Choosing between BaaS and DRaaS isn’t about which is “better”, but about investing in a service that is right for your business and stakeholders.
What is Backup as a Service (BaaS)?
Backup as a Service (BaaS) is a solution that automates the process of backing up your data to a secure, offsite location. Think of it as a safety net for your files. A BaaS provider manages the backup infrastructure, ensuring your data is regularly copied, encrypted, and stored in the cloud.
The primary goal of BaaS is data preservation, so if you accidentally delete a file, experience data corruption, or suffer a localised hardware failure, you can restore the lost data from your cloud-based backup. This makes BaaS a fundamental component of any data protection strategy, providing a reliable copy of your information that is physically separate from your primary systems.
What to look for in a BaaS solution:
- Automated backups: Scheduled backups run automatically without manual intervention.
- Secure, offsite storage: Data is encrypted and stored in a remote data centre, protecting it from local disasters.
- Data restoration: Provides the ability to recover specific files, folders, or entire datasets.
BaaS is an effective way to protect your data, but its focus is narrow: it protects the data itself, not the systems and applications that run on it. For this, you will need disaster recovery as a service.
What is Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS)?
Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) goes a significant step further than BaaS. While it also includes backup capabilities, its main purpose is to ensure business continuity by enabling rapid recovery of your entire IT environment.
DRaaS replicates your critical servers, applications, and infrastructure to a secondary cloud environment. In the event of a major disruption that takes your primary systems offline, you can “failover” to this replicated environment and resume operations within minutes or hours, not days. This service orchestrates a full system recovery, minimising downtime and its impact on your business. It is a comprehensive approach to managed backup and disaster recovery.
Features of a DRaaS:
- Full infrastructure replication: Copies your entire IT environment, not just the data.
- System failover: Allows you to switch operations to a secondary site almost instantly.
- Rapid restoration: Enables the recovery of critical applications and systems to meet strict recovery objectives.
DRaaS is designed for organisations that cannot afford to be offline for extended periods.
BaaS vs. DRaaS: which solution is right for your business?
Understanding the core differences between these two services is crucial for making an informed decision. Let’s break down the comparison.
1) Recovery Speed and Objectives (RTO/RPO)
This is perhaps the most important distinction.
- BaaS focuses on Recovery Point Objective (RPO), i.e. how much data you can afford to lose. It backs up your data up regularly, but it does not guarantee a fast Recovery Time Objective (RTO). Recovering from a BaaS solution can be a lengthy, manual process of rebuilding servers, reinstalling operating systems, and then restoring data.
- DRaaS is built to address both RTO and RPO. By maintaining a ready-to-run replica of your environment, it delivers much shorter RTOs. Instead of rebuilding from scratch, you simply activate the standby environment. For businesses where every minute of downtime costs money, a strong RTO is invaluable.
2) Scope of protection
The scope of what each service protects is fundamentally different.
- BaaS protects your data. It gives you a copy of your files and databases.
- DRaaS protects your entire business operation, so that the applications, servers, and networks that use that data can be brought back online quickly.
If your primary site is destroyed by a fire, for instance, BaaS ensures your data is safe. However, you’ll still need a place to restore it and the infrastructure to run it. DRaaS provides that “place” and infrastructure as part of the service.
3) Cost and complexity
As you might expect, the more comprehensive the solution, the higher the investment.
- BaaS is generally more straightforward and cost-effective, requiring less planning and integration, and making it an accessible entry point for data protection. The primary costs are related to the amount of data stored.
- DRaaS is a more significant investment, as it involves replicating your infrastructure, continuous data synchronisation, and rigorous planning. Regular testing and management are essential to ensure the failover process works when needed, adding to the overall complexity and cost. However, for many businesses, this cost is minimal compared to the potential losses from extended downtime.
4) Who needs which service?
The right choice depends entirely on your business’s tolerance for downtime.
- BaaS may be sufficient for: Lower-risk environments, small businesses with non-critical applications, or organisations where a few days of downtime would be inconvenient but not financially devastating.
- DRaaS is essential for: Businesses where downtime directly impacts revenue and reputation. This includes industries like e-commerce, finance, healthcare, and manufacturing. If your operations rely on constant system availability, you need DRaaS.
5) Integration and compatibility
Both services need to integrate with your existing environment, but the requirements differ.
- BaaS primarily needs to be compatible with your data sources, such as servers, virtual machines, and SaaS applications.
- DRaaS requires much deeper integration. It must be compatible with your virtualisation platforms, hybrid cloud architecture, networking configurations, and security tools. Because it replicates the entire operational stack, close alignment is vital for a successful failover.
6) Regulatory and compliance impact
In the UK, regulations around operational resilience are becoming stricter. Both BaaS and DRaaS improve data protection and support GDPR/Data Protection Act 2018 compliance by guaranteeing data availability. However, DRaaS often better addresses regulatory expectations for operational resilience and cyber incident response. Guidance from the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and criteria from cyber insurance providers increasingly focus on an organisation’s ability to recover operations swiftly. A robust DRaaS plan demonstrates a mature approach to business continuity that regulators and insurers favour.
To find out more and for advice choosing the right protection level for your business, please book a meeting with a Nexstor specialist today.
