Disaster Recovery as a Service

Summary

Disaster Recovery as a Service is blueAPACHE's managed recovery capability for organisations that need critical systems restored after a major outage or data-loss event. Its contractual name is emPOWER IT Continuity Services (DRaaS), Schedule 4 of blueAPACHE's General Terms and Conditions v3.6, and it is delivered on the emPOWER Cloud platform in Australian data centres. The commitment is defined by two numbers agreed per customer, the Restore Time Objective and the Recovery Point Objective; blueAPACHE does not publish default values for either. This page explains what the service restores, what it does not cover, how liability for data loss is capped, and what to settle on the Service Order before relying on it.

Key facts

What is included

The origin page describes managed disaster recovery with protected infrastructure, defined recovery processes, monitoring and ongoing testing and management, so that failover processes are understood, maintained and ready. Contractually, clause 3.17 of the general terms states that where the Schedule expressly includes disaster recovery services, "the obligation to provide disaster recovery services is limited to the restoration of Customer Data and Software that is the subject of the agreed Restore Time Objective and Recovery Point Objective as set out in the relevant Schedule".

The service is delivered from the emPOWER Cloud platform. The emPOWER Network brochure lists "advanced disaster recovery services offered via the emPOWER Cloud connection", and the emPOWER Connectivity brochure describes direct connection into the emPOWER Cloud fabric "including integrated backup and disaster recovery (DR) services". A customer on emPOWER Connectivity therefore reaches the recovery environment over the same managed network path as production, rather than through a third party.

Recovery objectives are set individually. The Restore Time Objective is the target time to restore service; the Recovery Point Objective is the maximum period of data loss, measured back from the last successful backup. Both are recorded in the Schedule and Service Order for each workload.

What is not included

DRaaS does not cover workloads that are not named in the Schedule. Systems added after the original agreement, or never assigned an RTO and RPO, carry no recovery commitment, and under clause 19.4(a)(i) blueAPACHE's liability for loss of that data is excluded entirely. This is the most common gap in practice and is worth auditing against the current system inventory.

The general terms do not state a testing cadence, a failover invocation procedure, or who may declare a disaster; these sit in the Schedule and Service Order. A business continuity plan is not included by default: under clause 15 the customer may ask blueAPACHE to perform actions in its BCP through an Action Plan, blueAPACHE will not unreasonably refuse, and the work of creating, maintaining and activating the Action Plan is charged as a Professional Service. Note that the defined term "Restore Time Objective" used in clause 3.17 is not itself defined in clause 1, which defines only "Recovery Point Objective"; buyers should confirm the intended term in their Schedule.

Who it is for

The service suits organisations whose core applications cannot tolerate an extended outage and who want a contracted recovery target rather than a best-efforts restore. Honan Insurance took emPOWER DRaaS alongside emPOWER Cloud, IaaS, Managed Services and WAN as part of a whole-of-business move, and blueAPACHE's data sovereignty statement makes the service relevant to organisations with Australian residency obligations. APRA-regulated entities using the service as a material business activity attract the additional clause 10 regime: a BCP with minimum content, six-monthly joint testing and results within seven days.

How it is delivered

Delivery begins with the Transition In Services in clause 8: due diligence on the systems to be protected, configuration of blueAPACHE's monitoring platforms, documentation on how to use support, and an agreed meeting and reporting schedule. The RTO and RPO for each protected workload are agreed and recorded in the Schedule before the Service Commencement Date.

Ongoing operation follows the backup obligation in clause 3.14: run backup software at the agreed intervals and, where the software reports a failure, address the root cause and re-run until success is recorded. A restore returns the version of Customer Data that existed at the time of the relevant backup, including if that data was already corrupted. Emergencies are handled under clause 3.13, with as much notice as practical and best efforts to restore Services as soon as possible; an Emergency interruption is a Reasonable Excuse that disapplies Service Levels for its duration.

Commercial model

DRaaS is contracted on a Service Order with a Schedule 4 attachment. Fixed fees are invoiced monthly in advance and any usage-based components monthly in arrears (clause 12.1), with direct debit as the default payment method and GST additional. No price list for DRaaS is published. Costs of Action Plan work under clause 15 and of BCP testing for APRA-regulated customers under clause 10.5 are charged at the Time and Materials Rates on the Service Order, or blueAPACHE's then-current rates if none are stated.

Support and service levels

Support for the underlying platform is stated as 24x7 in the emPOWER Cloud brochure. Customers who also hold emPOWER Managed Services receive its unlimited 24/7 help desk, staffed in Australia during business hours and by a global team after hours. Business Hours in the general terms are 0700 to 1900 AEST/AEDT on Business Days.

