Unforeseen events take place very frequently in our day-to-day lives. It is not surprising to understand that all industries, regardless of which field they are in, have to also deal with several unpredictable problems. Therefore, it is inevitable for them to have a Disaster Recovery Solution. With the rising use of applications like SAP, more and more companies have begun asking for reliable and secure Disaster Recovery (DR) Solutions. A DR solution is unquestionably required when the system is dealing with critical business processes that cannot afford to be down even for a short duration of time.

We all know that nothing is predictable. Hence, there is no guarantee that the information can be retrieved on time from the DR server for the operations to go on smoothly in minimum downtime. This can happen especially during a ransomware attack where they also target any backup connected to the network. Companies usually face a huge loss in such situations. As they say, every problem has a solution. The ideal solution is DRaaS which is the abbreviation of Disaster Recovery as a Service. DRaaS is a cloud computing and backup service model that uses cloud resources to protect applications and data from disruption caused by disaster. Unlike cloud or DR servers, DRaaS is not connected to the SAP network.

 

AZURE SITE RECOVERY

Azure Site Recovery (ASR) is Microsoft’s DRaaS solution which assists to safeguard significant applications running a datacenter.  It was named “An Industry Leader” by Gartner in 2016 for its completeness of vision and ability to execute it. Moreover, ASR has a solution uniquely for SAP HANA‘s high availability capabilities named HANA Large Instances.

 

Some of its distinct features for SAP HANA are-

 

• Storage replication: It offers SAP HANA the ability to operate independently while the data from it is replicated to another HANA Large Instance in another Azure. This is a default disaster recovery mechanism.
• Replication of SAP HANA system: the recovery time objective (RTO) is minimized by replicating the data at regular intervals. However, HANA Large Instance enables continuous system replication within only the same region. It requires a reverse proxy or a routing component for conducting the replication process during disaster recovery into another Azure region.
• Auto failover of the host: The master node automatically fails over to a standby node when it detects a fault or failure if one or more SAP HANA nodes are kept in standby.

 

HOW DOES AZURE BENEFIT SAP CUSTOMERS?

 

• ASR lowers the cost of DR solutions considerably. Azure Virtual Machines (AVMs) do not start the site recovery until an authentic or test failover due to which the compute charges will be not be collected normally. However, cost is charged for storage while the virtual machine is in replication mode.
• ASR permits its customer to run uninterrupted DR mock tests at any time. These mock tests highly resemble actual failover conditions and it can be run as long as desired. The test can be isolated to a separate test network.
• The ability of Azure to recover quickly and function despite the problems faced far exceeds the datacenters that most customers and hosting providers own.
• They have recovery plan for their site recovery which enables customers to choreograph the whole DR failover or failback process which indeed gives them the opportunity to experience the true application level DR.
• ASR not only works with Windows and Linux VMs, but also supports VMware and Hyper-V which equips it to work with a wide range of database solutions.
• ASR has successfully been with many SAP NetWeaver and non-NetWeaver applications.

 

ADDITIONAL BENEFITS FOR SAP USERS

Cloud Disaster Recovery is definitely a cheap approach, but ASR is the only option that will provide its user’s with least expensive and enterprise grade DR solution. They provide facilities that are not available with the others, such as-

 

• Trouble Free Testing: Mock test can be conducted regularly without any disruptions.
• Self Service DR drills: DR drills can be performed whenever required after configuring the Azure environment and replicating the servers.
• Flexible Infrastructure: The physical, virtual or cloud based source machines can be replicated into a DR site in any Azure region for protection.

 

Enterprise-grade disaster recovery had been highly expensive until a few years ago. However, DR strategies have become cheaper with the launch of cloud solutions, followed by DRaaS. Owing to its cost-effectiveness, ease of use, and support for an extensive list of workloads, ASR has established itself as a world-leader in DR solutions. Use Azure Site Recovery to experience the best DR solutions along with other services.

Leveraging SAP application on Azure for Site Recovery becomes a strategic choice given its range of benefits. It supports the business to expand manifold through innovation by improving the speed to response to changing market needs. Start on your cloud journey with Azure and reap the benefits of it for your business to grow.

Finally, if you are keen on innovation, Cloud is the way to go. Redington’s know-how and tried and tested business process  are capable to assess, plan and migrate your complex SAP workloads to cloud with best practices.We provide 24 x 7 managed services to monitor, optimize and securely maintain your workloads on cloud.

 

Talk to our cloud experts now to revitalize your business with the amazing benefits cloud has to offer.