In our last Tech Download blog with Jim Griffiths, we discussed enterprise backup protection. This time, we’re going to dig a little bit deeper with Jim to find out how physical backups differ from enterprise backup protection, and how Veeam and FoxNet can assist with architecting enterprise solutions.
From Physical to Enterprise Backups
As the volume of data being handled increases, a company finds it doesn’t have enough of the physical media required to make a backup. This physical medium is usually in the form of tapes. The process of backing up data to tape is expensive and time-consuming, and this initial cost of backing up to tape is only the beginning. Typically, the company then needs to move its backed up data offsite, so the company must pay to have their tapes packaged and transported to an offsite location. If, at any point, the company needs to access or restore the backed up data, they must pay to retrieve their tapes from the storage location. As you can imagine, this entire process of protecting data is expensive. In the event of a disaster, the company would have a designated set of systems or a recovery provider that would restore the data and bring systems back into operation according to a Disaster Recovery Plan.
Enterprise Backups
In today’s business environment, most companies prefer backing up to disk. When it comes to disk-based backups, there are a few storage solution features that can be utilized:
Deduplication: Reduces the amount of data stored on disk
Compression: Reduces the size of data stored on disk
Replication: Data can be automatically replicated (copied) from one site to another to maintain an offsite copy of data
Quick Recovery: Some disk systems will allow systems to be run from the backup storage to provide Quick recovery of systems in the event of an outage
Offline Testing: Some disk systems allow the use of a ‘sandbox’ environment to provide offline testing of system patches and upgrades or offline disaster recovery verification
Data Protection with Veeam Software
Veeam software is the top software for protecting data in virtual environments.
Veeam provides:
- Granular backup and of virtual machines and data in a virtual environment; now in physical server environments as well.
- Integration with popular applications such as Microsoft SQL, Exchange and SharePoint Servers.
- Site to site replication.
- Ability to test backup and recovery in an offline environment.
- Can be used to provide a ‘sandbox’ to test software upgrades and patches.
- Can be used to test disaster recovery in an offline environment to make sure the disaster recovery plan works, as a critical component of disaster recovery is ensuring that the plan works.
- Simple to configure backup to the cloud.
When it comes to backing up your data, organizations should follow the 3-2-1 rule. At any given time, a company should have:
- 3 copies of its data
- 2 different types of storage media (tape, cloud, disk, etc.)
- 1 copy needs to be offsite
For more information on how to create a disaster recovery plan that works for your organization, contact FoxNet.
