Entries categorized under “Disk Based Backup”

It can sound so easy to back up to the cloud. Just plug in a backup appliance and it does all of the work. While there is an element of truth to that, there are certain steps organizations should take to ensure they are getting the results they expect when implementing a backup appliance that backs up to the cloud. In this third and final segment of my interview series with STORServer's Jarrett Potts, we discuss best practices for backing up to the cloud and recommend some steps that organizations should take to maximize backup and recovery times while minimizing costs. (read more)

O'Reilly School of Technology does what many organizations now do when daily backing up its production data: it uses array-based snapshots on its NAS filer. However its internal policies call for it to copy each set of weekly or monthly array-based snapshots to another storage media (disk or tape) for long term data retention and offsite protection. (read more)

Backup and the cloud are becoming increasingly linked as they solve two issues that have plagued organizations for years: automating the movement of data offsite and providing a cost-effective means to store it there. But just because one can back up to the cloud does not mean all solutions do so equally well. In this first part of an interview series with STORServer's Jarrett Potts, we examine what specific features a solution needs to offer to effectively back up to the cloud as well as how the solution needs to be constructed. (read more)

Large enterprises are feeling the pressure of Big Data in every way possible. They have more data to store, more information to access and less time than ever to back it up, secure it and then recover it. It is in this area of backup and recovery that enterprises need better options to protect their data while also alleviating mounting security concerns. The Sepaton S2100-ES3 2925 with its new V7.0 software provides them with the match they want. (read more)

Ready or not, here comes the cloud and, for many organizations, backup to the cloud is squarely in their sights. However backup to the cloud does not mean they should abandon the best of what today's localized backup processes have to offer. By instead taking a hybrid approach to cloud backup such as what Western Digital (WD®) offers, they can get on a secure path to storing data in the cloud without breaking either their backup processes or their budget. (read more)

The line between archive and backup data stores has always been a little fuzzy from the viewpoint of end users. How these respective data stores should be deployed and managed from a theoretical standpoint were always fairly clear cut even though in reality they often ended up on the same backend storage pool. The growth of unstructured data stores is changing that. However it is only altering how these processes will be managed going forward even as their data continues to cohabit next to one another. (read more)

Using a network attached disk storage appliance as a backup target is more appealing than ever to small and midsized businesses (SMBs). These appliances are economical. They are easy to buy and deploy. They have high storage capacities. They are available everywhere. (read more)

The good news from an organizational perspective is that when looking for a backup appliance there is a wide range of them from which to choose. That is also the bad news. Having so many choices behooves organizations to first understand their particular needs before selecting a backup appliance. (read more)

Virtual backup appliances (VBAs) are the new hot ticket in backup. Providing an economical alternative to physical backup appliances, they are finding a new home as the preferred solution to backup branch, remote and small offices as well as serving as a replication target. But to fulfill these different roles results in the need for VBAs to take on their own personalities. The new Virtual Backup Software in Eversync 5.1 gives organizations access to a solution they have long sought: simplified backup and replication. (read more)

Backup appliances are going virtual for one very simple reason: organizations want to virtualize all of their applications in their small, branch and remote offices to include their backup software while retaining the ease of deployment that physical backup appliances offer. As this occurs, there are five key factors that they need to keep in mind in order to select the right VBA for them. (read more)

Over the last few years backup appliances have emerged as one of the hottest trends in data protection. Yet with these appliances coming to prominence so quickly and so many of them now available from which organizations may choose, it is easy for us who have been in the storage industry to forget that many are learning about backup appliances for the first time. So today I'd thought I would dedicate a blog entry to explaining just exactly what problems backup appliances solve and then some factors to consider when selecting one. (read more)

Ask any business owner or IT administrator how much storage they will need in a few years and they will likely hem and haw trying to come up with a reasonable answer. Ask them to share their true feelings and they will in all likelihood respond, "I don't know." The good news is that storage architectures are now available that take the risk out of this uncertainty and that do not require yet another expensive, disruptive and risky forklift upgrade. (read more)

Mention the year 2008 or 2009 to almost any person and it almost inevitably elicits a negative reaction in terms of how those years were from a business perspective. However as DCIG renews its annual tradition of reflecting back on what blog entries were most read on its website during the course of 2012, 2008 and 2009 emerged as very good years in terms of DCIG providing content that is still relevant and frequently read in 2012. Today and over the next four (4) business days, I will share what blog entries garnered the most attention on DCIG's website in 2012. (read more)

