Comparing disaster recovery solutions is an essential first step to deploying a data backup system. Since many BC/DR products can appear the same on paper, it’s important to dig into the details to see where they diverge.
While two backup systems may appear similar at first, you may discover there are stark differences in terms of:
- How & where the backups are stored
- Resiliency of the backups
- How frequently backups can be performed
- Recovery options and speed
- Time & cost to manage the system
If you’re comparing Datto vs. Infrascale, for example, you’ll discover that both are excellent solutions that can be deployed to fit the needs of many businesses. But of course, the comparison is not exactly apples to apples.
In this post, we take a look at the advantages of both (and some key differences between the two) to help you make a more informed decision for your deployment.
Infrascale backup
Overview
Infrascale is a leading provider of data backup solutions based in El Segundo, California. Officially founded in 2011 (on a foundation of products that Ken Shaw first introduced in 2006), the company has grown steadily over the last decade, opening up offices and data centers around the world. The company acquired Eversync Solutions in 2014 to offer on-site disaster recovery solutions, in addition to its cloud backup suite.
Today, Infrascale is moving to position itself as a leader in DRaaS (Disaster Recovery as a Service), offering “rapid, affordable failover to a second site with the flexibility to boot from the appliance or cloud.”
If that sounds similar to other leading BC/DR solutions, you’re right. Most of today’s best data protection technologies use a “hybrid” approach (on-premise and cloud backups) to ensure a greater range of recovery options.
So let’s dig a little deeper into Infrascale’s offerings …
Key Infrascale products
1) Infrascale Cloud Backup
>> Compare with Datto Cloud Continuity
This is Infrascale’s direct-to-cloud solution, which replicates data directly from protected machines to the cloud. Data can be backed up from servers, laptops, tablets and smartphones, running on Windows, MacOS, Android and iOS. VMware and Hyper-V environments can also be replicated via the Infrascale agent.
An online portal provides access to all cloud backups, including the ability to access every previously saved version of your files. You can recover at the file/folder level or recover entire images.
Suited for: Distributed work environments, laptop fleets / remote workers, branch offices
2) Infrascale Backup & Disaster Recovery
>> Compare with Datto SIRIS and ALTO
This is Infrascale’s hybrid cloud backup solution, which deploys an on-premise backup appliance with additional replication in the cloud. Hybrid backups naturally provide greater protection against a wider range of disaster scenarios. With backups in two or more locations, businesses can ensure they will be able to recover data if something happens to either of those backups.
Infrascale’s disaster recovery solution protects physical and virtual environments, and it offers the ability to failover one system at a time (a process the company refers to as drag-and-drop orchestration, which we’ll return to in a moment). Like its cloud backup solution, the hybrid backup allows businesses to restore data on a granular level or recover an entire system.
Suited for: Businesses aiming to reduce or eliminate the risk of downtime by enabling more recovery options via on-site and cloud backups
3) Infrascale Cloud Application Backup
>> Compare with Datto SaaS Protection
This is Infrascale’s SaaS backup product, which is sort of in its own league of backup, but it’s worth looking at if you’re comparing Infrascale vs. Datto’s SaaS backup solution, known as Datto SaaS Protection (formerly Backupify), which we speak more about below.
Infrascale’s Cloud Application Backup protects data within leading cloud apps, including Google Workspace (formerly G Suite), Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Box.com and Dropbox. With SaaS apps becoming more ubiquitous at organizations of all sizes, it has become more critical to back up the data in those apps. Infrascale replicates the data to a public cloud for protection against common data-loss events, such as accidental deletion, overwriting and migration errors.
What to explore
There’s a lot to like about Infrascale’s backup products, even if they aren’t the right fit for every business. Regardless of whether you’re specifically comparing Datto vs. Infrascale or a wider mix of solutions, here are some things to consider about Infrascale.
- Drag & Drop Orchestration: This is a handy feature for when you need to restore / virtualize multiple machines. Infrascale’s Drag & Drop Organization allows you to prioritize the order in which the machines are recovered, using a simple drag-and-drop workflow. You can specify the time intervals between system boots, which is useful if you’re worried about booting too many at once. You can also select groups of machines to boot simultaneously.
- Choice of cloud: Businesses have the option of choosing the cloud where their data is stored: private, public or Infrascale’s own cloud. This choice is available in both of Infrascale’s backup products: Cloud Backup and Disaster Recovery. Public cloud options include Amazon AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure or IBM Bluemix.
- 1-hour backup frequency: Infrascale says its solutions enable an RPO (recovery point objective) of 1 hour, which means that backups can be performed as often as every 60 minutes. This isn’t the best backup frequency on the market, but it will fit the needs of many small businesses.
