Tag Archives: Backup

09.11.14
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Cloud Data Backup Does Not Have to be All or Nothing

Adoption of the cloud for mission critical business applications is accelerating. But, does it have to be “all or nothing”.

As stated in the post How to Evaluate Moving Legacy Mission-Critical Apps to the Cloud “A recently released survey conducted by Stratus, North Bridge Venture Partners and GigaOM Research found that 75 percent of firms are now reporting the use of some sort of cloud platform, and the worldwide addressable market for cloud computing will reach $158.8 billion by 2013, an increase of 126.5 percent from 2011.”

cloud data backupKevin Parker of Rackspace says “But the real unspoken advantage of cloud adoption—and something not enough people talk about—is that it lets companies adopt modern development techniques, allowing businesses to innovate and reduce time to market. The ability to speed up development lifecycles and to deliver value to market on short intervals—this is how businesses are going to maintain their competitive advantage in this new era of cloud IT.

When the term “cloud” is mentioned, we visualize an “all or nothing” scenario. An example would be data backup and recovery where all the data and the processes are expected to be deployed in the cloud. But, this is not the only model that is possible. A hybrid model may be the preferred in certain cases.

In the case of data backup and recovery, for instance, the data can alternatively remain within the customer’s network and deployed off site at the customer’s choice location. The processes can be managed in the cloud. The data does not have to be in the cloud with the data backup administration. They can be separate. The benefit gained by deploying the data backup processes in the cloud is having the management of the data backup and recovery performed and scheduled remotely by specialists in this field. An additional benefit is to remove the burden of understanding and managing data backup processes from the already stretched IT staff.

There are Data Backup/Recovery Managed Service Providers (DB/R MSP) that provide remote management of the Backup process, along with professional Disaster Backup and Recovery consultation. Contracting a DB/R MSP with the model of remote DB/R management allows the enterprise to maintain their data locally without the need to hire new staff or train existing staff in sophisticated data backup and recovery processes.

For more information on the subject of cloud data backup and recovery management, contact Salvus Data Consultants.

08.07.14
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Resilient Data Must Stand Up to More Than Just a Catastrophic Event

To say that data is resilient is more than just saying the data can be recovered after a catastrophic event. Resilience must also take into considerations processes that are ongoing and may be taking a toll on the data’s stability over a period of time. This is especially true of Big Data. Data that is a combination of internal business processes data and data from outside sources, such as Social Media.

resilient dataData should be treated as we treat our own bodies. We exercise and eat well to have a backup of energy and muscle to take over when our body might tell us that some repetitive motion, or lack of motion, has caused harm.

Just as our bodies, data can be slowly eroding in its quality due to an incorrect assumption by a systems analyst or an unknown error in applications code. But, in the case of data, where is the reserve? The answer is in the data backup. Resilience exists only if you have the ability to go back to a time before the errant processes began to erode the value of the data and then selectively recover.

There was no event that occurred, or, disaster that rung bells and stopped applications. There was only a slow erosion of data quality that now needs to be reversed so that the data provides value into the future.

These are the scenarios that professional data backup and recovery specialists consider.  These nuances cannot be overlooked and ignored. As we have stated in an earlier blog  ENTERPRISE DATA BACKUP IS MORE THAN JUST BEING ABLE TO GET THE DATA BACK, there are real life situations that require the ability to “look back in time”. To be able to just restore data from last night’s backup is not sufficient.

Salvus Data Consultants assist companies in evaluating your data backup and recovery processes to ensure that all scenarios are considered to ensure your data is resilient, not just backed up. Then Salvus can manage your entire backup and recovery processes remotely without your data ever leaving your control.

07.16.14
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Enterprise Data Backup is More Than Just Being Able to Get the Data Back

The purpose of enterprise data backup is more than just being prepared to restore data in the case of a catastrophic event resulting from weather or machine failure.

Court oder on data requirementsData backup and recovery strategies must also meet company policies regarding regulatory requirements, data breaches, ability to respond to court orders, and more. These requirements go beyond just putting the data back the way it was before the disaster.

Company policies may have varying stipulations for retention and restore requirements from the different areas of responsibilities. For instance:

Regulatory Requirements

A company knows what regulatory bodies they must comply with. However, that coordination is not always formalized between the IT staff responsible for data back and recovery and the department responsible for the regulatory compliance. Regulatory compliance can become quite complex and is often changing. For instance, an organization may find that they must comply with HIPAA because they handle medical records on their employees or students, FFIEC because they handle money, and FISMA because they participate in government grants. Each regulatory requirement can have unique data recovery responsibilities that are being modified on a sporadic basis.

Data Breaches

The Business Continuity department of large organizations is finding that their responsibilities have grown beyond people, facilities and information systems. The Business Continuity people are now approached with the responsibility of handling response, protection and recovery procedures if enterprise data is compromised. Data breaches are becoming more of a threat, both from a technical perspective and a reputation perspective. Data resilience is critical to the business regarding the increase in data breaches over the recent years.

Court Orders

An enterprise has the responsibility to be prepared to respond to court orders for information requests. In the case of litigation, the duty to preserve evidence can start with reasonable anticipation of litigation. As the litigation process proceeds, the data retention requirements may need to be dynamically altered from current standard company procedures.

Consider that data is not only to be backed up for protection of a catastrophic event, but, it also needs to be restored for many different purposes and meet varying requirements. This requires coordinated strategies and testing. Data Backup strategies must be planned and tested to assure all company requirements regarding data retention and recovery are met.

Consult with Data Backup and Recovery specialists, such as Salvus Data Consultants to ensure your organizations is taking into considerations all data recovery requirements.