Backup appliances are rapidly becoming the de facto standard for organizations as a means to quickly and easily solve their backup challenges. But their availability as a turnkey solution creates a new dilemma for organizations: how to appropriately size a backup appliance for their environment with midsized businesses particularly challenged in making this assessment. As it turns out, "1:1" is a good rule of thumb for midsized business to follow to choose the right size backup appliance for them and why new appliances like the EMC Avamar Business Edition are so well suited for their environments. (read more)

This past week I received an email from someone asking for my help in their process of buying a backup appliance. This individual had just downloaded the DCIG 2012 Backup Appliance Buyer's Guide but, due to the number of models included in the Buyer's Guide (over 60), was looking for some recommendations from me as to which one to buy. While I sent this individual a list of backup appliances to look at more closely, it brought to my attention that there are five questions every organization should ask and answer before buying a backup appliance. (read more)

DCIG has been producing Buyer's Guides since 2010 and every time it produces one, new information comes to its attention. This information sometimes forces DCIG to adjust how it prepares a particular Buyer's Guide to include how it scores and ranks products in it to properly and accurately reflect our findings. In preparing the 165-page DCIG 2012 Backup Appliance Buyer's Guide, DCIG encountered such an anomaly in that it felt compelled for the first time to introduce and assign an "Enterprise" ranking to one of the backup appliances covered in the Buyer's Guide. (read more)

The introduction of disk as a backup target has finally resulted in what many small and midsize businesses (SMBs) have wanted for years: a good copy of their backup data. Yet having a good copy of backup data on disk does not automatically mean they have put in place a good backup process. The good news is that creating a good backup process is as simple as "3 - 2 - 1." (read more)

Mixed physical and virtual IT infrastructures and the protection of them are now a reality in enterprises of almost every size. But with these environments now in place, enterprises are turning their attention to using either a single product or interface to manage data protection across all of it. Quest's Software's release of NetVault Backup 9.0 gives them two paths to follow to arrive at this common centralized data protection management destination. (read more)

One aspect of data protection that enterprises often overlook is the types of servers and the number of them that they do NOT backup. Enterprises are pretty conscientious about protecting business and mission critical applications (physical or virtual.) It is the rest of their production physical and virtual machines (VMs) which often go unprotected due to the reluctance of organizations to invest in software to back them up. Idera Server Backup 5.0's new licensing model that drives per VM backup costs down to as low as $15 per VM removes these concerns and frees organizations to cost-effectively extend data protection to all of their production servers. (read more)

Enterprise backup has changed significantly in the last decade with disk-based backup and deduplication contributing largely to that shift. But as array-based snapshots emerge as the next big wave in how data protection is done, organizations should not assume that a choice between array-based snapshots and disk-based backup looms. Rather, array-based snapshots and disk-based backup are complementary technologies that change the decision from being "one or the other" to "how to make them work better together." (read more)

More data, shrinking backup windows and less time for recovery translate into a troubled future for traditional backup. This is why snapshots and replication are being hailed as a way to address these problems for a new future for data protection and recovery. However there is just one small problem with that vision: they add complexity and fail to offer all of backup software's features. The CommVault IntelliSnap Recovery Manager removes the roadblocks to taking full advantage of hardware snapshots by making the management and recovery of them consistent, practical to implement and easy to manage even as it retains backup software's key advantages. (read more)

To say "All virtual machine (VM) backup software is the same" is like saying "All birds can fly." While VM backup software solutions can and certainly do protect VMs, the techniques they use, what hypervisors they support and how they manage backup and recovery vary greatly between them. Understanding and quantifying these differences becomes especially important for those organizations looking to select the best solution to protect the growing number of VMs in their environment. (read more)

Business continuity and disaster recovery have been "top" priorities for many enterprises going back at least a decade. However it is difficult to keep these strategic objectives at the "top" of the priority list when they encounter operational headwinds brought on by age-old tactical backup concerns such as increasing backup capacities and performance. Tackling these complementary but often conflicting priorities requires the implementation of a solution that delivers on both of these objectives. (read more)

To date, backup has been largely driven by a single business objective: creating a recoverable copy of data. But as business service level agreements (SLAs) continue to demand ever shorter application recovery times, creating backups - even if they are good backups - without having any visibility into expected recovery times is simply not enough. Now, the requirements of physical and virtual application recovery must align with these heightened business expectations. (read more)

KISS - "Keep IT Simple, Stupid" - is the objective of almost every small and midsized business (SMB) on the planet. However SMBs and storage providers sometimes define "simple" in very different ways, especially when it comes to performing tasks like data protection and business continuity. Taking this challenge head-on, VMware has tightly integrated EMC Avamar technology in its new vSphere Data Protection offering to provide SMBs with the level of simplicity that they expect and need. (read more)