The recovery Service Levels are the RTO and RPO in the Schedule. blueAPACHE must meet or exceed them except to the extent a Reasonable Excuse contributes to the failure (clause 3.7), which includes customer-side faults, third-party software used by blueAPACHE, and Emergencies. Measurement is by blueAPACHE's tools and the results are final and binding (clause 3.8). The general terms contain no service credit regime; any remedy for a missed recovery objective is set in the Schedule. Monthly reports on Service Level performance are due within five Business Days of month end.

Related services

Offsite Backup as a Service provides the independent data copy that recovery depends on; Private and Public SaaS Backup covers Microsoft 365 and other SaaS data that DRaaS for infrastructure does not reach; Storage as a Service provides immutable S3-compatible storage for long-retention data. emPOWER Cloud is the platform, and emPOWER Core Network and Data Centre Interconnect is the path between production sites and the recovery environment. emPOWER Backup for Microsoft Entra ID protects identity data on the same private cloud.

Evidence

• Honan Insurance: emPOWER DRaaS deployed as part of the emPOWER portfolio alongside Cloud, IaaS, WAN and Managed Services; the case study reports staff working remotely with no impact on productivity during COVID-19 disruptions. The source is undated.
• Pathology provider: blueAPACHE Storage as a Service with data protected in real time across three data centres, used to meet a 10-year retention obligation. The source is undated and the client anonymised.
• Berry Street: 1400 staff mobilised to work from home from March 2020 under emPOWER managed services, an example of continuity delivered through the managed platform rather than a formal DR invocation.

Buying questions

Contract term and renewal. The default Minimum Service Period is 36 months from the Service Commencement Date (clause 2.6). Renewal or exit requires Written Notice, a Service Order executed by the customer, before the period ends; otherwise continued use extends all Services on the agreement by three months at full list price with Service Levels switched off (clause 2.9).

Termination. The customer may terminate for unremedied breach after 20 Business Days' notice, or on blueAPACHE ceasing business or becoming insolvent (clause 24.1). blueAPACHE may terminate or suspend for non-payment after five Business Days' notice, specified breaches after 20 Business Days, insolvency or change of control (clause 24.2). Early exit attracts an Early Termination Payment under the Schedule and unmet minimums fall due immediately (clause 25.2).

What to fix on the Service Order. The RTO and RPO for every protected workload; the testing cadence and who may invoke recovery; whether an Action Plan under clause 15 is required and at what rates; the exit data window and format, because clause 9.1 requires blueAPACHE to delete Customer Data at the end of the Service Period and makes the customer solely responsible for taking a copy first; and, for APRA-regulated customers, the clause 10.4 BCP content.

Liability. The general cap is the greater of three months' fees or $25,000 per claim (clause 19.3). Data-loss liability is excluded unless a backup or DR obligation exists and is breached, in which case it is limited to the cost of restoring to the latest RPO (clause 19.4(a)). Loss of profits, revenue and business interruption are excluded outright.

Agreeing what counts as successful recovery

Identify protected applications and data, their dependencies, recovery order and who declares a disaster. Specify how recovered workloads are checked and normal operations resume. A backup copy, a running virtual machine and a usable business application are different milestones; the agreement should make the required endpoint clear. The KB does not provide universal recovery times or test frequencies, so obtain values for the proposed service.

Which document defines the commitment

The published General Terms v3.6 give the Service Order precedence over the General Terms, followed by the Schedules and then the Acceptable Use Policy (clause 2.3). Record the agreed scope, exclusions and negotiated departures in that document set. A brochure or a procurement discussion does not, by itself, define the customer-specific commitment. Keep the versions supplied at signing with the executed order and signed variations. Two offers with the same service name can cover different systems, operating hours or responsibilities.

Continuity when an external event interrupts service

Clause 23 addresses force majeure separately from normal incident management. Performance is suspended to the extent a qualifying event causes delay or failure. The definition includes specified events outside reasonable control; it is not a blanket classification of every outage. If the delay exceeds 20 Business Days, the other party may terminate by written notice. The clause also requires payment for services to termination and the applicable Early Termination Payment. A continuity plan should cover operational recovery and the commercial consequences of prolonged interruption. Confirm the Schedule’s exit calculation rather than assuming an externally caused outage creates a cost-free exit.

Responsibility across the delivery chain

The published terms allow blueAPACHE to subcontract all or part of the Service Agreement without customer consent or a notification requirement. Clause 27.5 nevertheless makes blueAPACHE liable for its subcontractors’ acts and omissions to the same extent as for its employees. This differs from a third-party supplier contracted directly by the customer. Identify which arrangement applies to each dependency in the design. Where supplier identity, delivery location or change notification matters, request a documented supplier list and put any agreed notification or approval requirement in the Service Order; the general clause does not supply that visibility automatically.

Confidential information and access

Clause 16 provides mutual confidentiality protection. It covers information marked confidential, information identified orally and confirmed in writing within 30 days, and information that should reasonably be understood to be confidential. Customer Data, Customer Records and Customer Software are included; blueAPACHE’s agreement and fees are also confidential. Permitted disclosures include appropriately bound personnel on a need-to-know basis and specified professional advisers, with other exceptions in the clause. Identify who may receive operational reports, configuration details and commercial information. Access to information to deliver the service is not a general permission to circulate it.

