Enterprise Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS)
Do not just back up your data. Recover your business. Summit delivers fully managed disaster recovery as a service designed to restore business operations during cyber incidents, infrastructure failures, and natural disasters. Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) is a third-party solution that delivers data protection and disaster recovery capabilities to enterprises on-demand, over the internet and on a pay-as-you-go basis. Our DRaaS platform combines guaranteed recovery objectives, expert led execution, and rapid recovery to protect critical systems and keep your organization online when downtime is not an option. Key benefits of DRaaS include faster recovery, reduced downtime, strengthened data security, cost savings, and compliance with industry regulations.
Most organizations rely on backups alone and assume that data protection equals business continuity. In reality, backups do not restore applications, dependencies, or workflows. Business continuity services offer a comprehensive suite of solutions that help organizations develop, test, and improve their continuity and recovery plans, ensuring resilience and operational stability during disruptions. As a draas provider, Summit delivers DRaaS capabilities, establishes service level agreements (SLAs), and supports your disaster recovery planning and business continuity strategies. Summit’s managed DRaaS is built to support complete recovery, allowing businesses to resume normal operations from a secure remote location while the primary environment is unavailable. When disaster strikes, enterprises who use a DRaaS provider enjoy two significant advantages: their backed-up data and the party responsible for executing their DRP are both in another physical location.
Introduction to Business Continuity
Business continuity is the foundation for keeping your organization resilient in the face of unexpected disruptions, whether caused by natural disasters, cyberattacks, or system failures. A robust business continuity plan ensures that your organization can restore business operations quickly, minimizing downtime and data loss. By identifying critical systems and services, and establishing clear procedures for disaster recovery, organizations can maintain essential business operations even during a crisis. Effective business continuity planning not only protects your data and critical systems but also safeguards your reputation and customer trust. With a comprehensive business continuity plan in place, your organization is prepared to respond to emergencies, restore business operations, and continue delivering services without significant interruption.
Creating a Disaster Recovery Plan
Developing a disaster recovery plan is a vital step in ensuring your organization’s ability to recover from disruptive events. A well-crafted disaster recovery plan outlines the specific actions required to restore IT systems, data, and business services after a disaster. The process begins with a business impact analysis to identify which systems and processes are most critical to business operations. The plan should define recovery point objectives (RPO) and recovery time objectives (RTO) to set clear expectations for data backup frequency and acceptable downtime. It’s essential to tailor the disaster recovery plan to your industry sector, regulatory requirements, and organizational risk profile. By proactively planning for rapid recovery, organizations can minimize the impact of disruptions, protect critical systems, and ensure business continuity. Regular testing and updates to the recovery plan help maintain readiness and align with evolving business needs.
Near Zero RTO and RPO Recovery Built for Speed
Disaster recovery performance is defined by two core metrics. Recovery time objective and recovery point objective determine how fast systems return and how much data loss is acceptable. When determining these objectives, it is essential to focus on business priorities and risk assessments to ensure disaster recovery aligns with organizational needs.
Recovery Time Objective (RTO)Recovery time objective defines how quickly business operations must be restored after an incident. Summit targets recovery times measured in minutes, not days, for critical systems that drive revenue and customer experience. Rapid recovery reduces downtime, limits business impact, and protects customer trust.
Recovery Point Objective (RPO)Recovery point objective defines how much data can be lost during a disruption. Summit uses continuous replication and frequent snapshots to ensure recovery points are always seconds away. This minimizes data loss and protects files, applications, and transaction records. Setting clear expectations about an organization’s RPO is a critical step toward setting up a disaster recovery solution.
Summit designs every disaster recovery plan around clearly defined RTO and RPO targets. These objectives are actively managed, tested, and validated through ongoing DR planning to ensure recovery performance aligns with business risk and cost tolerance. The more stringent the RTO and RPO, the more expensive achieving them can be.
Comprehensive Recovery Coverage Across All Workloads
Disaster recovery must protect entire environments, not isolated systems. Summit’s DRaaS platform is designed to recover applications, data, infrastructure, and dependencies together so business continuity is maintained across the organization. DRaaS involves replicating and hosting both physical servers and virtual servers in third-party facilities to ensure business continuity and rapid recovery.
**DRaaS for Enterprise Cloud Environments**Summit provides automated failover of full virtual environments into secure Tier III plus data centers. This allows organizations to continue operating even when primary cloud infrastructure or on premises systems are unavailable. Disaster recovery strategies often require restoring operations on both servers and physical servers, depending on the specific needs and limitations of the environment.
Managed Cloud BackupsSummit delivers secure off site backups using immutable storage that prevents modification or deletion. These backups cannot be altered or deleted, enhancing protection against ransomware attack scenarios, accidental deletion, and system corruption while supporting long term retention policies. Offsite backup involves storing copies of your data in a remote location, separate from your primary environment. Managed and offsite backups combine expert oversight with secure remote storage to provide businesses with peace of mind. The growing complexity of IT environments and evolving data threats make managed and offsite backups critical.
SaaS Backup for Business ApplicationsCloud native platforms still require protection. Summit secures SaaS data across platforms such as Microsoft 365 and Salesforce, protecting business critical data from user error, malicious activity, and third party vendor limitations. Software tools play a crucial role in supporting data protection and recovery processes within disaster recovery strategies.
