Best Practices for disaster recovery
Jacksonville, Florida - Quantum Corp. (NYSE: QTM), a proven global expert in data protection and big data management, today announced survey findings focused on disaster recovery (DR) from its 2012 IT Manager Survey. According to the survey, 90 percent of IT decision makers think their data is vulnerable in the event of a disaster. While only a three percent increase in perceived risk from Quantum's 2010 survey findings, this is particularly notable considering all of the focus on improving DR over the last few years. Twenty-seven percent experienced some form of data security incident in the last year, only 15 percent of which were due to natural disasters.
The survey also found:
The number of respondents describing their organization's data as "extremely vulnerable" edged up from 8 percent in the 2010 survey to 11 percent, and the number who felt minimally vulnerable or not vulnerable shrank from 51 percent to 31 percent. The most common data security incident was virus attacks, up 7 percentage points from 2010, showing the need to have a robust backup process in place as viruses can permeate multiple data copies. Operating system failure (48 percent) was the next most common security issue, which saw a 21 percentage point increase from the previous survey.
While 68 percent of respondents back up data daily or more for DR purposes, 16 percent back up weekly or less, showing there is still room for adoption of best practices. Companies that aren't able to restore their archive or DR data face significant delays in business activities, lost revenue, and a negative impact on resources. Half of all respondents noted that a data restore problem could put service level agreements with customers at risk. All of these consequences directly affect a company's financials.
The heightened awareness of the vulnerability of data assets and the consequences of a disaster have made DR an IT budget priority. According to a survey by industry analyst firm Enterprise Strategy Group, one quarter of IT professionals listed business continuity/DR programs among their organization's most important IT priorities for 2012 spending.
"Natural disasters such as this summer's wildfires have dominated recent discussion around disaster recovery planning for IT, but there are other threats to data security that are even more pressing for IT managers," said Robert Clark, senior vice president, Data Protection Group, Quantum. "We're seeing a strong, sustained interest in the value of deduplicated and replicated disk backup and path-to-tape solutions for a best-practices approach to DR. In addition, many customers are now seeking all-in-one solutions that protect both physical and virtual environments. Increasingly, companies are also turning to cloud software and services for a solution to DR challenges."
In February 2012, Quantum contracted Toluna to conduct a survey of 500 IT decisions makers at businesses with at least 100 employees. To be included in the survey, respondents were pre-screened to ensure they were involved with the data storage function at their organization.
About Quantum
Quantum is a proven global expert in data protection and big data management, providing specialized storage solutions for physical, virtual and cloud environments. From small businesses to major enterprises, more than 50,000 customers trust Quantum to help maximize the value of their data by protecting and preserving it over its entire lifecycle. With Quantum, customers can Be Certain™ they're able to adapt in a changing world -- keeping more data longer, bridging from today to tomorrow, and reducing costs. Call or click - (800) 557-6540 x111
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I believe it is finally time to declare full backups dead. Continuous data protection (CDP) was bleeding-edge a few years ago, but it’s re-emerging as the best technology for protecting organization's virtual environments.
Tampa Bay, Florida -- In 2006, Taneja Group published a technology brief titled “Continuous Data Technologies: A Paradigm Shift.” Back then, we maintained that the traditional method of data protection was seriously flawed and needed a fundamental overhaul.
For decades, the basic method of data protection was based on copy making. To protect a file we made a copy of it and stored it elsewhere -- but we did it as inefficiently as possible. For backups, we would start with a full backup to tape. That meant every bit of data in that volume was transferred from primary storage where it resided, through the application server, over the local-area network (LAN), into the media server and then onto tape. Nightly incrementals came next and any file that had even a slight change was dragged through the backup process again. A bunch of snapshots were taken and these stayed on the primary storage and hogged space. Some snapshots were backed up and occupied space on tape. In a typical IT environment, it wasn’t unusual to find anywhere from 10 to 100 copies of the data on primary storage and tape combined. Often, the cost of protecting data outweighed the cost of primary storage by a factor as high as 5-to-1.
