Entries categorized under “Data Protection”

Nearly every small, medium or large organization is heading down the path of adopting disk-based data protection as a way to solve their legacy problems of backup to tape. But what many of these organizations have yet to recognize is that as they adopt disk to store these post-production copies of data, a new opportunity is presenting itself. They now have the option to manage and leverage post-production data in ways that were never possible when on tape but now lack the tools to do so. (read more)

Backing up an Oracle database used to be the sole responsibility of database administrators. This mundane task was often performed in the back alleys of corporate IT, not gaining much notoriety, and as such was often considered to be an easy task for DBAs. The truth of the matter is that backing up an Oracle database has gone through many changes in the last 30 years and has always been met with some uncertainty. (read more)

Last week Tuesday I began to reflect on the most read blog entries on DCIG's site this past year in terms of the number of page views they received. In that blog entry I covered the blog entries that came in at numbers 8, 9 and 10 on DCIG's site in 2010. Today I want to pick up by covering the blog entries that come in the middle - from #7 down to #4. (read more)

Since DCIG released its 2011 Virtual Server Backup Software Buyer's Guide this past Tuesday, December 14th, 2010, the criticisms have been flying. Samples of the criticisms include: "DCIG was paid off!" "We did not know how this research was going to be used!" "We were never given the opportunity to license the Buyer's Guide!" and so on. While I won't reply to each and every response, some highly unprofessional and unwarranted, I'll sum up a few that have come to my attention and why I do not believe they have any merit. (read more)

Today DCIG and SMB Research are pleased to jointly announce the availability of a new, comprehensive 2011 Virtual Server Backup Software Buyer's Guide that weights, scores and ranks over 20 virtual server backup software products. This Buyer's Guide gives small, medium and large enterprises the resources they need to assist them in making what is becoming one of their most critical buying decisions: procuring a solution that protects the data of their virtualized application servers. (read more)

In the last few years more backup software vendors have abandoned traditional methods of software licensing that is based upon the total numbers of applications, CPUs, servers or some combination thereof. Instead they switching to a capacity based software licensing model where users get all of their product's software features and then only pay a monthly or annual fee based upon the total amount of storage capacity consumed. (read more)

Sometimes it is difficult to put a price tag on "peace of mind" especially as it relates to having the confidence that application data can be recovered regardless of the scope of the disaster. But today more IT administrators are finding that elusive peace of mind. One such individual is Bill Ellis, the IT Infrastructure Manager for the Rug Doctor, Inc., whose confidence in his ability to recover data got a huge boost after testing and implementing the FalconStor Continuous Data Protector (CDP) solution. (read more)

It is almost universally recognized that protecting and recovering applications and application data that reside on Linux, UNIX, VMware or Microsoft Windows servers is a necessity no matter what the cost. Yet most organizations still fail to have a good response for backing up the growing amount of data that resides on the desktops and laptops because of the 1 and 2 TB HDDs that they now possess. (read more)

DCIG and SMB Research are nearing completion on the DCIG Virtual Server Backup Software Buyer's Guide.While you will have to wait just awhile longer, we don't mind giving you a quick sneak peek at some of the great insight you can expect to gain from the finished product. (read more)

Small and medium businesses (SMBs) are rapidly moving towards virtualizing their physical servers using VMware. But as they do so, they are also looking to minimize the cost, complexity and overhead that the backup of VMware servers introduces while increasing their ability to recover their newly virtualized applications. It is these concerns that InMage's new vContinuum software addresses by using a new technique to tap into VMware that provides near zero impact backups with near real time recoveries. (read more)

SMBs are being confronted with some tough choices right now when it comes to backup and recovery. While most want to use disk as their primary backup target, trying to balance recovery time objectives (RTOs), getting their data offsite and still keeping their costs under control makes this a fine line to walk. However an interesting answer to this problem was jointly presented to me last week at SNW by Imation and BDT Products. (read more)

To say that FalconStor has had some struggles over the past few weeks would probably be a bit of an understatement. Any time that a company's CEO abruptly resigns with "certain improper payments" cited as the reason for his departure, it can leave a company floundering and seeking direction. However having had an opportunity to chat with FalconStor's new CEO, Jim McNeil, at SNW over dinner this past week, he is already helping FalconStor move past the CEO's departure and regroup and refocus under his leadership. (read more)

Last week Josef Pfeiffer, a Symantec NetBackup product manager, posted a comment in response to a blog entry that I wrote regarding the CommVault® Simpana® 9 release. In his comment, he touched on one of the new debates that is occurring in the new battle for backup by posing the following question, "Why not upgrade to the latest release (NetBackup 7) and get more functionality rather than settle for less features and a big migration that may or may not work?" (read more)

