Tag Archives: Data backup and recovery strategies

11.18.14
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Backup Considerations Grow Within the SMB as the Internet of Things Grows

The IT staffs of medium-sized companies will be seeing more requests to integrate the IoT (Internet of Things) with their missions critical applications.

As stated in the article Internet Of Things: Software platforms will become the rage in 2015, “The growing scope and importance of the data from IoT will force CIOs to integrate the Internet of Things into their Business Technology agenda, with full capabilities for data management, analytics, security, and enterprise application integration.”

Internet of ThingsSo, what is the Internet of Things? First, let’s understand that there is a growing trend in the use of sensors in cars, traffic lights, water meters, and much more. When these devices connect to the Internet to transfer their data to monitoring applications, business applications, or to other devices, this environment becomes the Internet of Things. Other data contributing to the environment is the data from Social Media activity and other applications not in the category of typical core business applications.

It is important to understand that it is the data being transferred over the Internet that makes the Internet of Things (IoT). If these devices or applications remained in communication with only their own platform, they would not be part of IoT.

The trend is that there is a need for the data from these devices and applications to be made available to business applications for increased corporate value. Businesses are integrating these specialized devices and applications with core business processes for analytics and advanced business processing. This data has now become corporate data.

The result is more complex data types within the corporate business data environment. Central backup procedures must be reviewed by IT for proper governance and assurance of data resiliency. This data is now mission critical and must be treated as legacy business data, such as Accounting, Payroll, etc. This provides an additional burden on the IT staff in understanding the implications of developing backup procedures for these diverse data types.

For assistance in reviewing your backup procedure, you can contact Salvus Data, a data backup and recovery MSP specializing in Tivoli Storage Manager.

10.07.14
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Archival Data Storage Cannot Be Left Forgotten and Still Remain Resilient

Data must be resilient. And Data Resilience is from being able to to go back to any point in time and selectively recover.

As stated in Building a better archival storage strategy “Data that’s no longer referenced with any frequency tends to fall off the radar. The only concern is that it not be deleted, because that could have devastating consequences.”.

Data RecoveryIt is not good enough that data is just not deleted. There are real life situations that require the ability to “look back in time”. Data backup and recovery strategies must meet company policies regarding regulatory requirements, data breaches, ability to respond to court orders, and more.

Consider that data is not only to be backed up for protection of a catastrophic event, but, it also needs to be restored in different ways for 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.

Salvus Data Consultants is a managed service provider that can assist 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.

09.05.14
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Don’t Forget These Things When Data Backup and Recovery Processes are Being Developed

When evaluating data backup and recovery processes, there are several things to consider.

First, and maybe most importantly, recognize this will be the most mission critical activity undertaken when the company’s data needs to be restored. There is often an inclination to assign data backup to the most junior IT staff member because IT staffs are overloaded. This decision could be detrimental when the time arises to get the data back in production and the company back online. Data backup and recovery must be put in the hands of professionals that understand this complex discipline.Planning Technical Processes

There should also be an understanding that data recovery does not only occur in the case of a natural disaster. Data backup and recovery strategies must also meet company policies regarding regulatory requirements, data breaches, ability to respond to court orders, and more. 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.

The design of the Data Backup process has multiple dimensions. These multiple dimensions must all be considered when designing the process, handling of exceptions and the physical network to support the backup and restore process. One dimension cannot be discussed without overlaying the other dimensions to develop a complete solution. The analysis must consider the function of the data, the medium the data is on, the physical location of the data in relation to the location of its backup site, to name just a few.

Recovery time requirements are important. The business requirement may require a certain restore time. In other words, if it takes so long to restore the entire environment that the company is no longer able to remain in business, then what’s the point? A regulatory body requirement is not met, then financially damaging fees may be assessed to the company.

A major part of the backup and recovery process is the physical network. To name just a few of the factors that impact the infrastructure design would be the frequency of the backups, the required time for the restore to be completed for effectiveness, the medium the data resides, the proximity of the backup location to the original site, etc. Networks may be under-powered to meet data backup and recovery requirements.

Another dimension of the Data Backup process is the medium the data resides. All considerations must be applied to each type of data that exists in the computer environment. This is true for the backup and the restore processes of the data.

Outsourcing data backup processes is an approach that should be considered. Outsourcing to an American managed service provider is often the preferred choice; especially if the data can remain within the control of the company and only the backup and recovery procedures are performed remotely by the data backup and recovery MSP.

Data backup and recovery is a discipline mastered by those that specialize in it. Data backup/recovery is a mission-critical process that requires the same attention as the most important ERP or CRM application.

For more information on enterprise data backup and recovery, contact Salvus Data Consultants. Salvus uses Tivoli Storage Management (TSM) remotely to manage your Data B/R plan for you while you maintain control of the data.