a reliable and simple solution that won't cost an arm and a leg (if such a thing exists).
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@dave247 said in Any good DRaaS suggestions?:
I basically just want to replicate our local backups of 5-10 servers to a cloud service for warm storage and the ability to stand up and run systems in the cloud via VPN connection in the event of a DR scenario.
Just to be clear, you want an entire solution as a service for this? Because you can definitely get this in a boxed way, or you can build yourself from components.
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@scottalanmiller said in Any good DRaaS suggestions?:
@dave247 said in Any good DRaaS suggestions?:
I basically just want to replicate our local backups of 5-10 servers to a cloud service for warm storage and the ability to stand up and run systems in the cloud via VPN connection in the event of a DR scenario.
Just to be clear, you want an entire solution as a service for this? Because you can definitely get this in a boxed way, or you can build yourself from components.
I guess I'm not sure. I'm still trying to work out the best path for a solution. I haven't really done anything with cloud stuff in my IT career yet.
Boxed might be good if it makes sense, otherwise how would I "assemble from components"?
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@dave247 said in Any good DRaaS suggestions?:
Boxed might be good if it makes sense, otherwise how would I "assemble from components"?
DRaaS is just a vendor putting together several different pieces for you. Like the backup software, networking, and hosting. All things you can do yourself if you want. But doing it one time, versus using someone who does it regularly, has its risks both the risk of getting things wrong, and the more realistic risk of just making expensive or bad decisions or wasting a lot of time.
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@dave247 said in Any good DRaaS suggestions?:
I haven't really done anything with cloud stuff in my IT career yet.
Well this would actually be a good spot to learn, if that's what you wanted. But there is a lot to know. Cloud itself is simple, the hardest part is understanding how simple it is. But doing DR requires a lot of moving pieces, that's where it would be tough.
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@NTG does DRaaS as an ITSP. Any ITSP will. That's likely the best path to DRaaS because you don't want lots of different DRaaS solutions as your needs change over time.
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I'm a bit biased but we're in the process of setting up a BaaS And DRaaS service using Veeam's Cloud Connect.
What is the volume of backups in GBs/TBs?
A quick "hack" way to do it would be to sync a copy of the SP files to a repository and have that repository hooked into BackBlaze. They would then be sync'd up to BB. Cost wise, it would be cheap, cheap, cheap.
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@PhlipElder said in Any good DRaaS suggestions?:
A quick "hack" way to do it would be to sync a copy of the SP files to a repository and have that repository hooked into BackBlaze. They would then be sync'd up to BB. Cost wise, it would be cheap, cheap, cheap.
That's good for the backup portion. But for full DR you have to handle the recovery, hosting, networking failover and those parts. That's where "putting it all together" comes in.
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@scottalanmiller said in Any good DRaaS suggestions?:
@PhlipElder said in Any good DRaaS suggestions?:
A quick "hack" way to do it would be to sync a copy of the SP files to a repository and have that repository hooked into BackBlaze. They would then be sync'd up to BB. Cost wise, it would be cheap, cheap, cheap.
That's good for the backup portion. But for full DR you have to handle the recovery, hosting, networking failover and those parts. That's where "putting it all together" comes in.
SPX supports instant-on via file convert to VHDX/VMDK. Having those files sent to a DR site that is set up to fire the VMs up on short order would work well.
And on the StorageCraft side of things, we've been a partner since the v3.x days. Their product was second to none for the longest time. We pulled off some spectacular recoveries because the product was just that good. It still is to some degree, it is just that managing in-guest backups for more than six or eight VMs gets to be a bear after a while. Dedupe and Compression in Veeam has saved us gobs of storage.
As far as StorageCraft goes, it became noticeable that things were going awry when their Partner mailers were promoting third party webinars and "grow your MSP" type stuff. In the v3.x, v4.x, and v5.x days the product was king with in-person training being awesome and costly but worth it.
The fact that Veeam secured $500M in investments recently points to where all the action is today. All backup vendors whose products don't work well, and believe me there are a lot of them which is really sad, are put on notice and I, IMNSHO, am very happy about that.
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@PhlipElder said in Any good DRaaS suggestions?:
SPX supports instant-on via file convert to VHDX/VMDK. Having those files sent to a DR site that is set up to fire the VMs up on short order would work well.
Not many cloud providers will take that format. So that can be a complication if you aren't ready for it. Then you need the networking, in most cases, to handle connecting the new cloud pieces to the existing network transparently.
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@scottalanmiller said in Any good DRaaS suggestions?:
@PhlipElder said in Any good DRaaS suggestions?:
SPX supports instant-on via file convert to VHDX/VMDK. Having those files sent to a DR site that is set up to fire the VMs up on short order would work well.
Not many cloud providers will take that format. So that can be a complication if you aren't ready for it. Then you need the networking, in most cases, to handle connecting the new cloud pieces to the existing network transparently.
Yeah, the whole process sounds easy but ...
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@PhlipElder said in Any good DRaaS suggestions?:
@scottalanmiller said in Any good DRaaS suggestions?:
@PhlipElder said in Any good DRaaS suggestions?:
SPX supports instant-on via file convert to VHDX/VMDK. Having those files sent to a DR site that is set up to fire the VMs up on short order would work well.
Not many cloud providers will take that format. So that can be a complication if you aren't ready for it. Then you need the networking, in most cases, to handle connecting the new cloud pieces to the existing network transparently.
