The document discusses disaster recovery (DR) and the importance of having a robust DR plan and infrastructure to minimize downtime from catastrophic events. It explains that Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) using cloud infrastructure is a popular option for enterprises due to pay-as-you-go pricing lowering costs and automated virtual platforms minimizing recovery time. The magazine has evaluated hundreds of DR solution providers and selected the 20 most promising companies that are tackling challenges in the DR landscape and impacting the market.

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8CIOReview
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roductivity at workplace hinges upon the ability of an
organization to operate effectively in the aftermath of
a disaster. Adopting holistic Disaster Recovery (DR)
methodologies can help companies save information and achieve
an uninterrupted level of operations during catastrophic events.
Devising an effective DR plan depends on the factors such
as the monetary cost of system downtime or data loss, while
others can be directly tied to application performance and
accuracy. Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) then determine
the DR approach. Further, the success of a DR plan depends on
many things, starting from the efficiency of the cloud backup to
virtualization, and the measures taken to improve the alertness
of the employees.
Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) is the hot term
today, with cloud being the preferred component of the disaster
recovery plan. The pay-as-you-go pricing model that can
lower costs and the use of automated virtual platforms that
can minimize the recovery time after a failure makes DRaaS a
favorite of enterprises. On the other hand, it’s important for the
providers to stay abreast of the latest DR mechanisms to remain
competitive in the DRaaS provider market.
To help the CIOs and CEOs find the right disaster recovery
solution providers for their enterprises, our selection panel has
evaluated hundreds of DR solution providers offering innovative
technologies in this space. The 20 Most Promising Disaster
Recovery Solution Providers 2015, featured in this list provide
insights into how these solutions tackle the challenges in the
Disaster Recovery space.
CIOREVIEW.COMOCTOBER 01 - 2015DISASTER RECOVERY SPECIAL
T h e N a v i g a t o r f o r E n t e r p r i s e S o l u t i o n s
20 Most Promising Disaster Recovery Solution Providers
Company:
Cogeco Peer 1
Description:
Provider of the solutions, infrastructure,
and operational expertise to provide turnkey
application DR solutions
Key Person:
Duncan McGregor
VP of Engineering & Operations
Website:
www.cogecodata.com & peer1.com
Cogeco Peer 1
recognized by magazine as
Pradeep Shankar
An annual listing of 20 companies that are in the forefront of tackling challenges in
the Disaster Recovery Services landscape and impacting the marketplace
Editor-in-Chief

2. | |JULY 2014
9CIOReview
| |October 2015
24CIOReview
O
rganizations are placing increased emphasis
on ensuring that their most critical business
applications have robust Business Continuity plans
and supporting Disaster Recovery infrastructure
to effectively mitigate downtime risks including loss of
productivity, brand equity, and intellectual property. “An
effective DR strategy is dependent on the careful orchestration
of processes, run books, application and security policies, and
human resources to ensure that an application can be quickly
restored in the event of a disaster” says Duncan McGregor, VP,
Cogeco Data Services and Peer 1 Hosting. Technology trends
such as Cloud, Virtualization, are enabling firms to address and
resolve the constraints of an effective DR.
Based in Toronto, ON, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cogeco
Inc, Cogeco Data Services and Peer 1 Hosting offers collocation,
cloud infrastructure, managed hosting and IT, security and
connectivity services to customers as well as DR solutions that
help customers keep their most critical applications running
and safe from data loss. The company enables businesses with
the ability to access, move, manage and store mission critical
data globally, supported by unparalleled customer support.
Its turnkey Geo Redundant Virtual Data Centre and Mission
Critical Public Clouds deliver replication of data between
primary and secondary data centres. Multiple in-country
Data Centres allows for data to remain fully compliant with
any data sovereignty requirements. “From infrastructure,
network, application, declaration, and monitoring to
failover processes, our solutions encompass both the
operational and infrastructure aspect of a successful
DR strategy,” explains McGregor.
The company also offers a suite of backup and
storage options that allow enterprises to construct
solutions to meet their specific requirements,
and optimize both recovery times and point
objectives at either the Virtual Machine
level or applications level.
To cater to a wider clientele,
Cogeco Data Services and Peer
1 offers solutions both in the
public cloud (multitenant
based infrastructure) as
well as in the private
cloud (dedicated
infrastructure) and
colocation architectures. “The entire infrastructure is hosted
and managed in our own data centres,” states McGregor. The
company is among the first Cloud providers to offer a suite of
services designed to address the rapid deployment needs of
mission critical, core and legacy applications.
The company’s offerings have dramatically resolved the
customers’ challenges related to successful DR Implantations.
Enterprises view the Cloud as an ideal platform from which to
build a BC/DR plan that leverages the elasticity of the Cloud to
meet infrastructure needs in the event of a disaster impacting
the primary enterprise data centre. One of Cogeco Data Services
and Peer 1’s Toronto based clients needed to implement
stringent RTO and RPO targets. The company
provided them with an end-to-end DR solution that
included data replication from the customer’s data
centre to the Cloud as well as the supporting failover
processes that enabled the client to meet its internal
compliance requirements. “We assured them that in the
event of a disaster, our staff will act as extension of
the client’s internal IT teams,” says McGregor.
“Actively supporting the client’s DR processes
through planning, design, build, test, and
implementation.”
Looking ahead, Cogeco Data Services
and Peer 1 will continue to deliver
innovative and comprehensive end-to-end
DR solutions for its customers, helping
them to remove complexity and embrace
growth and stability in their operations.
Cogeco Data Services and Peer 1 Hosting
Application Optimized Cloud Provider
From infrastructure, network,
application, declaration, and
monitoring to failover processes,
our solutions encompass both the
operational and infrastructure aspect
of a successful DR strategy
Duncan McGregor