All-in-one Vendor Cloud Vs. Public Cloud Offerings

When delivering BCDR services, MSPs have a number of cloud computing models to choose from. As you will see each has advantages and disadvantages

Public Cloud

Pros: Easy to implement
Cons: Security, hidden costs

Public clouds are easy to implement, reliable and scalable to business needs. However, public cloud costs are unpredictable for business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR). Yes, you only pay for what you use, but that means costs can spike at the worst possible time. For example, when you mount and run a recovery virtual machine (VM).

By default public clouds have what is called a “shared-tenant” environment where multiple customers share the same hardware. So, if another user’s data is compromised, access may be gained to others in that space as well. It is possible to set up a private, single-tenant environment in a public cloud (more on that below). However, it comes with additional costs, which impact your bottom line.

Single-tenant Public Cloud

Pros: Control, security, customisation
Cons: Cost, management overhead

Single-tenant public cloud, sometimes referred to as “private cloud,” offers a more secure environment that can be tailored to fit security needs. Single-tenant public clouds offer dedicated hardware and impart full visibility into the environment. This ensures security but as well as efficiency and performance.

The drawback of single-tenant public cloud, outside of the time and effort to implement and maintain to your specifications? Cost. Cloud providers have different and oftentimes complicated pricing models that can add complexity and cost. And, depending on the given dedicated tenancy model you choose, scaling can be costly as business needs change.

BCDR provider’s cloud

Pros: All-in-one stack and support, security
Cons: Limited or no support for competitors’ backup software

The cloud serves two purposes for BCDR. First, it is the offsite storage repository for tertiary backup server images used for restores. And second, a VM can be mounted in the cloud to take over primary server operations during failover. With a BCDR provider cloud, such as the Datto Cloud, these are covered in a single monthly fee. Contrast this with public cloud offerings, both can cause costs to spin out of control.

Cost Predictability

Some all-in-one BCDR solutions include cloud costs in a single monthly fee that includes cloud storage, compute, and restore costs. It also provides a straightforward customer experience that ensures predictable margins on services delivered. This can be a benefit for MSPs, because it keeps OPEX costs predictable. It also makes billing clients for BCDR services simple and ensures margins on services remain consistent.

Security

All-in-one solution providers offer some additional security measures like two-factor authentication at every step and hardened cloud appliances. Others might offer data immutability and automated retention capabilities that help organisations meet security objectives and compliance regulations.

Ease of Use

All-in-one providers grant clients a single vendor for hardware, software and cloud configurations not to mention ease of scaling as customer needs change. Not only can all-in-one vendors help relieve the ambivalence that comes with initial configuration, they can also provide tech support/troubleshooting, failover and failback in a disaster scenario, and business insight to ensure optimal performance.

Choosing between public, private, and BCDR provided cloud solutions depends on a variety of factors, use cases, and limitations, and starts with having a complete understanding of needs and what expectations you have for implementing a cloud strategy.

Datto Unified Continuity is an all-in-one BCDR solution built to cover all business continuity and disaster recovery needs.