Expedient Breaks into Gartner's 2017 Magic Quadrant for Disaster Recovery as a Service
Our business partner Expedient was positioned in Gartner’s 2017 Magic Quadrant for Disaster Recovery as a Service as a Niche Player. Gartner found one of Expedient’s strengths to be for “Organizations that prefer Expedient's regional location along with dedicated, non-oversubscribed resources that can be utilized for more than just DR.”
Download the full Magic Quadrant for Disaster Recovery as a Service
In this blog I sat down with our business partner Joe Cudzik from Expedient to discuss Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS).
- Can you provide an overview of Expedient? Expedient is a cloud and data center infrastructure as a service (IaaS) provider with local operations in Baltimore, MD; Boston, MA; Cleveland, OH; Columbus, OH; Indianapolis, IN; Memphis, TN and Pittsburgh, PA. Converged solutions enable clients to focus on strategic business innovation while Expedient handles operating the information technology needed to support it.
- What types of services does Expedient provide? Since every customer need is unique, Expedient provides a wide range of tailored IT solutions to keep our clients mission critical applications and data available 24/7/365. Expedient provides various types of Cloud Services, Managed Services, Disaster Recovery and Colocation solutions. Expedient is experienced in providing hosting solutions for mission critical ERP systems and other applications/servers as well.
- What is DRaaS? DRaaS is Disaster Recovery as a Service. In the event of a disaster, Expedient’s DRaaS is a solution that can automatically move your servers, applications, data and network from one Expedient data center to another Expedient data center – in the push of a button.
- Why should businesses consider DRaaS? More than just disaster recovery, it's true business resiliency. Expedient’s disaster recovery services enable continuous business operations and workload mobility by providing resources anywhere you need them – between our data centers or your location and ours. So, when a disaster strikes and seconds matter, you can have confidence that your entire environment -- network and servers -- will be available when and where you need it.
There are various reasons why a business should consider DRaaS – it comes down to their specific requirements and needs. A business that has experienced application downtime, hardware outages or environmental issues would be a great fit. Also, any business that may have been attacked by a cyber threat or desires a strategy to protect against a cyber threat such as Cryptolocker or WannaCry. Perhaps a business has specific compliancy regulations or their customers require a DRaaS solution. Some business simply cannot afford downtime for their ERP and other applications and need a peace of mind that their systems and data are always available. - Can you give me an example of a worst case disaster scenario for a business? The most extreme scenario would be complete loss of a company’s application and data – which could run a company out of business. Expedient has solutions that can help protect against the unforeseen events.
- What are some steps businesses should take to plan for disaster scenarios? I suggest that a company identify their mission critical data/servers/applications and have a tiering system in place. Tier 1 are mission critical, Tier 2 are critical and Tier 3 are non-mission critical. You need to work together internally to determine the RTO and RPO of your data. The RTO is the Recovery Time Objective – how long will it take to restore your servers and data in the event of a disaster. The RPO is the Recovery Point Objective – at what point in time are you recovering from. It is important during your planning process that you have buy in from all stakeholders inside the company, not just IT.
How do I learn more? Contact RKL eSolutions to learn more about DRaaS and how it can benefit your business.
