How and Why to Get Started with Acronis Disaster Recovery Cloud

Mark Jameson, Acronis

Acronis announced the availability of Acronis Disaster Recovery Cloud, enabling our partner service providers to offer their clients disaster recovery services. If you are already using Acronis Backup Cloud, you may be wondering why you should start using Acronis Disaster Recovery Cloud as well, and how to do so – I will be happy to help answer your questions.

Why should I use Acronis Disaster Recovery Cloud?

Our world is becoming increasingly dependent on an exponentially growing volume of data. And if you are not thinking about disaster recovery, your clients are! So why should you use Acronis Disaster Recovery Cloud and provide your clients with disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS)?

• Rapidly growing market – According to MarketsandMarkets, the DRaaS market will grow from $1.7 billion in 2016 to $12.5 billion in 2022. This kind of growth is no longer limited to corporations; an increasing number of mid-sized and small businesses are also considering deploying cloud-based disaster recovery solutions.
• It is easy – Acronis Disaster Recovery Cloud can be deployed using the same easy-to-use console you already use for Acronis Backup Cloud. The added disaster recovery features work similarly to those in Acronis Backup Cloud!
• It is fast – You do not have to wait for infrastructure to be built to provide disaster recovery services. You and your clients can add this service to any backed-up server or virtual machine within minutes.
• Client retention – Acronis Disaster Recovery Cloud is built on the same foundation as the world’s fastest and most user-friendly backup solution. Acronis Disaster Recovery Cloud is just one of the Acronis Data Cloud services you can offer your clients to provide them with a complete data protection package. The more services they use from you, the less likely they are to move to another provider.
• Revenue and margins – When providing disaster recovery services, you can start with zero capital expenditure. A simple pay-as-you-go system enables you to build on Acronis Backup Cloud and incrementally increase your revenue and margins.

Now that we know the “why,” let’s talk about the “how.”

How to get started with Acronis Disaster Recovery Cloud

Getting started with Acronis Disaster Recovery Cloud is very easy; simply follow these 8 simple steps.

1. The right target market: Acronis Disaster Recovery Cloud is designed to protect servers and virtual machines. If your clients have servers or virtual machines protected by Acronis Backup Cloud, they are good candidates for deploying Acronis Disaster Recovery Cloud. You can extend disaster recovery across all machines for all your clients, or start with just one machine for one client. You have control over how your business grows!
2. Legal terms: Acronis Disaster Recovery Cloud introduces new terms of use that must be added to your contract. If you have not yet received the new Acronis Disaster Recovery Cloud terms of use, please contact your Acronis or Cloud distributor. Once this step is complete, Acronis Disaster Recovery Cloud features will be made available to you and you can start using them.
3. Read the user guide: The online user guide for Acronis Backup Cloud now includes a disaster recovery section. We recommend reviewing these new chapters to learn more about the disaster recovery features now available to you.
4. Install the VPN agent: You are now ready to start using the new Acronis Disaster Recovery Cloud features. The first step is to download and run the easy-to-use VPN agent, available in both VMware and Hyper-V versions.

This process should take about 15 minutes, but only needs to be performed once. While your data is already being moved to the cloud through existing Acronis Backup Cloud replication, this VPN connection allows you to extend your production environment into the Acronis cloud, enabling easy failover, easy server access, and automatic discovery of your production IP network properties.

1. Add disaster recovery to servers and virtual machines: Adding disaster recovery to machines backed up with Acronis Backup Cloud takes only a few seconds. All you need to do is select the relevant machine, choose one of eight standard configurations, confirm the automatically detected production and test IP addresses, confirm several additional optional features, including an optional information label, and click Done.

1. Set up always-on servers: For those who need to place a server in the Acronis cloud to meet the needs of Exchange DAG, SQL Mirror, virtual appliances, etc., setting up always-on servers is easy – similar to adding disaster recovery to machines backed up through Acronis Backup Cloud.

1. Start backing up your cloud machines as well: Not only can you run machines in the Acronis cloud, but you can also back them up there. Whether it is a machine created from a backup or an always-on server, every machine running in the Acronis cloud is also backed up to the Acronis cloud.

1. Failover and testing: You can now recover a machine after a disaster directly in the Acronis cloud as a virtual machine, or recover it only for testing purposes. Just a few mouse clicks and, within minutes, your machines are running in the Acronis cloud!

Additional resources that may help you

I hope I have helped you understand the reasons for and ways of working with Acronis Disaster Recovery Cloud. However, our support does not end here, as Acronis always helps its partners grow their business. If you would like to learn more about Acronis Disaster Recovery Cloud, I recommend starting with one of the following resources:

• Join us on November 16 for the Acronis Disaster Recovery Cloud launch webinar – US (and UK)
• Visit the product page for Acronis Disaster Recovery Cloud for more information, a quote, or a demo version
• Contact your Acronis or Cloud sales representative/partner/distributor for more information and to check the availability of Acronis Disaster Recovery Cloud services in your region.

Look forward to more posts about Acronis Disaster Recovery Cloud and growing your business with disaster recovery solutions. If you cannot wait for the next post, you can write to me at mark.jameson@acronis.com (in English).

As Vice President and General Manager of Disaster Recovery Services, Mark Jameson focuses on helping partners and clients around the world grow and protect their businesses with Acronis solutions. Mark’s experience in the IT and disaster recovery market is backed by more than 30 years of collaboration with companies such as nScaled, SunGard Availability Services, Unisys, and IBM.

Source: https://www.acronis.cz/jak-proc-zacit-s-acronis-disaster-recovery-cloud/