Nexcess launches one-hour disaster recovery for SMBs

Managed cloud provider Nexcess has rolled out a disaster recovery service designed to restore servers within an hour, a sharp contrast to the six-hour or longer rebuilds common with traditional backup restores. The service extends the company’s existing Acronis-powered backup product by maintaining a live, bootable mirror of a customer’s server in the cloud, ready to activate automatically when needed.

The offering targets small and midsize businesses, a segment that often skips disaster recovery due to the complexity and cost of maintaining a secondary site or replication infrastructure. Nexcess’s approach simplifies the process by using a single agent already deployed for backups, eliminating the need for additional hardware or manual oversight. Automated test failovers provide customers with proof that the system works before an incident occurs, rather than relying on untested promises.

How the service works

Nexcess’s disaster recovery service provisions a mirrored server on a pre-configured network, which activates automatically in the event of a failure. The company guarantees a one-hour recovery time objective (RTO), meaning businesses can resume operations within that window instead of enduring the multi-hour delays typical of snapshot-based restores. The service is available as an add-on for existing Nexcess backup customers or as part of a new managed cloud plan.

The service went live on 14 September 2026, though Nexcess did not specify whether the date marked general availability or an early-access phase. Customers can enable the feature without deploying new agents, as the existing Acronis backup agent handles the replication process.

Why businesses need faster recovery

Most small and midsize businesses rely on nightly backups, which protect data but do little to minimize downtime. A ransomware attack or hardware failure can force a business to rebuild a server from scratch, a process that often takes hours or even days. Nexcess’s general manager for managed cloud, Michael Ohayon, emphasized the distinction between backups and disaster recovery, noting that many companies only recognize the gap during a crisis.

"A backup protects your data. Disaster recovery protects your business." — Michael Ohayon, General Manager for Managed Cloud, Nexcess (Hosting Discussion)

Ransomware attacks, hardware failures, and stricter compliance requirements are pushing businesses to adopt solutions that prioritize uptime, not just data preservation. Nexcess’s service aims to address this by ensuring that a server can be restored with minimal manual intervention, reducing the revenue loss associated with prolonged outages.

What’s next for disaster recovery

The service reflects a broader shift in the managed hosting industry toward simplifying disaster recovery for smaller businesses. Traditional disaster recovery setups require dedicated infrastructure and ongoing maintenance, which many SMBs cannot afford. By automating failovers and integrating the service into existing backup workflows, Nexcess is betting that ease of use will drive adoption.

For now, the service is limited to Nexcess’s managed cloud customers, but the model could influence other providers to offer similar solutions. If successful, it may encourage more businesses to move beyond basic backups and invest in recovery solutions that minimize downtime.