Continuity and Recovery

What is DRaaS (Disaster Recovery as a Service)?

DRaaS (Disaster Recovery as a Service) is the delivery of recovery capability as a managed service: a provider keeps, in the cloud, a standby environment ready to take over the company's operation if the primary environment goes down. Instead of buying and running its own recovery site, the company pays for a plan that already includes failover, testing and experts on call.

Zamak TechnologiesUpdated on July 10, 2026

How DRaaS works

DRaaS turns the recovery plan, which usually exists only on paper, into a living, tested environment that someone keeps ready for you. The cycle has four parts.

Continuous replication to the cloud

The data and system images are copied to the provider's environment, updated continuously so the standby reflects the real operation.

A standby environment on hold

A copy of your environment stays hosted and ready to start. It is not idle hardware sitting in your server room, it is capacity on demand.

Failover when the primary goes down

If the primary environment stops, operation takes over on the standby, with the order of resumption already defined and no need to reconfigure network addresses.

Assisted testing and return

Recovery tests are run with expert support, and the return to the normal environment (failback) is carried out when the crisis passes.

Source: co-managed recovery-as-a-service model (hosted cloud recovery environment).

DRaaS, backup and classic DR: which is which

Backup Keeps the recoverable copy and answers “can I get the data back?”. It is the foundation, but on its own it does not put the company back into operation.
Classic DR, you operate You keep the recovery environment, on your own virtual server or in the cloud, and run the tests. It gives control, but requires staff and spare infrastructure.
DRaaS, recovery as a service A provider keeps the standby environment hosted and ready to take over, with experts on call. You trade idle hardware and complexity for a predictable monthly fee.

Why confidence in recovery is misleading

90%

of organizations say they are confident in recovering from an incident (Veeam 2025)

1 in 3

fewer than one in three actually recover all their data after an attack (Veeam 2025)

32%

only 32% could recover a small stack of servers within one week (Veeam 2024)

Almost every company believes it will recover from a disaster; few can prove it. About 90% of organizations say they are confident in their recovery capability, but fewer than one in three actually recover all their data after an attack (Veeam, 2025). The distance between confidence and reality has a name: a plan never tested, a standby environment that does not exist, and the discovery, at the worst moment, that building recovery from scratch takes days. DRaaS attacks exactly that gap, keeping the recovery environment alive, tested and assisted, so continuity is a proven capability, not an assumption. It delivers, in practice, the RTO and RPO targets the company set.

When DRaaS is the right choice

DRaaS is not for every system or every company. It is justified when:

Downtime is too expensive to wait outSystems whose RTO is short and whose cost per hour of downtime is high justify a standby environment that is always ready.
Keeping spare hardware makes no senseBuying and running a second environment just in case of disaster is expensive and idle. DRaaS trades that for capacity on demand.
There is no staff to run the recoveryWhen the IT team is already busy with the essentials, having experts on call to run the failover reduces risk at the critical moment.
Continuity has to be provableSectors with a continuity requirement need documented testing, not a plan on paper. DRaaS delivers that evidence.

In practice

The question that separates a DR plan from a DR service is simple: when the primary goes down at 3 a.m., who runs the failover, and has it already been tested?

How Zamak handles DRaaS

Zamak Technologies delivers disaster recovery as a service, with the standby environment hosted and ready to take over, failover in the right order and tests that prove the return, so continuity is a managed certainty. To size the RTO that pays off and the cost of an outage, start with the downtime cost calculator. It is part of Continuity in the Zamak Method.

Frequently asked questions about DRaaS

What is the difference between backup and DRaaS?

Backup is the recoverable copy of the data; DRaaS is the service that keeps an environment ready to operate with that copy if the primary goes down. Backup answers “is the data back?”; DRaaS answers “is the company operating again?”. DRaaS uses the backup, but delivers recovery, not just a copy.

Does DRaaS replace backup?

No. It builds on the backup and goes further, keeping the standby environment and the failover. A good architecture has immutable backup for the integrity of the copy and DRaaS for the speed of the return.

Do I need hardware to use DRaaS?

No. The core idea of DRaaS is precisely to eliminate spare hardware: the recovery environment is hosted in the provider's cloud and billed as a service, not as idle equipment.

Does DRaaS guarantee zero RTO?

No serious service promises absolute zero. DRaaS shortens the RTO a lot because the environment is already on standby, but the real number depends on the plan and is confirmed in testing, not in a promise.

Does a mid-size company need DRaaS?

Often yes, especially when a system's downtime is expensive and there is neither the staff nor the budget to maintain its own recovery site. It is the model that gives enterprise-class continuity for a predictable monthly fee.