Recipe for disaster recovery: after 9/11, disaster recovery became top priority for enterprises right around the time SANs and SSPs came into vogue. So why do the majority of enterprise DR strategies still rely on back-up tapes and Sneakernet? - TelecomCorporate; storage area networks - storage service provider

Telecom Asia, Jan, 2004 by John C. Tanner

It doesn't help that many service providers offering disaster recovery services are really just offering a place to put your equipment, Pong adds. "A lot of ISPs and telcos can say, 'Hey, I've got an outsourcing service for disaster recovery', but often it's really just a co-location service--you rent some rack space and a telephone line in their data center."

Still, there are more feature-rich SSP offerings to be had, says Amer Khouri, VP of strategy and global marketing at Intelsat, which includes disaster recovery among its growing value added service portfolio.

"With an outsourced solution, remote monitoring is available," Khouri says. "We can, for example, monitor an enterprise's network and if a disaster occurs, seamlessly transition the enterprise to a satellite-based solution without full on-ground involvement of the enterprise."

Outsourcing also allows enterprises to tap into a provider's global network or disaster mitigation plans, he points out. "Intelsat has offices worldwide and full network redundancy plan for its satellite fleet. Thus, if a disaster hits, Intelsat is able to provide an enterprise with service even if its main network operation center is impacted by the same disaster."

That said, one of the main attractions of outsourced DR is the cost savings, says EMC's Chan. "For many companies, the idea of paying for disaster recovery on a lease basis, as opposed to spending a large amount of money up front, is attractive. If you set up your own back-up data center, it's not just about buying equipment--you also have to hire qualified staff to run it, and that's not cheap."

However, there are some downsides to outsourcing DR. One of them, says Alvin Kho, technical services director for SAN switch vendor Brocade Communications, is trust. "It's your key company data--it's a big boundary to cross to trust that to someone else," he says. "It doesn't feel right for companies to put that data elsewhere, because you start worrying about confidentiality."

The insurance mentality

Another issue, says EMC's Chart, is the fact that enterprises tend to see DR as an expense that only pays off if something statistically unlikely happens.

"It's like insurance--you're really buying peace of mind, not something that will make money for you later on," he says, though he adds this doesn't always have to be the case. "You can still make the secondary site a productive asset by giving it other tasks, like applications development."

Khouri of Intelsat adds: "Outsourced cost structure is built on a scaled business model and should have a better ROI by lowering both opex and capex," he says.

It also depends on what part of the DR plan you outsource, he adds. "Outsourcing the network portion provides assistance and expertise for a faster more transparent recovery."

On the other hand, says Chan of EMC, the network portion can be one of the most expensive elements of a networked DR plan--specifically, the last-mile connection, which is usually a fiber connection.

"It's not so bad if the outsourcing provider is also a telco, because the network is theirs, so they can provide it comparatively more cheaply," says Chan. "If the service provider isn't a telco, the cost tends to be higher because they have to lease the fiber from the carrier, or if they don't do that, then you have to lease it yourself, and either way the telco will charge you like hell."