Gartner Magic Quadrant DRaaS 2016 Report

by Joe Panettieri • Jul 8, 2016

Within the IT channel, disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) has gone mainstream – particularly with MSPs that offer business continuity services.

Numerous cloud service providers (CSPs) offer DRaaS platforms to channel partners. But the options for channel partners and/or end-customers don’t end there. Gartner Inc. in June 2016 published its latest Magic Quadrant for Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS).

Overall, the Gartner Magic Quadrant DRaaS report included 20 companies. The providers are organized into four quadrants:

1. Niche Players
2. Visionaries
3. Challengers
4. Leaders

Here’s a look look at the DRaaS companies in each quadrant, along with their various strengths and cautions, according to Gartner.

Quadrant: Niche Players

1. Carbonite (EVault)

Carbonite acquired EVault to extend from the SMB cloud backup market into the midmarket DRaaS opportunity. As of mid-2016, the company was ramping up its partner program and preparing EVault enhancemens. Here’s a look a the Strengths and Cautions that Gartner memtioned:

Strengths

• Guaranteed service tiers, with corresponding RTO- and RPO-based service-level targets, are available from Carbonite (EVault).
• Virtual CPU and storage capacity can be overprovisioned to 15% beyond the allocated capacity at no extra charge.
• Daily data integrity checking is performed by Carbonite (EVault’s) service management software.
• Carbonite (EVault’s) language support is the most extensive of all the providers in this Magic Quadrant.

Cautions

• Because EVault Cloud Disaster Recovery is primarily provider-managed, few service manageability tools for customers are supported.
• Carbonite (EVault’s) operations control compliance with regulations, such as PCI, Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) and International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), is limited.
• Provider portal functionality for most service tiers (except for the one-hour SLA tier) is limited with Carbonite (EVault).
• Reference customers for Carbonite (EVault) cited a need for improvement in the areas of account management and professional services.

ChannelE2E says: Carbonite has a growing channel partner program. Find it here.

2. Databarracks

The strengths and challenges for Databarracks, according to Gartner, include…

Strengths:

• All Databarracks’ customers have a commercial account manager from the sales team, a technical account manager, and escalation paths to the Service Delivery Management team.
• Databarracks’ flexible compute and storage capacity management processes facilitate ease of resource bursting.
• Databarracks allows clients to test as many times as they want during a year without additional cost.
• Rapid failover times are supported by Databarracks for both virtual servers (15 minutes or less) and physical servers (30 minutes or less).

Cautions

• Service delivery is geographically focused, and Databarracks currently serves only U.K. customers. It does support some customers’ international offices. Currently, all interfaces and documentation are provided in English only.
• Databarracks has limited experience with hybrid recovery configuration support. Additionally, it received a low customer reference score for support for both physical and virtual servers and systems.
• Databarracks is hesitant to provide proofs of concept (POCs) for prospects and, in addition, requires payment upfront for onboarding new client projects.
• Databarracks requires that any resources used above the reservation are paid for on a pay- as-you-go basis of five-minute increments.

ChannelE2E says: Although we haven’t communicated directly with Databarracks, we found partner program information here.

3. Evolve IP

Evolve IP strengths and cautions mentioned by Gartner included…

Strengths

• Evolve IP’s hosting centers are major Tier 4 data centers. Customers can connect via Evolve IP’s provided network, Customer Cross Connect, Public Internet, Public Internet with VPN and Evolve IP’s internet bonding option, Cloud Connect.
• Customers have 100% self-service management visibility over their image replication and failovers from either VMware- or Hyper-V-based VMs, as well as Windows and Linux physical servers and Veeam.
• The Evolve IP operations team runs daily sandbox failover tests to ensure that customer systems can be correctly activated and are fully functional following a failover.
• Evolve IP’s portfolio extends beyond DRaaS, so it may be of interest to clients looking for one cloud provider across servers, storage, desktops, communications and networks.

Cautions

• Service delivery is geographically focused, and Evolve IP currently has revenue exclusively in the North American market. Currently, all interfaces and documentation are provided in English only.
• Evolve IP has limited experience with hybrid recovery configuration support.
• An Evolve IP solution would require additional replication customization if a customer wishes to replicate an existing EMC SAN at the storage level.
• The opportunities for service improvement cited by some Evolve IP reference customers include service cost-effectiveness, onboarding process and problem resolution timeliness.

ChannelE2E says: We heard from Evolve IP pretty regularly, and you can find partner program information here.

4. Peak 10

Peak 10 strengths and cautions, as determined by Gartner, include…

Strengths

• Peak 10’s data centers and cloud infrastructure have been certified for PCI DSS Version 2.0 Level 1 and HIPAA compliance.
• Peak 10 prospects can review any and all facility and operations audit results under a nondisclosure agreement and through a controlled portal.
• Customers of Peak 10 can configure multiple virtual protection groups at multiple data centers.
• A wide range of supporting security services are available to Peak 10’s customers, ranging from basic firewalling to a managed compliance bundle.

Cautions

• Although service delivery is expanding nationwide, the majority of Peak 10’s production customers are located in the eastern half of the United States.
• Peak 10 does not currently support unlimited usage of its cloud service. Cloud usage is limited to recovery exercising and post-declaration recovery operations.
• Opportunities for improvement that were cited by reference customers include service innovation, service cost-effectiveness and breadth of its professional services quality.

ChannelE2E says: Find Peak 10 partner program information here.

Continue to page 2 of 4 to see companies in the Visionaries quadrant