Use of Saas to Support Disaster Recovery

Use of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Cloud Computing to support Disaster Recovery

Akshay Anand Venkat Patri

IS 8940 Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity

Fall 2015

December 2, 2015

ABSTRACT

Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity are two very vital aspects for any business. It has always been a topic of argument that both of these aspects are similar and almost alike. However, these are two different aspects and have to run parallel to each other in case the organization is struck by a disaster. SaaS is any service in which a software is used under a vendor on a pay per use basis. It has integrated services and there are many companies that provide these services as per the need of their clients. The teams and strategies have to be made by the companies themselves, but a SaaS application may ease up the process of Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity. These applications may be integrated with the company’s existing Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plan or may be totally outsourced from a vendor. This paper mainly focusses on SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) to support Disaster Recovery aspect of a business.

INTRODUCTION

Defining SaaS:

Any software which is hosted by a third party server and on a pay per use basis is called Software as a Service Application. The requirements for using such software application is minimal, only a computer with a stable web connection is enough to suffice the needs of the organization. This substantially reduces the cost incurred in actually hosting the software by itself by the organization. According to Dubey & Wagle [2007], instead of buying a software license for any purpose of the operation like Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM), it is always better to use a third party available software which are pre-designed as per the needs of the organization and giving the vendors more flexibility in choosing the right product for the organization. Since the...