Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS)
Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS)
When disaster strikes — whether it’s a ransomware attack, hardware failure, natural disaster, or human error — every minute of downtime costs your business money, reputation, and customer trust. For many organisations, building and maintaining a dedicated disaster recovery site is prohibitively expensive and operationally complex.
Dataproof’s DRaaS solves this challenge. Built on FirstNet, our DRaaS delivers enterprise-grade disaster recovery capabilities as a fully managed, cloud-based service — ensuring your critical systems can be recovered rapidly when you need them most.
Rapid Recovery
Recover critical systems in minutes, not hours or days, with automated failover and runbook orchestration
Cloud-Based DR
No need for a secondary data centre — replicate to our secure cloud infrastructure with guaranteed SLAs
Non-Disruptive Testing
Test your disaster recovery plans anytime without impacting production — prove your RTOs and RPOs
Powered by FirstNet
FirstNet is a robust disaster recovery and business continuity platform that provides intelligent replication, automated failover, and orchestrated recovery for physical, virtual, and cloud environments. As a FirstNet partner, Dataproof delivers its full power as a managed service — giving you enterprise DR capability without the capital expenditure and complexity of building it yourself.
FirstNet Key Capabilities
| Capability | Description |
|---|---|
| Real-Time Replication | Continuous or near-continuous data replication to the DR environment with minimal RPO — ensuring minimal data loss |
| Automated Failover | One-click or fully automated failover to the DR site with orchestrated recovery sequences and dependency management |
| Automated Failback | Seamless return to the primary site once the disaster is resolved, with delta synchronisation to prevent data loss |
| Runbook Automation | Pre-defined, automated recovery runbooks that execute complex multi-system recovery sequences in the correct order |
| Non-Disruptive DR Testing | Spin up isolated DR test environments anytime — validate recovery times, verify data integrity, and prove compliance without affecting production |
| Multi-Tier Recovery | Define different RTOs and RPOs per application tier — prioritise mission-critical systems while balancing cost |
| Physical, Virtual & Cloud | Protect and recover workloads across heterogeneous environments — on-premise servers, VMware, Hyper-V, and public cloud |
| WAN Optimisation | Built-in data compression and deduplication minimises bandwidth requirements for replication across distances |
| Reporting & Compliance | Automated DR test reports, compliance dashboards, and audit-ready documentation for governance requirements |
Why DRaaS Over Traditional DR?
| Factor | Traditional DR (Own Site) | Dataproof DRaaS |
|---|---|---|
| Capital Expenditure | High — secondary data centre, hardware, networking | None — predictable monthly service fee |
| Recovery Time (RTO) | Hours to days (often untested) | Minutes — automated, tested, and proven |
| Data Loss (RPO) | Hours (depends on backup frequency) | Seconds to minutes with continuous replication |
| DR Testing | Rarely tested — risky and disruptive | Test anytime, non-disruptively, on-demand |
| Expertise Required | DR specialists on staff | Included — Dataproof manages all DR operations |
| Scalability | Fixed capacity — over-provision or risk under-capacity | Elastic — scale compute and storage on demand |
| Geographic Risk | Often in same region as primary site | Geographically separated DR in secure SA data centres |
| Compliance | Manual documentation and audit preparation | Automated compliance reporting included |
Understanding RTO and RPO
Two critical metrics define your disaster recovery requirements:
- Recovery Time Objective (RTO) — The maximum acceptable time to restore a system after a disaster. DRaaS delivers RTOs measured in minutes, not hours.
- Recovery Point Objective (RPO) — The maximum acceptable amount of data loss measured in time. With continuous replication, our DRaaS achieves RPOs of seconds to minutes.
Who Needs DRaaS?
Any organisation that cannot tolerate prolonged downtime or significant data loss is a candidate for DRaaS. It is especially valuable for:
- Financial Services — Trading platforms, banking systems, and payment processing require near-zero downtime
- Healthcare — Patient record systems and medical devices must remain available for patient safety
- Legal & Professional Services — Case management and document systems must be recoverable without data loss
- Manufacturing & Logistics — ERP and supply chain systems must be restored rapidly to avoid production stoppages
- Mid-Market Enterprises — Get enterprise-grade DR without the cost of a secondary data centre
How It Works
Our DRaaS engagement follows a structured approach:
- Business Impact Analysis — We identify critical systems, define RTOs and RPOs, and prioritise recovery tiers
- Solution Architecture — We design the replication topology, recovery runbooks, and failover strategies on FirstNet
- Deployment & Replication — We install agents, configure replication, and validate initial data synchronisation
- Runbook Development — We create automated recovery sequences for each application tier with dependency ordering
- Testing & Validation — We conduct non-disruptive DR tests to prove RTOs and RPOs meet your requirements
- Managed DR Operations — We provide 24/7 monitoring of replication health, automated alerting, and failover execution when needed
- Regular DR Drills — Scheduled quarterly DR tests to ensure readiness, with documented results for compliance
Integrated with Dataproof’s Security Services
DRaaS works hand-in-hand with our cybersecurity portfolio. When combined with our SIEM & CSOC services, Malware Protection, and Backup Service, you get a comprehensive resilience strategy — from prevention through to recovery.
In a ransomware scenario, our CSOC detects the threat, contains the spread, and initiates the DR failover — getting you back online while the incident is investigated and the primary site is cleaned.
Ready to protect your business from downtime? Contact us to schedule a disaster recovery readiness assessment.