Disaster recovery (DR) from remote sites with dedicated servers, storage, and networking gear has long been a best practice for mission-critical applications. However, other applications and data have often gone unprotected due to the costs required for redundant DR assets that are seldom, if ever, utilized. The ability to move DR to the cloud has changed the picture and enabled IT organizations to build more robust DR strategies than had been possible in the past. Report by Phil Goodwin, research director within IDC's Storage Systems and Software research practice.