- 15-minute failover: Infrascale Disaster Recovery offers a 15-minute “failure guarantee” and says its average recovery time is 70 seconds. Keep in mind these numbers refer to cloud boot / virtualized recoveries. If you’re using the Cloud Backup product, the recovery time ranges from “minutes to hours,” depending on the restore size.
Questions to ask
Every business has its own unique BC/DR needs, so we hesitate to label this section “disadvantages.” However, these are some important things to consider if you’re weighing Infrascale vs. Datto or other providers for backup and continuity.
As you dig into the features and capabilities, these are some questions that you and your IT managers should be asking:
- What is the time/cost of configuration?Some businesses may prefer having a choice over the environments they deploy in and the clouds they rely on – but greater choice does not always equal greater protection (and it definitely doesn’t equal greater simplicity). More configuration requirements tend to make deployment a lot more complex and will naturally be more costly and time-consuming to deploy and manage.
- How often do full backups need to be taken?If full backups need to be taken periodically (as is the case with Infrascale), this requires more storage space (and compute resources), even if you have the benefit of deduplication. And, if you’re paying for each terabyte, this means businesses will end up paying more over time as their data grows.
- Is it hardware agnostic?When it comes to BC/DR, you can end up sacrificing a good deal of simplicity, performance and resiliency when the various hardware and software components are not designed to work together as part of a unified solution. Configuring and adapting several solutions together will naturally require more time and can be more prone to error, too.
Infrascale vs. Datto: How do they compare?
Founded in 2007 by Austin McChord, Datto too has grown into a global business, now owned by Kaseya, with nearly two dozen offices and data centers around the world.
Like Infrascale, Datto is aggressively focused on data backup, business continuity and DRaaS, providing solutions designed to eliminate the risk of downtime. The end goal is very much the same, though the actual technologies have some pretty stark differences.
One of the biggest differences between Datto and Infrascale is that Datto offers a fully integrated, unified continuity solution. Datto has developed the entire software and hardware stack, from the on-site appliance to the cloud technology.
Key Datto products
1) Datto SIRIS
>> Compare with Infrascale Backup & Disaster Recovery
There are a wide range of Datto solutions, but the company’s flagship continuity product is the SIRIS, which is most comparable to Infrascale’s Backup and Disaster Recovery solution. SIRIS is an on-site BC/DR appliance that offers a full infrastructure backup of physical and virtual environments, including Windows, Mac, Linux, Hyper-V and VMware.
Backups are replicated to the Datto Cloud and can be virtualized completely off-site or via hybrid virtualization, in addition to numerous other restore options. You can check out Datto SIRIS pricing as well as other product information here.
If you’re comparing Datto vs. Infrascale, you’ll want to do a full side-by-side comparison of the feature sets and capabilities. But for the purposes of this post, let’s focus on some of the key areas where the two solutions diverge:
- Unified hybrid deployment: Datto’s fully integrated solution removes the complexity (and time/cost) of needing to configure multiple solutions together to achieve true business continuity. Everything is fully unified, which enables a much faster deployment, easier management and no surprises.
- Inverse Chain: Backups on a Datto SIRIS are not dependent on prior backup chains. Each new recovery point is a fully constructed image-based backup, making it more resilient and faster to recover than most other BC/DR offerings. (Inverse Chain is exclusive to Datto.)
- 5-minute backup frequency: By removing the dependence on backup chains, SIRIS can back up as often as every 5 minutes – ideal for businesses that can’t afford to lose data.
- Instant virtualization: Backups can be virtualized locally or in the cloud in a matter of seconds, not minutes or hours. And again, no custom configurations are needed – it only takes a few clicks.
- Ransomware detection:Nearly all data backup products inherently provide some level of protection against ransomware by allowing you to roll back to a clean recovery point taken before an infection occurred. Datto takes it a step further by actively monitoring backups for an infection, so administrators can remove it even sooner.
- Rapid Rollback: This is another ransomware-fighting feature that is unique to Datto. Rapid Rollback enables you to restore file systems to working order, without needing to reimage an entire machine. It identifies major unwanted changes, such as those caused by ransomware or system errors, and allows you to restore only those files with just a few clicks.
- Fast Failback: Datto’s Fast Failback significantly reduces downtime during the most catastrophic data-loss events. When a bare metal recovery is needed, Fast Failback enables you to run your server in a virtualized state while your protected data is being copied over to a new machine. Any changes made during the BMR will also be copied over at the end, virtually eliminating the usual downtime caused by traditional bare-metal recoveries.
TIP: For smaller companies, Datto also offers the ALTO hybrid cloud backup solution. ALTO is designed with much of the same features and capabilities as the SIRIS, but in a smaller package that is ideal for small businesses. Some advanced capabilities, such as on-site backup virtualization, are not available on ALTO; the virtualization must be performed in the cloud or via the hybrid option. Check out Datto ALTO cost information here.
