Your Computer Network Solution
Up-to-the-Minute Data Backup Strategies Now a Reality
For more than 4 decades now, the conventional approach to backup of critical business data systems has been tape archive. Typically done nightly, backups of application data are archived to tape media. Tape has proven cost effective and attractive from a physical perspective: tapes are small, inexpensive and easily taken offsite, providing a degree of disaster recovery. In the event that files or data need to be recovered, the appropriate tape is located and the data is restored.
As technology has advanced and disk capacity has grown exponentially, the limitations of tape archiving have become increasingly apparent. We are finding that data capacity requirements exceed what can be backed up to a single tape, necessitating the use of multiple tapes or libraries. The time required to backup these larger amounts of data has grown to a point where backups can’t be completed overnight, interfering with performance and availability of general network resources.
Furthermore, tape backup is prone to periodic failure and has not always proven reliable in recovery when needed most. This is a result of a variety of things including contamination from dust, smoke or moisture; tape stretching; tape wear; or misalignment of the tape drive head, Unless you physically perform an actual restore using different tape drive hardware, you really don’t have a high degree of certainty that your critical data can be recovered when required. A better alternative is needed.
Disk-to-disk-to-tape
One of the benefits of increasingly available large capacity, inexpensive disks is the ability to use these very disks as a medium for backup. Disks are fast, reduce backup times significantly, and provide immediate confirmation that recovery of files is possible. As a result, new generations of backup applications have been developed that provide almost real time data backup that can be recovered in seconds with almost complete confidence.
Companies such as Microsoft, with its System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM), and Symantec, with its BackupExec for Windows Servers, provide easy-to-use tools to give businesses not only transparent backup of data, but snapshots taken at intervals as close as every 15 minutes. This means that in the event of a failure, your data backup is only minutes old. By taking full advantage of Microsoft’s Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS), you can have weeks, months, even a year’s worth of data history available at your fingertips without needing volumes and volumes of disk or tape.
By combining this new approach with tape backup, we now have added the benefits of tape and disaster recovery capabilities to much improved backup and recovery processes. At a click of a mouse, you can easily recover a file or directory within a matter of seconds, all without having to search and load a tape. A practical use for this might be the need to recover a single e-mail message from an archived mailbox for instance. With today’s ever increasing concern about personal data and the proclivity toward litigation, you would be wise to take the necessary precautions to protect your data.
The approach of combining disk and tape for a more reliable data protection environment has become increasingly popular, especially when clients are performing technology refreshes; i.e. upgrading and re-deploying older servers as dedicated protection servers. It’s a great way to improve your data protection and extend the useful life of your equipment. Please give Chris Faist, Integrated Computer Systems Support a call at 425-284-5410 and we can explore the best options for your company.
