Cost effective cloud storage in UK (Backup & DR)

[preecyp]

Apologies if these types of posts aren't allowed, please remove if it goes against the forum T&Cs.

We currently use Veeam B&R Enterprise to backup our VMWare data centre. We perform daily backup,s to local storage. on our Veeam server and copy backups to a well known UK cloud storage provider. We're currently paying around £250 per month for a 7TB cloud storage account. We would like to start replicating our VM's to the cloud with the ability to failover in the event of DR situation. We've had some indicative costs for this from our current cloud provider which is beyond our budget. I was wondering what cost effective cloud storage/cloud DR solutions other Veeam customers are using. Azure came to mind but I suspect storing replica VMs in Azure would be an expensive option.

Also, would we require Veeam Cloud Connect Replication with the above in mind?

[ejenner]

I don't know if this fits in with your design philosophy but something to consider is the delivery speed of modern hosting and broadband download speeds. You can restore a VM from cloud in a couple of minutes, faster than you can from direct attached storage in some cases (depending on specs). Could you get the same benefits you're looking for from a warm standby virtual environment which is ready to receive your cloud stored VMs in case of emergency?

Also, don't forget, depending on the size of your organization you may consider Consumption Model computing like the new HPE Greenlake service where HPE can charge you monthly for hardware depending on how much you want. Not a lease, but hardware on demand. So you keep a barebones system running which you pay monthly for. But on demand you can ramp that up to a much larger capacity (for a greater cost obviously). Other suppliers offer this service model, it does not have to be HPE. That gives you somewhere to recover to which you don't have to pay for unless and until you require it.

[veremin]

Azure came to mind but I suspect storing replica VMs in Azure would be an expensive option.

Be aware that we do not support replicating VMs to Azure (nor to any other public cloud). So, if you don't have DR site to replicate VMs to, the only option you have is to find Service Provider that provides Cloud Connect Replication service. Thanks!