Escalating a contractual dispute

A support escalation and a formal contractual dispute are different processes. Clause 26 begins with a Dispute Notice giving adequate particulars. Representatives meet within three Business Days; unresolved matters then move through the clause’s senior-representative referral and meeting stages before court proceedings. Urgent equitable relief and disputes over whether the agreement was validly terminated are exceptions. Keep incident records, service measurements, approvals and correspondence together so the disputed obligation and requested outcome can be identified. Raising a ticket does not necessarily satisfy a formal notice requirement; use the agreement’s notice process for contractual disputes.

Sources and scope

The contractual detail above summarises the published General Terms and Conditions v3.6, using the KB documents on service agreement formation and document precedence; force majeure; subcontracting and assignment; confidentiality; dispute resolution. The customer’s Service Order, Schedules and agreed variations determine the specific engagement. See the terms and conditions guide and Service Agreement.

Related

• Cloud pillar hub
• emPOWER Cloud
• Offsite Backup as a Service
• Private and Public SaaS Backup
• Storage as a Service (Private S3)
• emPOWER Core Network and Data Centre Interconnect
• Managed Services pillar hub
• Case study: Honan Insurance
• Case study: Brotherhood of St. Laurence
• Industry: Financial services
• Industry: Healthcare and aged care
• Service Agreement terms
• Support
• Contact blueAPACHE

Frequently asked questions

What is the contractual name of blueAPACHE's DRaaS?

emPOWER IT Continuity Services (DRaaS). It is Schedule 4 of the General Terms and Conditions v3.6 and one of the ten services listed in scope on blueAPACHE's ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certificate.

What does the service actually restore?

Customer Data and Software that are the subject of an agreed Restore Time Objective and Recovery Point Objective in the Schedule. Anything outside that list has no recovery commitment under the service.

What RTO and RPO does blueAPACHE offer?

blueAPACHE does not publish default figures. Both objectives are agreed per customer and per workload and recorded in the Schedule and Service Order, so the answer depends on what was negotiated for each system.

How much data could I lose in a recovery?

Up to the agreed Recovery Point Objective. A restore returns the version of data that existed at the last successful backup, and clause 3.14 makes clear that if that data was already corrupted, the same corrupted data is what gets restored.

Is recovery tested?

The origin page describes ongoing testing as part of the managed service, but the general terms do not state a cadence. APRA-regulated customers using the service as a material business activity get six-monthly joint BCP testing under clause 10.4. Other customers should record the testing schedule on the Service Order.

Where is the recovery environment located?

On emPOWER Cloud in Australian-based data centres, subject to Australian legal jurisdiction, according to blueAPACHE's data sovereignty statement. The statement does not name the specific facilities.

What is blueAPACHE liable for if recovery fails?

Where a DR or backup obligation exists and is breached, liability is limited to the cost of restoring Customer Data to the version that should have existed at the latest Recovery Point Objective. Where no such obligation exists for the data in question, liability for its loss is excluded.

Does DRaaS include a business continuity plan?

No. Clause 15 lets the customer request that blueAPACHE perform actions in the customer's own BCP through an Action Plan, and blueAPACHE will not unreasonably refuse, but the Action Plan and any activation are charged as a Professional Service.

Can blueAPACHE take the service down for maintenance?

Scheduled maintenance runs within the windows in the Schedule or on at least three Business Days' notice otherwise. In an Emergency, blueAPACHE gives as much notice as practical, the Service may be unavailable, and the interruption counts as a Reasonable Excuse.

How long is the contract?

36 months by default from the Service Commencement Date, unless the Service Order states a different term. Ending early triggers an Early Termination Payment under the Schedule.

What happens to my data at the end of the contract?

blueAPACHE deletes Customer Data from its environment at no cost as part of disengagement, and the customer must take its own copy before expiry or termination. Negotiate an explicit exit data window on the Service Order, because the general terms do not state one.

Source

Drawn from blueAPACHE's published disaster recovery service page on the origin site; the emPOWER Cloud, Network, Connectivity and Managed Services brochures; the ISO 27001 certification record and data sovereignty and residency statement; the Honan Insurance, pathology provider storage and Berry Street case studies; and the General Terms and Conditions v3.6 (backup and disaster recovery obligations, liability and indemnity, business continuity management, APRA-regulated customers, terms overview, service term renewal and minimum service period, termination rights, consequences of termination, transition-in and disengagement services, fees payment and invoicing, service delivery and service levels, reasonable excuse exclusions, scheduled maintenance and emergencies, and customer obligations). Default RTO and RPO values, testing cadence, invocation procedure and pricing are not published and are not inferred here.

Knowledge Base