Types of DRaaS Solutions
Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) offers organizations flexible options for protecting their data and IT systems. The three primary types of DRaaS solutions are self-service DRaaS, assisted DRaaS, and managed DRaaS. Self-service DRaaS empowers organizations to design and manage their own disaster recovery plans using the provider’s tools and resources, offering maximum control but requiring in-house expertise. Assisted DRaaS provides a collaborative approach, where the organization retains some control while leveraging the service provider’s support for planning and execution. Managed DRaaS is a fully outsourced solution, with the service provider taking full responsibility for developing, implementing, and maintaining the disaster recovery plan. Each solution offers different levels of support, protection, and resource commitment, allowing organizations to choose the approach that best aligns with their needs, budget, and internal capabilities.
DRaaS Service Models
Selecting the right DRaaS service model is crucial for aligning disaster recovery with your organization’s needs and resources. The three main DRaaS service models—self-service, assisted, and managed—differ in the level of control and responsibility shared between your IT teams and the service provider. Self-service DRaaS gives your organization full control over disaster recovery planning and execution, making it ideal for teams with strong in-house expertise and a desire for hands-on management. Assisted DRaaS strikes a balance, offering support and guidance from the provider while allowing your team to retain some control. Managed DRaaS is a turnkey solution, with the provider handling all aspects of disaster recovery, from planning to execution and ongoing support. When evaluating DRaaS service models, consider your organization’s risk tolerance, security requirements, and the level of support needed to ensure rapid, secure recovery. The right model will provide the expertise, scalability, and security necessary to protect your business operations and critical systems.
Security, Compliance, and Disaster Recovery Governance
Disaster recovery is not just a technical solution. It is a governance and security discipline that directly impacts organizational risk. Summit designs DRaaS environments with security, compliance, and accountability embedded into every layer of the recovery process.
Ransomware Resilient Recovery Architecture
Immutable Backups
Recovery data is stored using write once technology that prevents ransomware or compromised credentials from altering or deleting backups. This ensures clean recovery points are always available.
Isolated Recovery Environments
Summit performs recovery operations in isolated environments that are separated from production systems. This prevents reinfection and allows teams to validate restored systems before returning to normal operations.
Clean Point Recovery Validation
Multiple recovery points are maintained and tested to ensure data can be restored from a verified safe state prior to compromise.
Compliance Ready by Design
Regulatory Support
Summit designs disaster recovery infrastructure to support compliance requirements such as SOC 2, HIPAA, and industry sector specific standards. Recovery environments align with audit expectations for data protection and access control.
Audit Ready Documentation
We maintain detailed recovery plans, testing records, business impact analysis documentation, and change logs to support audits and regulatory reviews.
U.S. Based Data Residency
All recovery infrastructure and storage systems are hosted in secure U.S. based data centers to ensure jurisdictional control and regulatory compliance.
Clearly Defined Responsibility During Incidents
Single Point of Accountability
During a disaster, Summit’s U.S. based engineering team manages failover, recovery execution, validation, and failback. This eliminates confusion and delays during high pressure incidents.
Defined Shared Responsibility Model
Summit owns the disaster recovery platform, infrastructure, and recovery process. Client teams collaborate on application validation and business priorities, ensuring alignment without ambiguity.
Controlled Access and Permissions
Role based access controls restrict recovery actions to authorized personnel only, protecting systems and data during sensitive operations.
Continuous Governance and Validation
Scheduled DR Testing
Recovery plans are tested on a recurring basis to validate recovery times, recovery points, and operational readiness.
Change Management Alignment
Disaster recovery plans are updated as infrastructure, applications, and business requirements evolve to ensure ongoing accuracy.
Security Monitoring and Incident Readiness
Continuous monitoring ensures recovery systems remain secure, available, and ready to activate at any time.
Why Summit is Your Ultimate Safety Net
Many companies invest in disaster recovery tools but never validate their recovery plan. Summit delivers managed DRaaS that combines technology, expertise, and accountability.
Regular Testing and Validation
Most organizations fail to test their disaster recovery plans. Summit performs scheduled recovery drills to ensure your recovery works when it matters most.
Managed Failover and Failback
Summit engineers handle recovery execution during incidents and manage the transition back to primary systems once stability is restored.
Immutable Backups for Ransomware Protection
Air gapped and immutable backups protect against ransomware attacks and ensure reliable restore data is always available.
Frequently Asked Questions About DRaaS
What is the difference between backup and DRaaS?
Data backup creates copies of files and systems. Disaster recovery as a service provides the infrastructure, automation, and expertise required to run applications and restore business operations during an outage.
How do you handle ransomware recovery?
Summit uses immutable backups, isolated recovery environments, and clean point validation to restore systems from a secure state before infection.
Who manages the recovery process during an incident?
Summit’s U.S. based engineering team manages failover, recovery, validation, and failback, providing a single service provider and point of accountability throughout the incident lifecycle.
Is Your Business Truly Protected?
Downtime is expensive. Lost revenue, lost productivity, and damaged customer trust add up quickly. Summit delivers managed disaster recovery services that help organizations recover faster, reduce risk, and maintain business continuity.
Protect your systems, your data, and your customers with a disaster recovery plan that works when it matters.