What is AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery?
AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (DRS) enables fast and cost-effective recovery of servers and applications in AWS. The service continuously replicates physical servers, VMware VMs, and cloud servers to AWS and enables failover within minutes in an emergency.
DRS uses block-level replication with a lightweight agent. After initial synchronization, only changed blocks are transferred, minimizing bandwidth usage. Point-in-time recovery enables restoration to any point in time.
Core Features
- Continuous Replication: Block-level replication with sub-second RPO after initial synchronization
- Fast Recovery: Servers can be launched in AWS within minutes (low RTO)
- Point-in-Time Recovery: Restoration to any point in time within the last days
- Non-Disruptive Drills: Regular recovery tests without affecting source servers or ongoing replication
- Failback: After resolving the outage, servers can be migrated back to the source infrastructure
Typical Use Cases
Disaster Recovery: Organizations replicate critical servers to AWS and can resume operations in AWS within minutes if the primary data center fails. Low ongoing costs make DR affordable even for mid-sized businesses.
Ransomware Recovery: Point-in-time recovery enables restoration to a point before the ransomware infection. Servers can be launched in an isolated VPC and inspected before being put back into service.
Migration Preparation: DRS can be used as a migration tool to gradually migrate servers to AWS. Continuous replication enables a cutover with minimal downtime.
Benefits
- Low ongoing costs (approximately $20 per server per month)
- No investment in secondary infrastructure required
- Regular tests without production impact
- Support for physical and virtual servers
Integration with innFactory
As an AWS Reseller, innFactory supports you with AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery: DR architecture design, agent deployment and replication configuration, recovery plan development, and regular DR tests.
Typical Use Cases
Frequently Asked Questions
What is AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery?
AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (DRS) is a disaster recovery service that continuously replicates servers to AWS. In an emergency, servers can be launched in AWS within minutes with minimal RPO and RTO values.
How does replication work?
A lightweight agent on the source servers continuously and asynchronously replicates data to AWS. Replication runs at the block level and requires only minimal bandwidth after the initial synchronization.
What does AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery cost?
DRS costs approximately $0.028 per replicated server per hour (about $20 per month). Additional EBS costs apply for replicated volumes. Drill servers are only charged during tests or actual failover.