Posted by BakBone on September 9, 2009
Andrew Martin
With the constant evolution of data protection technology, combined with the increased use of disk-based technology as the prime media in data protection, the concept of “Recovery Point Objective” is now being factored into data protection plans at even the smallest IT departments.
Recovery Time Objective (RTO) refers to how long it takes to recover your data and applications in the event of a system outage or data loss.
Recovery Point Objective (RPO) refers to how granular your data recovery can be. Can you go back to the very last change or is the most recent recoverable version of a file - hours or even days old – acceptable?
In classic backup and recovery strategies, RTO has been the concept that has preoccupied most people responsible for data protection. If something goes wrong how quickly can I recover? Until very recently this question would underpin the recovery plans of the vast majority of requirements that came up across Asia. This held true from SME-type companies right through to large enterprises.
In the last 18 months, it is becoming increasingly common to see IT managers asking about RPO. Sometimes they do not use this exact terminology, but the requirement is similar. How can I ensure I record every change to all of my data and still have the ability to recover or roll back to any previous version of that has been created? In effect, this is what CDP promises to deliver, however, be careful – not all CDP is created equally. Some so-called “CDP” offerings are really continuous snapshots with a possibility that data changes between snapshots will not be recorded and hence will not be recoverable.
So why is RPO becoming as important as RTO?
Compliance is a big issue and drives some of the demand and interest in granular RPO. However, in smaller companies where compliance is still not a big prerequisite, we are still seeing big interest in technologies that deliver granular RPO. I believe some of the reasons relate to vendor messaging. Many vendors now offer a CDP type technology so the messaging is being pushed wide and far. However, it goes further than that. Implementing a technology that delivers truly granular RPO now costs little more – and sometimes less – than a traditional backup offering. This means that the cost benefits and business benefits really make sense for even the smallest companies.
Imagine a web design company, where for a few thousand dollars the IT manager can implement a solution that allows the designer to roll back to any previous version of a document they are working on. The business benefits in that instance alone are hard to ignore.
Further, if we consider that the vast majoirty of recovery requirements are for individual files, not complete system recoveries, we can also see that RPO-based technologies also assist in the pursuit of better RTO.
In truth, one is not more important than the other; the two concepts complement each other. Vendors will push the technology that suits their aims, but the truth is as cost comes down, all data protection strategies should combine technologies that deal with both of these concepts.
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Posted in BakBone Asia | Tagged: Application recovery, backup, BakBone, compliance, Data protection, disk-based backup, fastrecover, granular data recovery, Integrated Data Protection, NetVault, NetVault: FASTRecover, recovery objectives, recovery point objective, recovery time objective, RPO, RTO, storage | Comments Off
Posted by BakBone on July 20, 2009
Andrew Martin
We are seeing a lot of “buzz” around cloud and backup to the cloud. Vendors, analysts and journalists are discussing it. BakBone is finding that the topic is becoming more common place in everyday discussions about data protection.
Issues to consider when thinking about moving data protection out to the cloud:
1 – Complexity does not go away. Protecting an application such as messaging or databases is no less complex simply because the data is being sent out to the cloud. To ensure you get the protection and recovery SLAs your business needs, you still need to work with companies that understand the intricacies of application data protection. In most cases, providers of cloud-based storage capacity will not have the skills or experience in this area. For business data protection, working with a traditional expert in this field that has links to a cloud provider will make most sense.
2 – Who is the provider of the cloud-based infrastructure? This is a key part of your decision. Do they have resources that are secure enough for your business critical data? What data protection strategy do they have in place in their infrastructure? Is the operation too big to respond to individual issues if and when things go wrong? Large corporate providers such as Amazon storage may be suitable, but if your data is highly secure then you must seriously consider whether these providers will give the level of security you require.
3 – Protection is one thing, but recoverability is also vital. Testing a service to establish exactly how quickly data can be recovered in the event of data loss on your primary systems is vital. Not all providers will be the same in this respect and it is important that this is taken into consideration.
4 – How much control do you want to turn over to the cloud based provider? Do you want to outsource the entire data protection function to them or do you simply want a cloud-based repository where you can send your data to? If it is the latter, not much changes other than you reduce backup hardware requirements on your production site. If it is the former then the level of investigation into the provider, their skills and experience becomes critical.
Posted in BakBone Asia | Tagged: Cloud, cloud-based backup | Comments Off
Posted by BakBone on July 9, 2009
Ravikumar Krishnan
It’s hard to imagine a world without tape. For years we have heard countless predictions about the impending demise of tape technologies for data storage and retrieval. On the other hand we also see quite an investment in tape technologies by all sorts of organizations for their archival and HSM projects.
Non-tape technologies, especially disk, will continue to make advances that make them very valuable to organizations where rapid data accessibility is the dominant storage. That segment of the market will continue to see growth in the future. However, for organizations where portability, lower cost, higher density and data protection are important storage needs, tape technology has a clear advantage. Despite the predictions of the contrary, the market for tape storage products continues to grow as analyst firms project steady growth for tape drives and double digit growth in sales of high density tape automation products.
The future is exciting for both tape and non-tape technologies and we expect to see tremendous advancement as innovators to meet the storage needs of customers. BakBone provides multiple options for both tape and disk-based backup, most recently introducing our real-time disk-based solution, NetVault: FastRecover.
Posted in BakBone Asia | Tagged: disk-based backup, tape | Comments Off
Posted by BakBone on July 1, 2009
Andrew Martin
We are finding that de-duplication continues to be a “hot” technology, with at least 25% of all new backup based solutions having some kind of de-duplication technology included in the specification. Industry analysts suggest the figure may be higher with 35% of companies now implanting de-duplication alongside backup
Storing backups on disk and VTL is very commonplace and the benefits of fast backup and faster restore are well known. Implementing de-dupe has one major benefit, allowing you to hold more archive backup on disk for less cost.
This technology is something that is worth familiarising yourself with even if you have no immediate plans to implement it. As industry figures show about half of all IT departments are planning to implement it within the next 24 months.
However, we are finding that de-duplication is less being thought of as a separate technology decision and is increasingly being thought of as a component of backup. Evidence of this can be seen by the number of vendors, hardware and software that are now starting to offer their own de-duplication offering.
In-band hardware vendors including Data Domain and Diligent are still very popular, with Data Domain scoring highly for having a wide range of products that start from branch office requirements through to the enterprise. The recent bidding to acquire Data Domain is not surprising. The technology is “hot” and it would not be surprising to see more consolidation in this technology area.
New players such as Exagrid have good out-of-band technology that can deliver faster performance but may also require more physical disk.
We see a trend to existing backup specialists both hardware and software starting to offer their own de-duplication technology as an optional extra in their portfolio. Our experience is that this is likely to hold greater appeal for those not wishing to be early adopters. As with a relatively immature technology, it can be safer to go with a company and brand that has experience rather than a new or start-up venture.
Posted in BakBone Asia | Tagged: de-duplication, storage | Comments Off