2) Datto Cloud Continuity for PCs
>> Compare with Infrascale Cloud Backup
Since end users tend to store a lot of valuable data on their devices, rather than protected servers, these endpoints should be routinely backed up too. Datto Cloud Continuity does just that. It’s a direct-to-cloud endpoint backup solution that backs up Windows PCs, preventing data loss commonly caused by accidental deletion, malware, physical damage or lost devices.
Like Infrascale Cloud Backup, there is no need for local hardware or dedicated backup appliances (unless you’re supplementing it with other solutions like the Datto SIRIS for comprehensive data protection). It’s software-only, backing up files directly to the Datto Cloud. Recovery capabilities are just as fast and seamless as you would expect from Datto, whose products are laser-focused on business continuity.
If you’re comparing Infrascale vs. Datto Cloud Continuity, here’s what we like about Datto:
- Uses image-based backup technology (similar to Datto’s other backup devices), but without the need to procure, install or manage any hardware. Image-based backups offer superior storage efficiency, resiliency and recovery speed.
- Dependable cloud-based backup for endpoints, including any business data on Windows 7, 10 and 11 devices.
- Self-service recovery allows your internal IT teams to run the file restores themselves, without the need for managed-service providers to manage the recovery. A simple point-in-time snapshot recovery makes it easy to restore any lost data.
- Granular and full data recovery options make it easy to restore individual files and folders, or restore an entire PC image to a new device.
One key difference between Infrascale and Datto Cloud Continuity is that Infrascale can also be used to back up servers, including Microsoft Exchange and SQL databases, whereas Cloud Continuity is limited to desktops and laptops.
3) Datto SaaS Protection
>> Compare to Infrascale Cloud Application Backup
Datto SaaS Protection is a SaaS backup solution that protects data in Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. Similar to Infrascale, Datto protects all the data that matters in these popular productivity suites, including:
- M365: Exchange, Calendar, OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams and more.
- Google Workspace: Gmail, Calendar, Contacts and Google Drive data
All backups are managed easily from a single web-based interface. Files, folders and entire user accounts can be restored with just a few clicks.
In terms of protected SaaS apps, Infrascale scores the win here, as it can also back up Salesforce, Dropbox and Box, in addition to Google and M365. However, even though Datto currently only protects Google Workspace and M365, there’s a lot to like about it:
- 3x daily automated backups, plus the ability to manually perform backups as needed.
- Flexible recovery options, including point-in-time, granular, and non-destructive restore functions.
- Option for advanced threat protection and spam filtering with Datto SaaS Defense, which proactively defends against malware, business email compromise (BEC) and phishing attacks (including zero-day exploits).
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about Infrascale vs. Datto
1) Which is better: Infrascale or Datto?
Infrascale and Datto are two leading BC/DR providers that each offer distinct product lines of data backup solutions. Identifying the better backup solution depends on each organization’s unique needs. However, a commonly cited benefit of Datto’s backup technology is that it is fully unified for a more seamless deployment.
2) What is the difference between Datto and Infrascale?
A key difference between Datto and Infrascale is that Datto’s solutions are fully integrated out-of-box. This means that the local backup device, backup software and cloud storage are all developed and provided by Datto. This makes deployment faster, more efficient and easier to manage.
3) What are the three backup methods for Datto?
Datto’s three primary backup methods are local backup, cloud backup and hybrid backup, which uses a combination of local and off-site storage. Datto’s flagship product, SIRIS, uses Inverse Chain Technology to store each recovery point in an independent, fully constructed state (locally and in the Datto Cloud).
Datto also offers direct-to-cloud backup with its Cloud Continuity endpoint backup solution, and SaaS application backup with Datto SaaS Protection.
Conclusion
Infrascale and Datto offer a similar suite of backup solutions, which enable businesses to protect a wide range of data, including local endpoints, servers and SaaS applications. However, as with all BC/DR solutions, there are some important differences between the two options, which ultimately affect the reliability of the backups and the speed of recovery. We like Datto’s backup solutions for their fully unified hybrid cloud design (i.e. Datto SIRIS) and the option to protect critical data in M365 and Google Workspace with Datto Protection Plus. But ultimately, organizations should evaluate each option carefully to identify which BC/DR solution is right for their needs and budget.
Let’s compare Datto vs. Infrascale together
Given the unique features of every data backup product, a much deeper comparison is needed to uncover all the differences between Datto, Infrascale and other solutions. Our business continuity professionals at Invenio IT are happy to guide you in the right direction. Request a free demo or contact us today at (646) 395-1170.
