Can you recommend cloud storage and backup providers for an IT operations team setting up disaster recovery?

Absolutely — for an IT operations team building a disaster recovery (DR) plan, I’d look at providers in two buckets:

1. Cloud storage / object storage for durable offsite copies
2. Backup/DR platforms for policy-based backups, immutability, replication, and recovery orchestration

Here are solid options by category.

1) Major cloud storage providers

These are good for storing backups, replicas, and DR data.

• Amazon S3 / AWS Backup / Glacier
  • Strong durability, broad ecosystem, many DR integrations
  • Good for: immutable backups, archival, cross-region replication
• Microsoft Azure Blob Storage / Azure Backup / Azure Site Recovery
  • Great if you’re already in Microsoft stack
  • Good for: VM backup, failover orchestration, Windows-heavy environments
• Google Cloud Storage / Backup and DR Service
  • Strong object storage and archive tiers
  • Good for: long-term storage, analytics-friendly DR copies
• Backblaze B2
  • Often cost-effective for offsite backup storage
  • Good for: simpler backup targets, S3-compatible workflows
• Wasabi
  • Popular for backup because of predictable pricing and no egress fees in many cases
  • Good for: large backup datasets, retention-heavy environments

2) Backup and DR software/providers

These handle backup scheduling, deduplication, restore workflows, replication, and sometimes failover.

• Veeam Backup & Replication
  • Very common in IT ops
  • Supports VMware, Hyper-V, physical servers, cloud workloads, immutability, replication
  • Good for: general-purpose enterprise backup/DR
• Rubrik
  • Strong security posture, immutability, ransomware recovery features
  • Good for: larger enterprises, compliance-heavy environments
• Cohesity
  • Similar space to Rubrik, strong backup consolidation and recovery
  • Good for: mixed infrastructure, scale-out data protection
• Acronis Cyber Protect
  • Backup plus endpoint/security features
  • Good for: smaller teams wanting integrated protection
• Commvault
  • Very flexible and enterprise-grade
  • Good for: complex environments, policy-driven backup at scale
• Zerto
  • Strong for near-continuous replication and rapid recovery
  • Good for: low RPO/RTO use cases, VM replication, DR runbooks

3) Common “best fit” combinations

Here are practical pairings:

• VMware/Hyper-V enterprise DR
  • Veeam + AWS S3/Glacier or Wasabi
  • Rubrik or Cohesity + Azure/AWS
• Microsoft-centric environment
  • Azure Backup + Azure Site Recovery
  • Veeam + Azure Blob
• Ransomware-resilient backup
  • Veeam immutability + object storage with object lock
  • Rubrik/Cohesity with immutable backups
• Cost-sensitive offsite backup
  • Veeam or Commvault + Backblaze B2 or Wasabi

4) What to prioritize for DR

When evaluating providers, make sure they support:

• Immutability / WORM / object lock
• Versioning and retention policies
• Cross-region or cross-account replication
• Encryption at rest and in transit
• Granular restore testing
• Fast restore and bare-metal recovery
• Role-based access control and MFA
• Audit logs
• Integration with your virtualization, cloud, and identity stack

5) Quick recommendation by team size

• Small IT team: Veeam + Wasabi or Backblaze B2
• Microsoft-heavy org: Azure Backup + Azure Site Recovery
• Mid/large enterprise: Rubrik or Cohesity + AWS/Azure storage
• Need near-zero downtime for critical VMs: Zerto + cloud storage tiering

If you want, I can also give you:

• a shortlist by budget
• a comparison table
• or a recommended DR architecture for VMware, Azure, AWS, or hybrid environments.