DATAFORT Whitepaper
How data backup is changing |
Everyone knows they should back up their data, but few pay much attention to it - until it is too late. Most lost data - that document you were working on when your laptop crashed, or the document you deleted and now need again - is merely an inconvenience. However, lost data can also cost you prospects, customers, revenues and, in the worst cases, even your business. |
| There are several ways to protect and backup data. Most organisations still use tape backup and either take copies off-site or place them in a firesafe. Home users and some small businesses may back-up to another disk drive, a network-attached storage device or even to a DVD. Your backup is only as good as the medium used and your diligence in carrying out the backup – many businesses have only found out when it was too late that they have overwritten the same tape too many times, the backup failed to complete properly or the right data selections were not included in the backup, and their data cannot be recovered. Because of this many businesses are now using online backup which automatically and dependably copies their data to a secure off-site location. |
| When choosing a backup method it is important to consider the worst possible scenario and to make business continuity plans that ensure your business survives. It's not sufficient to merely have a copy of your data. It's important that your data remains accessible - whatever happens. What many businessmen don't realise is that fires, accidents and other incidents can prevent you from getting into your premises even if the site itself is unaffected. For instance, after the Buncefield fire many local businesses were in the exclusion zone and were prevented from recovering their systems and data for weeks - including their tape backups - even though their premises were unaffected by the blast. |
It’s not only terrorism, fire and flood that we need to be concerned about. Disease can cause long-term problems. A personal example - a long time ago I was on my way into work when we were stopped at the gate by an emergency medical response team. The business next door, a large distillery, was the suspected source of an outbreak of Legionnaires disease. It looked like the whole industrial estate would be closed for up to a fortnight while the source of the outbreak was found and treated. The building I worked in was the main production management centre for the business – if it closed then all production stopped. No orders would be processed, nothing shipped and no payments would be received. The business would run into serious cashflow difficulties very quickly. Luckily the outbreak was traced to an office building a few miles away within a day and the business had a lucky escape.
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| This makes online remote backup a good choice. It's automatic and should require very little intervention. However, online archives have a tendency to grow as more and more data is retained, to allow recovery of data at any point in time, resulting in growing costs for the business. Keeping costs under control means making difficult decisions about what is backed up and regularly maintaining the archive. |
| For this reason Datafort has designed its new Bytebaq PC Edition online backup service. The service provides a low fixed annual cost to backup a laptop or desktop computer. In Q3 we will release a service that extends the product range to backup servers with hard drives up to 2 terabytes, providing both peace of mind and a known cost. |
For more demanding backup requirements Datafort has its Vaulting service, with both onsite and offsite backups of both data and system images. Having an onsite backup appliance allows large amounts of data or complete systems to be recovered quickly and ensures successful backup even if connectivity is lost for a time. The system image backup allows a copy of the server to be built quickly without having to find all of the relevant application disks and re-patch the operating system. |
Data backup is merely a type of insurance to ensure business continuity. What businesses really want is to be able to continue operating whatever happens. The problem is that many smaller businesses are vulnerable to server failures which will bring down critical applications. When a server goes down some of the many possible issues are a simple memory fault, a failed automatic upgrade, a virus or a hardware failure. It may be possible to bring the server back up quickly, but a virus or hardware failure can mean the computer and any application run on it is down for three days or even longer. |
| In business continuity one size does not fit all. Larger businesses can afford servers synchronized over multiple locations alongside the staff to implement, monitor and manage them. They can afford to maintain disaster recovery sites at costs of £5000 per seat per year before a single catastrophic event has taken place! Small businesses need affordable solutions that allow them to ensure they can get back to work quickly. Solutions such as Microsoft clustering and replication services that bundle hardware, software and management such as Neverfail and Doubletake are beyond the means of most small businesses. So how can a small business recover quickly from a server failure? And what options are available for disaster recovery if you cannot afford to replicate your entire computer infrastructure? |
| The best way to achieve this is by outsourcing using DataFort’s Hi-5 service. Hi-5 combines file, folder and full system recovery in a package alongside delivery of fully functioning servers loaded with up to the minute data and systems if your business suffers a disruptive event. Hi-5 offers both Continuous Data Protection for data and images with the ability to virtualise a server within minutes of a reported failure. |
The virtualisation capability can restore the failed server that has been running your key applications within 20-30 minutes including data that was created within the last 2 hours. It does this through virtualising the failed server on the local backup appliance. This gives your technical support team the time they need to thoughtfully identify the issue with your production equipment, repair or replace it without impacting your business operations. After the production equipment is functional, the Hi-5 appliance will create a Bare Metal Recovery image so that the production equipment can be brought efficiently back online, ready to be repopulated with the data created while running in the virtual environment. This can be accomplished to even dissimilar hardware. The Hi-5 service is powerful enough to perform all of these functions simultaneously. |
If you lose access to your site then a replacement appliance complete with functioning virtual servers will be delivered to your alternate site within one business day of the reported event. The Hi-5 service is backed by a £1M insurance policy. |
| The need for business continuity planning is greater than ever while the complexity of modern information technology systems is growing. Datafort’s new managed service portfolio is designed to provide the range of services that a modern business needs to ensure it is fully protected from everything that Murphy’s law can throw at it. |
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