Yeah, the whole process sounds easy but ...
Exactly. Then reality hits
The networking is honestly the trickiest part.
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@PhlipElder said in Any good DRaaS suggestions?:
@scottalanmiller said in Any good DRaaS suggestions?:
@PhlipElder said in Any good DRaaS suggestions?:
A quick "hack" way to do it would be to sync a copy of the SP files to a repository and have that repository hooked into BackBlaze. They would then be sync'd up to BB. Cost wise, it would be cheap, cheap, cheap.
That's good for the backup portion. But for full DR you have to handle the recovery, hosting, networking failover and those parts. That's where "putting it all together" comes in.
SPX supports instant-on via file convert to VHDX/VMDK. Having those files sent to a DR site that is set up to fire the VMs up on short order would work well.
And on the StorageCraft side of things, we've been a partner since the v3.x days. Their product was second to none for the longest time. We pulled off some spectacular recoveries because the product was just that good. It still is to some degree, it is just that managing in-guest backups for more than six or eight VMs gets to be a bear after a while. Dedupe and Compression in Veeam has saved us gobs of storage.
As far as StorageCraft goes, it became noticeable that things were going awry when their Partner mailers were promoting third party webinars and "grow your MSP" type stuff. In the v3.x, v4.x, and v5.x days the product was king with in-person training being awesome and costly but worth it.
The fact that Veeam secured $500M in investments recently points to where all the action is today. All backup vendors whose products don't work well, and believe me there are a lot of them which is really sad, are put on notice and I, IMNSHO, am very happy about that.
Thanks for the input. I am still strongly considering Veeam as an option.
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@dave247 said in Any good DRaaS suggestions?:
@PhlipElder said in Any good DRaaS suggestions?:
@scottalanmiller said in Any good DRaaS suggestions?:
@PhlipElder said in Any good DRaaS suggestions?:
A quick "hack" way to do it would be to sync a copy of the SP files to a repository and have that repository hooked into BackBlaze. They would then be sync'd up to BB. Cost wise, it would be cheap, cheap, cheap.
That's good for the backup portion. But for full DR you have to handle the recovery, hosting, networking failover and those parts. That's where "putting it all together" comes in.
SPX supports instant-on via file convert to VHDX/VMDK. Having those files sent to a DR site that is set up to fire the VMs up on short order would work well.
And on the StorageCraft side of things, we've been a partner since the v3.x days. Their product was second to none for the longest time. We pulled off some spectacular recoveries because the product was just that good. It still is to some degree, it is just that managing in-guest backups for more than six or eight VMs gets to be a bear after a while. Dedupe and Compression in Veeam has saved us gobs of storage.
As far as StorageCraft goes, it became noticeable that things were going awry when their Partner mailers were promoting third party webinars and "grow your MSP" type stuff. In the v3.x, v4.x, and v5.x days the product was king with in-person training being awesome and costly but worth it.
The fact that Veeam secured $500M in investments recently points to where all the action is today. All backup vendors whose products don't work well, and believe me there are a lot of them which is really sad, are put on notice and I, IMNSHO, am very happy about that.
Thanks for the input. I am still strongly considering Veeam as an option.
I have been using Veeam for several years now. I don't use this feature, but definitely check out the Cloud Connect option. It transfers the management of a set of your backups to an off-site partner.
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/cloud/cloud_overview.html?ver=95u4 -
Another good thing with Veeam is that you have an option to restore your backups to AWS EC2 or Azure. I haven't done this yet, but I am pretty sure that it does not require the cloud connect option for that.
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/restore_azure.html?ver=95u4
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/restore_amazon.html?ver=95u4 -
You could even maintain your own backup DC using the replication feature of Veeam.
https://www.veeam.com/vm-advanced-replication.html -
@wrx7m said in Any good DRaaS suggestions?:
You could even maintain your own backup DC using the replication feature of Veeam.
https://www.veeam.com/vm-advanced-replication.htmlThis is what a lot of DR companies do.
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@scottalanmiller said in Any good DRaaS suggestions?:
@wrx7m said in Any good DRaaS suggestions?:
You could even maintain your own backup DC using the replication feature of Veeam.
https://www.veeam.com/vm-advanced-replication.htmlThis is what a lot of DR companies do.
Yeah honestly I've considered this as we have a building like a mile down the road where I could replicate and host servers if needed. We are just trying to think a little bigger, like if a tornado swept through or something...
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@dave247 said in Any good DRaaS suggestions?:
Yeah honestly I've considered this as we have a building like a mile down the road where I could replicate and host servers if needed. We are just trying to think a little bigger, like if a tornado swept through or something...
Down the road is often bad. Both because local DCs are normally expensive and crappy (just the "law of local") but also because they are close and often hit by similar risks as the main site.
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@scottalanmiller said in Any good DRaaS suggestions?:
@dave247 said in Any good DRaaS suggestions?:
Yeah honestly I've considered this as we have a building like a mile down the road where I could replicate and host servers if needed. We are just trying to think a little bigger, like if a tornado swept through or something...
Down the road is often bad. Both because local DCs are normally expensive and crappy (just the "law of local") but also because they are close and often hit by similar risks as the main site.
Well it's the next best alternative if we end up not being able to spend money on an actual cloud solution.
