Integrated Solutions
by Ed Miseta
July 2004
Disk backup solutions are gaining acceptance among users. But to properly protect your data,
don't ignore tape.
Data protection has become a hot topic in the last two years, due in part to the
tragedy of September 11, 2001 and new government compliance requirements.
Companies across all markets are looking for reliable solutions to protect their
data and ensure it is retrievable when needed. What should you know before
making an investment in a data protection solution?
According to Dave Kenyon, director of enterprise product marketing at Quantum
Corp. (San Jose, CA), the current trend in data protection is the integration of
disk-based and tape-based technologies. "When it comes to archiving data, disk,
and tape, create a total solution," he says. "The rhetoric a year ago was that
disk would take over the market and users would no longer need tape. Today,
vendors and users alike are focused on the tight integration of both
technologies."
Kenyon notes that when disk solutions first hit the market, everyone wanted to
back up to those products. Software solutions made it easy for users to send
their backup data to any disk array they had. But those users soon found
themselves faced with a host of problems. The disk array had to be integrated
into a backup environment, performance did not seem to be as good as it is for
many tape drives on the market, and there were issues with viruses. End users
now realize that disk alone cannot solve all of their problems.
Kenyon states that most companies have policies and procedures that govern the
handling of their backup data. Fast backups are desirable, but IT administrators
also have off-site policies and legal requirements that mandate how they must
save their data for archival purposes. Those policies and procedures have shaped
the way disk and tape work together. "Once users started implementing disk
backup, they realized the implementation of the solution is very important," he
says. "To properly archive backup data for long-term retention, tape has to be
part of the solution."
Identical Copies Makes Restores Easier
Diamond Lauffin, executive VP at Nexsan (Woodland Hills, CA), agrees that
disk-based solutions are gaining acceptance. But Lauffin takes the disk argument
one step further. Where you store the data is important, but so is how you save
the data. Lauffin believes the future of data protection is in full file backups
with path redirect. "This is the area where we see a lot of momentum," he says.
Lauffin is referring to the ability of end users to migrate data to a secondary
location and reassemble the data in full file format. By doing so, the user's
data and backup will exist in two locations at the same time. This provides a
backup the user can refer to, while the second copy of the data at another
location provides the necessary disaster recovery protection.
Lauffin believes the main problem with most backup solutions is the way data is
stored. "Most of the standard backup software packages are proprietary and
compress the data," he says. "That means if a user backs up their data with one
of these packages, they must use that same product to restore the data. I would
say 99% of all backups performed are done with one of these proprietary software
packages."
By replicating data to another location, however, users can be back online with
the most recent version of their data in a short amount of time. In this
alternative, the backup data is saved in full file format, meaning it appears
exactly as it does on the primary copy. File and directory trees on the backup
disk or tape look exactly as they do in their original location. "If a notebook
or workstation is lost," says Lauffin, "the user can get another computer and
retrieve all of their files from the backup location." The files would look
exactly the same as they did on the original copy and be immediately accessible
without any restore.
Lauffin notes the move away from proprietary solutions to this process of full
file format backups with path redirect is not just a fad. "This will be the next
trend in the backup market," he says. "Once backup is performed this way, users
will not want to do it any other way."
Disk Backup Is Appropriate For All Markets
With the sudden popularity of disk solutions, what companies can actually benefit from the technology?
Quantum's Kenyon says the technology works for most vertical markets. "The first
companies that bought the solutions were the financial institutions," comments
Kenyon. "These organizations were mandated, either by regulation or by internal
service level agreements, to be able to restore their data within a certain
period of time. Unfortunately, they were not able to do that with the
technologies they had."
Today, almost every industry uses disk products for backup. "The military and
the government sectors in general have been very strong," he says. "Healthcare
is also a hot market. The regional hospitals have been quick to adopt these
solutions while the larger healthcare organizations have been a little slower to
buy."
When selecting a solution, Kenyon recommends that users look for total
solutions, not simply product names. "Whatever hardware you get, eventually
there will be hiccups," says Kenyon. "Make sure the vendors you buy from have
good service and support records and will stand behind the solutions they sell.
Work with vendors that are concerned about individual customers and are selling
a product that is core to their business."
Don't Forget The Basics Of Backup
Although disk-to-disk is currently the hot backup solution, Morgan Edwards, president of
UltraBac Software (Bellevue, WA), believes users should focus on the basics of backup.
"If you look at the average company, they are typically not performing all of the steps
they should be," he says. "Most data losses are actually preventable, if
businesses simply have a plan implemented."
What are the fundamentals of a backup plan? Edwards states a backup should be
performed every 24 hours to removable media that can be taken off-site. "As
basic as that sounds, that is probably the number one failing of the majority of
small businesses," he says. "Many companies are performing backup, but they are
not moving their media off-site. If any type of man-made or natural disaster
hits, what good is having a data backup that is sitting right next to the
computer? An off-site location has to be a part of any disaster recovery plan."
Another problem users have with backups is backup failures. Once a backup is
running, if there is a problem with a tape drive, the backup will fail. However,
Edwards notes that software available today can help eliminate many of those
failures. "More intelligent backup software is available today that can
intervene and redirect the backup to another device," says Edwards.
Finally, if there is a backup problem, Edwards recommends that it be corrected
as soon as possible. Many companies will struggle with a backup problem for
weeks before calling someone for help. It may have been weeks since a successful
backup was performed, leaving the company vulnerable to data loss.
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