2011 is shaping up to be a point of demarcation for how enterprise data is managed and protected. But in making that claim I cannot point to any specific analyst study or market survey to support it. Rather it is my sense that enterprise organizations can no longer ignore or put off their need to better manage, protect and recover their data. So when I see new releases like today's CommVault® Simpana® 9 and the features that it has packed into it, I see it ushering in the new era of enterprise data management, protection and recovery that these enterprise organizations crave. (read more)

Back at the end of July I took a look at why traditional backup software approaches are faltering at managed service providers (MSPs) and new solutions such as those from R1Soft are having such success with these providers. Since then I have had an opportunity to speak with GSI Hosting, an MSP in Kansas City, MO, who explained why it opted for R1Soft's Continuous Data Protection instead of a more traditional backup solution. (read more)

The combination of cloud computing, cloud storage, inexpensive hardware, virtualization and heightened user demands for near real time backup and recovery are creating a crisis in traditional backup methodologies. It is a crisis in the sense that there is no way any emerging virtualized data center is going to find that how these backups work and are managed even slightly acceptable in the very near future. This suggests that in 2011 the transformation in backup that many have predicted will occur and it will go well beyond just deduplicating backup data stored to disk. (read more)

Talk all you want about the different features and functions found in backup software. If an IT administrator in a small and midsize enterprise (SME) thinks about backup at all it is in the context of "How easy is it to get it to work?" and "How much does it cost?" However, calculating any backup software's ease of configuration and price is tricky at best. (read more)

Over the past few years there has been a lot of hype that tape storage is being left dead. But while disk is capturing the fancy of enterprise organizations because of disk's success in solving their primary backup and recovery problems, longer-term issues with data management are just now starting to surface. It is for this reason that enterprise data centers are finding new tape library solutions such as the Overland Storage NEO 8000e well suited for their emerging archiving needs. (read more)

If past VMworld conferences are any indication, more than 10,000 individuals will head to San Francisco the last week of this month looking for the latest advancements and news regarding VMware at VMworld 2010. But with so many organizations confronted with new backup challenges that are part and parcel of any VMware implementation, as well as looking to take advantage of the new recovery options that it creates, do not be surprised if data protection steals some of the spotlight at this year's event. (read more)

For this Friday's weekly recap blog entry I asked my colleague Robert "Bob" Eastman over at SMB Research, LLC, to write it for me. Bob along with Miles Prescott, the other half of the SMB Research team, are collaborating with DCIG to help produce the forthcoming Virtual Server Backup Software Buyer's Guide that we have planned for publication in October 2010. (read more)

In the past two months I have probably received more calls from end-users inquiring as to what steps they should take to re-architect their backup infrastructures than I have in the past two years. Yet what I find encouraging is that they are no longer just asking me for point solutions or short term fixes. Rather they are looking for architectures that they can put in place that will solve their immediate pain points while leaving them well-positioned for the future. (read more)

Replication is becoming an ever more important component in the protection and recovery of applications. Anecdotal evidence already suggests that 50% or more of all SAN and NAS storage systems ship with some form of replication software while many more organizations use replication in its other forms (application, appliance or host-based). But regardless of what form of replication software that organizations buy, they are many times unaware of the subtle ways in which replication software products differentiate themselves. (read more)

Sometimes when you find a good thing you have to roll with it and that is exactly what DCIG plans to do with its new line of Buyer's Guide products. Last month DCIG announced the availability of its first ever Buyer's Guide of any kind for either storage or ESI products. Since then its reception among storage providers and end-users alike has so surpassed our expectations that DCIG has decided to expand the scope of these offerings. It is for that reason DCIG is today pleased to announce that it is beginning research and plans to bring to market by the end of 2010 four more DCIG Buyer's Guides. (read more)

Taking snapshots of applications is fast becoming a prerequisite for backup and recovery as well as a means for testing how well application fixes, patches and upgrades will work. But as more organizations adopt Linux as their preferred operating system to host their applications, they are also finding that the native Snapshot utility found in Linux's Logical Volume Manager (LVM) does not provide them with all of the functionality they need. (read more)

This has been a bit of a quiet week in terms of blog entries on the DCIG website but I did not want to leave everyone hanging on the Friday before going into the Memorial Day weekend. So for this week's recap blog I opted to reflect on a conversation that I had with Hosting.com's Backup Operations Manager a few weeks ago. In that conversation, he provided some interesting perspectives in terms of how Hosting.com is using R1Soft in its environment. (read more)