Tag Archives: Salvus Data

06.29.15
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IBM is Addressing the Increased Complexity of Corporate Data – Shouldn’t You?

As we have stated several times in different posts on this blog, the complexity of data is increasing. Business data is no longer the traditional structured type that comes from ERP and CRM applications. To remain competitive, the business must include unstructured data from POS systems, Social Media, specialized devices and other sources.

The Internet of Things (IOT) is creating more complex data types within the corporate business data environment. Businesses are integrating the IoT with their mission critical applications at an accelerated rate. 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 adding to the data complexity issue.Salvus Data remote backup

IBM addressed this point in their announcement “IBM Redefines Storage Economics with New Software“. This announcement unveiled IBM Spectrum Storage, a new storage software portfolio designed to address data storage inefficiencies by changing the economics of storage with a layer of intelligent software. From that announcement:

“A new approach is needed to help clients address the cost and complexity driven by tremendous data growth.  Traditional storage is inefficient in today’s world where the value of each piece of data is changing all the time,” said Tom Rosamilia, Senior Vice President, IBM Systems. “IBM is revolutionizing storage with our Spectrum Storage software that helps clients to more efficiently leverage their hardware investments to extract the full business value of data.”

In a previous post, we highlight the issue that this increased complexity and the general evolution of what we now recognize as mission-critical data. These increasingly complex data types are rendering your old data backup and recovery plan obsolete. 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 remote data backup and recovery model, such as that from Salvus Data, is a direction that should be considered. Salvus Data develops and remotely executes the business critical backup strategy. With the Salvus Cloud Management Data Backup/Recovery solution, the client has the most up to date data backup processes without the overhead and time to maintain it. In addition, the client has:

  • access to a team that spends their time doing backups 7×24 365 days a year.
  • the option to have Data Backup/Recovery efforts in-house or at the location of their choice.
  • an American partner who understands business needs within the United States.

The Salvus Data Consultants centrally monitors and manages the backup environments more cost-effectively and with increased service levels. For more information contact Salvus Data at 903-201-7233.

05.18.15
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The Third Platform Will Impact Data Backup and Recovery Procedures

The Third Platform is having an impact on Information Technology department processes and procedures at an accelerated rate. This is while there is still not a clear distinction of the elements of the Third Platform. The Open Group is identifying a set of new platform capabilities, and architecting and standardizing an IT platform by which enterprises can reap the business benefits of Open Platform 3.0. While the elements of the Third Platform are still being clarified, there is little doubt that the platform is here now.Third Platform

The trends of the Third Platform are generally known to be;

  • Mobility
  • Social networks and social enterprise
  • Big data analytics
  • Cloud computing
  • The Internet of Things

The post The Emergence of the Third Platform states “The emergence of the third generation of enterprise platforms is manifested at the crossroads of four distinct, almost simultaneous, disruptive technology shifts; cloud computing, mobile computing, big data-based analytics and the IoT. The use of applications based on these technologies, such as social media and business-driven insight systems, have contributed to both the convergence and rate of adoption.”

SAP may be further blurring the lines of these trends as they role out SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud. Where Big Data was considered to be the platform for Analytics, SAP is implementing HANA for Big Data mission-critical transactional applications as well as analytics delivered from the Cloud. In concert with technology trends and market needs, IBM Continues T0 Expand Its Cloud Offering. IBM announced that it is bringing a greater level of control, security and flexibility to cloud-based application development and delivery with a single-tenant version of Bluemix, IBM’s platform-as-a-service.

Data Backup and Recovery is just one of the IT processes that will need to be reviewed as the Third Platform further develops. Advanced considerations must be incorporated in strategic plans and day-to-day procedures. However, if an organization is not staffed or tooled to design and execute a backup strategy of this level of complexity, 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. A company should look to a service provider that specializes in complex backup strategies while leaving the IT staff time to manage their daily and long-term strategic activities.

 

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.