Disaster Recovery Journal Winter 2022

networking, etc. They then pay for these services as they use them. BaaS offerings purpose-built for the public cloud function in the same way. Organizations simply select the BaaS offering and start using it to perform backup. They pay for the service based on one or more variables with cloud backup storage consumption being a common cost metric. protect VMs hosted in them. BaaS solutions use these APIs to discover VMs, assign backup policies to them, and then back them up using snapshots. This minimizes the need to deploy agents on each VM and facilitates ease of backup management. n Hosted in the cloud in which the BaaS solution offers protection . Organizations need to examine exactly where providers host their BaaS solution. For example, a provider that offers AWS protection may not host its BaaS solution there. It may host its software in a different general-purpose cloud or its own private cloud. Either of these approaches may require the organization to deploy a VM in that public cloud. The VM then acts as a gateway between that public cloud and the cloud where the provider hosts its BaaS. n Moves backups to object storage . Using snapshots n Tuned to protect VMs . Cloud operating systems offer their own APIs to

to take backups of VMs sounds great until one gets their next bill from Amazon (or Google or Microsoft.) Each VM snapshot consumes more of the provider’s more expensive cloud block storage. BaaS solutions typically cannot avoid using block storage to create and store snapshots. However, they can move aging snapshots to lower cost object storage to better control cloud storage costs. Look for BaaS solutions that offer this option.

hosted in general-purpose and private clouds. However, these BaaS solutions typically utilize physical or virtual appliances to protect applications and data hosted in general-purpose clouds. More organizations will find it makes the most sense to prioritize using BaaS solutions to protect their on-premises, private cloud IT environment. They have more BaaS solu tions from which to choose plus they typically protect applications and data hosted on Microsoft Azure Stack and VMware vSphere. In these environments, BaaS solutions deploy a virtual appliance on each hypervisor which the BaaS solutions uses to manage backups. These private cloud-ori ented BaaS solutions may not protect physical IT infrastruc ture very well, if at all. They may limit physical infrastruc ture support to a few operat ing systems and some physical storage devices. Organizations should generally shy away from BaaS solutions oriented toward private clouds if they need to protect their physical infrastructure. Conversely, private cloud oriented BaaS solutions tend to possess stronger support for applications and data hosted in general-purpose clouds. In some cases, they may offer cloud-native deployments of their BaaS solution in one or more of the general-purpose clouds. Organizations with hybrid environments that include on-premises private and general-purpose clouds

should prioritize evaluating these BaaS solutions. A Best Choice in a BaaS Solution Remains Elusive BaaS solutions have matured to become a viable option to protect all or much of an organization’s IT infra structure. They free orga nizations to outsource their hosting and management of the backup infrastructure and focus solely on backup and recovery. However, distinct differences between BaaS solutions persist and will likely remain. Organizations that host their entire IT envi ronment in a physical or general-purpose cloud will have fewer but better choices. BaaS solutions that target these IT environments deeply integrate with them to provide advanced levels of backup and recovery. In contrast, organizations that possess hybrid environ ments will find more choices in BaaS solutions. Unfortunately, they will also discover they will be hard-pressed to find one that works well across physical, private cloud, and general-purpose cloud IT envi ronments. Rather, they should expect to make trade-offs and must prioritize which of these IT environments they want the BaaS solution to protect. v

The Hybrid Trade-off

Organizations hosting their applications and data in all physical or all general-pur pose cloud environments have clear choices. However, most organizations find themselves somewhere in the middle. They manage hybrid IT envi ronments that span physical, general-purpose, and private cloud deployments. In these circumstances, organizations do not have a clear-cut choice. Rather, orga nizations must identify a BaaS solution for their hybrid IT environment based on which trade-offs they can accept. To make the best decision, organizations should first pri oritize which type of envi ronment they want the BaaS solution to protect. If they want to prioritize protection of their physical IT infrastructure, they should identify BaaS solutions with strengths in that area. These BaaS solutions also extend to protect applications and data

Jerome Wendt, an AWS Certified Solutions Architect, is the president and founder of DCIG, LLC., a technology analyst firm. DCIG, LLC.,

focuses on providing competitive intel ligence for the enterprise data protection, data storage, disaster recovery, and cloud technology markets.

18 DISASTER RECOVERY JOURNAL | WINTER 2022