How to Prevent the Pain of Ransomware With Cloud-Based Backup and Recovery Solutions

The Sophos 2022 Threat Report notes that ransomware was the reason behind its teams’ incident responses 79 percent of the time through 2020 and 2021. And the Verizon 2021 Data Breach Investigations Report says ransomware attacks doubled in frequency over the previous year. With so many headlines on the subject, every IT pro knows it’s just a matter of time before their organization gets hit by ransomware.

Tight IT budgets mean you have to be smart about which solutions you choose. But with the average cost of a ransomware attack rising to $4.24 million last year, spending on solutions that ensure your data is protected and you can recover from ransomware will look like very wise investments when disaster strikes.

Why Cloud-Based Backup and Disaster Recovery Solutions?

We strongly recommend that every organization adhere to a 3-2-1-1 backup strategy. Local backups are part of that strategy, and they are usually enough to help you recover your IT systems if you’re hit by a server failure or other minor issue. But if a sitewide disaster destroys those local backups, you could be facing lengthy, expensive downtime. Choosing cloud-based disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) can minimize that downtime and ensure recovery from virtually any disaster.

With cloud-based DRaaS, you can access cloud data anywhere, anytime. Arcserve’s highly distributed and fault-tolerant cloud—built specifically for disaster recovery—delivers 99.999+ percent uptime. And Arcserve Cloud Services are now available on Google Cloud Platform to take advantage of its global scale, speed, elasticity, and data security.

One important consideration that you should weigh when choosing a cloud-based DRaaS provider is the ability to customize cloud storage to fit your specific needs. You should be able to select the service level that’s right for you, whether your IT environment is simple and small or big and complex. And you should expect low costs, control over your cloud settings, and predictable monthly pricing.

Another consideration is the ability to centrally manage and monitor all your cloud services accounts from a single console. It should offer an easy-to-use, self-service online portal that includes security measures to ensure that only you can access stored backup images. And it should also provide complete control over networking for seamless failover during a disaster.

Ransomware and Disaster Recovery Should Be Easy

Given the ever-present threat of ransomware, recovery is the crucial criterion when choosing a DRaaS solution. Most importantly, the solution should failover in a disaster without third-party intervention. And it’s worth looking at advanced network-recovery options that let you run your network in the cloud—precisely as you’d run it onsite—if disaster strikes.

Another valuable feature is a one-click failover capability. Arcserve DRaaS offers you the option to use Virtual Machine Policy to configure each mission-critical system's sequence, order, and timing. Arcserve DRaaS also offers you offsite disaster recovery that spans everything from file and folder recovery and machine virtualization to instant failover of your entire site and network. You press one button to test or start site-wide failover processes.

Choose Complete Business Continuity

Arcserve DRaaS offers you complete, reliable business continuity when paired with our backup and recovery solutions. Architected from the ground up to streamline data recovery and management—and get critical systems back online quickly and easily—Arcserve Cloud Services lets you replicate backup images from Arcserve products that suit just about any IT environment, including:

• Arcserve OneXafe
  Immutable, scale-out, network-attached storage for your unstructured data and backup targets

• Arcserve ShadowXafe
  Next-generation data recovery and backup software that brings comprehensive, SLA-driven management for the complete data protection lifecycle

• Arcserve OneXafe Solo
  A plug-and-play data protection appliance for simpler environments that streams data directly to Arcserve Cloud Services for business continuity

• Arcserve ShadowProtect
  A single, cross-platform backup and disaster recovery software solution for mixed, hybrid environments, ensuring on-prem business systems and data are fully protected and always available

Add it all up, and you’ll have all the tools you need to keep your business running, no matter what.

Take a Deeper Dive Into DRaaS

If you’re interested in learning more about the nuts and bolts behind disaster recovery as a service, check out “A Deep Dive into DRaaS: Everything You Should Know About the Components of Backup and Disaster Recovery.”

For help with choosing the proper data protection, backup, and disaster recovery solution for your business, find an expert Arcserve technology partner. Contact us, watch a free, on-demand demo, or check out our free trial offer for product details.