Tag Archives: data resilience

09.01.15
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The SMB Has The Same Data Challenges as The Large Enterprise Today

Although the SMB is nimble, the SMB also has the challenge of a limited IT staff while data is becoming increasingly more complex.

There are trends impacting the perspective of business, while they prioritize their data backup and resilience programs.

Big Data

Customers using Data Backup and Recovery Solutions are evaluating their present backup and recovery strategies. This is being motivated due to the increase in data complexity because of data variety, velocity and volume.

The Internet of Things

Businesses are integrating specialized devices and applications with core business processes for analytics and advanced business processing. This data from these specialized devices in cars, water meters, etc., has now become corporate data.

Data ManagementThere is a need for the data from all types of devices and social media sources. The result is more complex data types within the SMB business data environment. Businesses are integrating specialized devices and applications with core business processes for analytics and advanced business processing. This data has now become corporate data. SMBs must ensure that critical data is available when needed, even as environments become more complex. Data must also be resilient in the face of regulations, hackers and natural disasters. If disaster does strike, recovery must be fast so there is a minimal impact to the bottom line.

This provides an additional burden on the IT staff in understanding the implications of developing backup procedures for these diverse data types. Central backup procedures must be reviewed by IT for proper governance and assurance of data resiliency. The old method of passing the responsibility of Backup and Recovery to the newest and most junior IT staff person is no longer an option when mission-critical data is now in a combination of structured and unstructured complex formats. The need for a comprehensive data backup strategy becomes more critical to the business, while the implementation of that strategy becomes more complex.

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

06.04.15
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The IoT is Rendering Your Old Data Back and Recovery Plan Obsolete

The Internet of Things is creating more complex data types within the corporate business data environment. This is making the stalworth Disaster Backup and Recovery plan that corporate management is relying on to protect their company obsolete.

IoTBusinesses are integrating the IoT with their mission critical applications at an accelerated rate. There is a need for data from specialized devices and applications to be made available to business applications. The data being generated from devices in trucks, shipping docks, and house water meters are being integrated with core business processes for analytics and advanced business processing. So, this data has now become corporate data.

So, 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. 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.

Irregardless of data changes from the increased impact of the IoT, Sungard states in their post Are Your Backup and Disaster Recovery Procedures More Than A Year Old? Throw Them Out!. “In other words,  people kept using their old disaster recovery blueprints, backup and recovery procedures, run books, and disaster recovery binders. Some of these items are brought out only once a year and, even then, only a cursory glance is paid to them.”

Adding the issue of more complex data types, there should be no hesitation to prioritize the review and update of the corporate data disaster recovery plan. Central backup procedures must be reviewed for proper governance and assurance of data resiliency. This data is now mission critical and must be treated as legacy business data, just like 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.

A business needs to ensure data integrity across the enterprise. A data backup and recovery Managed Service Provider (MSP) is an excellent solution to the new challenges of diverse data types. An MSP can remotely execute business critical backup strategies. Salvus Data, a data backup and recovery MSP, centrally monitors and manages your backup environments cost-effectively. Salvus does this while the corporate data remains within the cpntrol of the company. This improves backup success rates and data recovery. Contact a Tivoli Storage Manager AAA certified MSP; Salvus Data Consultants

05.05.15
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Data Backup Considerations for Cloud Computing as Implementation Evolves

Cloud computing is now being adopted by types of organizations at differing levels of expertise and experience.  These cloud services include analytics, business application, development and collaboration projects.

Start-ups were the early adopters of cloud computing using mission critical applications. The benefits to these start-ups were fast implementation, pay-as-you-go terms, scalability and reduced need for high-level in-house IT expertise, to name a few. Large enterprises initially used cloud applications for development projects, analytics, and other less mission-critical needs.

However, there is now a growing interest in cloud applications by large enterprises with established IT staffs.

Cloud BackupThis interest is demonstrated by the investment large providers such as SAP are making in offering mission-critical offerings to their large enterprise customers. An example is the SAP HANA Cloud platform. As they state on their website, “Quickly build innovative consumer-grade and industry apps for today’s always-on, mobile, social, and data-driven world. Deploy and manage them on a highly scalable, secure platform that leverages the in-memory computing power of SAP HANA.” This is very attractive to any size enterprise. The cloud is rapidly becoming a business critical solution for any enterprise.

Cloud computing is also offering the ability for an enterprise to collaborate with other organizations, external suppliers and customers. As stated in Cloud Computing for Business : What is Cloud? 

“Cloud computing enables businesses to think and act beyond the “four walls” of the company through exchange of services. They can access marketplace best practice solutions, and select effective IT services from multiple sources to meet their needs faster and at lower cost. An ecosystem exists where participants in a defined market have integrated business processes and use common standards for exchange of information, products, and services. In today’s world, companies are participating in highly collaborative ecosystems providing their specific expertise to create end-to-end services. This will become more important in the future.”

The Evolutionary Process of Cloud Implementation

An enterprise will progress through its evolutionary process of implementing a cloud solution. First, it may implement non-critical applications. As that goes well, the company will gradually begin to implement mission critical applications until the entire data center is a cloud implementation. Cloud applications will interact with in-house applications for a period of time as all issues of concern are worked out or accepted. As that all goes well the enterprise will progress into collaborating with other organizations and their cloud applications sharing data and initiating actions such as orders and shipments.

While this is happening, governance, security and resilience must be progressing in a synchronized fashion. Data Backup and Recovery processes must be modified accordingly.

Data backup and recovery processes must follow the evolutionary process. While the data can alternatively remain within the customer’s network and backed up off-site to the customer’s choice backup location, the data backup and recovery processes can be managed in the cloud. The data may or may not be in the cloud with the model of remote data backup administration. When the term “cloud” is mentioned, we visualize an “all or nothing” scenario. We think that the data must be replicated to its backup site. We also imagine that the management of the DR processes and the data together must be in the cloud. But, alternative models are possible.

To further discuss the subject of cloud data backup and recovery management, contact Salvus Data Consultants at 903-201-7233. They are Data Backup/Recovery Managed Service Providers that provide remote management of the Backup process, along with professional Disaster Backup and Recovery consultation.