Cloud Migration & Disaster Recovery: 8 Key Differences

PURPOSE-BUILT FOR DISASTER RECOVERY DR was built to restore from disasters and in cases where it has been repurposed as a migration tool it remains limited to the approach of ‘recovery in the cloud’ with reduced flexibility in adapting the target machine, limiting the potential of AUTOMATION

PURPOSE-BUILT FOR CLOUD MIGRATION The right cloud migration tools have been built from the ground up specifically to solve the problem of mass migration of existing workloads to the cloud, enabling flexibility to run scripts inside the target VM, enabling the full potential of AUTOMATION

TIME-INTENSIVE DR tools are designed to copy and store data somewhere. This requires the original image plus the space for each stored copy - ie twice the time is needed to make - and then restore the backup

FAST SET-UP Migration uses replication which is not intended to store copies, does not double the space or time and enhances replication by accounting for changes between the source and target environments

HIGH COST DR requires a 2-step process to move data to the cloud which incurs additional storage charges

LOW COST With the right migration tool data is moved to the cloud only once, requiring no unnecessary storage charges

HIGH COST A significantly larger machine is generally required to house the data as part of the overall infrastructure required

LOW COST With the right migration tool only a small machine is required as there is no significant infrastructure requirement

HIGH COST DR tools are generally charged as on-going licenses with incremental costs as unused licenses expire

LOW COST The right migration tool will charge a license per VM with no time limit on usage of each license

TIME-INTENSIVE: On-premise Infrastructure DR tools require on-premise infrastructure to be installed (such as agents) - or hypervisor access is required which is time- and labour-intensive

FAST SET-UP: No on-premise infrastructure The right migration tool does not require hypervisor access and is agentless, which significantly reduces management & administration overheads

TIME-INTENSIVE: Agents Required Approval is needed for agents to be installed which can be a burdensome process and add significant delays to a migration project

FAST SET-UP: Agentless The right migration tool is agentless and therefore does not cause any delays to a migration projects

HIGH RISK Where agents are required, specific exceptions must be made before agents can work properly, eg specific ports on the VMs or in firewalls must be opened up to allow agent communication or anti-virus on systems must be disabled altogether which can increase the threat of a cyber attacks

LOW RISK With the right cloud migration partner no agents are required which means no added security risks: no connections are needed to the workload’s network, no ports need to be opened, the firewall is compromised and there is no risk of outdated agent software being exploited by attackers