We argued in 2006 that after a volume’s base image was copied changes to data should be captured only once at the time of creation. Because each change was time-stamped, the recovery system should be able to build the contents of the volume from any point in time (APIT). Using this methodology, we would never need a backup window. No fulls and incrementals, and the recovery point objective (RPO) would be whatever we wanted it to be, even zero. The recovery time objective (RTO) would be very fast, too, since the volume image could be grabbed from any point in time. Companies like Mendocino and Revivio promoted this method, but failed. Still, we felt the fundamentals were right and perhaps the concept was ahead of the available technology.
In parallel, other developments were poised to impact data protection in a big way. Vendors like Data Domain (now EMC), ExaGrid, FalconStor, Quantum and Sepaton said that rather than storing multiple copies of data on slow, unreliable tape, we should toss out all that duplicate data and store it only once on inexpensive SATA disks. Files were split into chunks and only one copy of each chunk was kept on disk. When data was replicated, these new systems only sent unique chunks across the wide-area network (WAN) and thereby maintained a capacity-efficient environment on the remote site as well. Good sound thinking, we said. And surely IT responded well, as demonstrated by the success of many of these companies and a drastic drop in tape sales over the past four years, says Brian McCarthy, CTO and Co-founder of Cloud Caboodle, a network backup veteran for the past 17 years.
But the fundamental process of data protection still hadn't changed. We still ran fulls and incrementals, and we maintained a remote location. And, typical of conservative storage professionals, we often still maintained tape behind disk. So our Iron Mountain expenses stayed with us. But we felt better because backups were faster and more reliable, as were recoveries.
In the past few years, we’ve seen a resurgence of the continuous data technologies (CDT) idea. And this time, vendors have developed products that work. Finally, we think the idea of CDT will get a fair shake and a shot at commercial success. So why would these new products be successful now when they weren’t in 2006? Two things are different today. On the conceptual front, we all recognized that just because we could create the image of a volume as of any point in time, it didn’t mean we should. APIT images may take you to an RPO of zero, but an image that’s inconsistent with the state of the application isn’t very useful. Your RPO for data may be zero, but your RPO of the application could be hours or days. Instead, the more meaningful point in time for recovery is the last consistent state. To make this concept work one needed the ability to generate very rapid snapshots. And for mission-critical applications that often ran on multiple systems and had multiple databases, the system needed to be quiesced across the board for a consistent snapshot to be taken. This level of sophistication wasn’t available in 2006, but it’s now commonplace. So unless you are under a "consulting contract" with a vendor like the self-proclaimed Mr. Backup, you will see the writing on the wall.
On the technology front, a fundamental piece that hadn’t yet matured in 2006 was virtualization. And virtualization makes the CDT concept come to life, along with the availability of multicore processors. But first things first. Because our focus has now shifted away from “true continuous” to “very rapid but consistent,” we need to rename the technical approach. We now define this new category of storage as vDPAS, for Virtual Data Protection and Availability Storage. The benefits of this type of storage are numerous, including:
No backups ever
Excellent capacity optimization
Near instantaneous recovery of applications, not just data
Easy to assign different service-level agreements (SLAs) to different applications
Images can be mounted instantly, requiring no full image to be created before a volume can be mounted
Works the same way across physical and virtual servers
Minimal IT involvement
Ability to make current images available to test and development groups at the press of a button
One main source for all data protection tasks
Applicability to cloud
Several companies, in our view, have made the vDPAS concept a reality in the last few years. Probably the best example is Actifio’s implementation. But many others have been striving toward this concept. Almost certainly, legacy vendors are feverishly working toward this new functionality, but they have to juggle sales of current products with introducing a product that could have a negative impact on their current revenue. Still, in the next three years we expect the entire market to offer products in the vDPAS category. It behooves you to take a closer look at these products and to start planning for a major overhaul of your data protection environment. Once you see the magic of this idea you’ll say goodbye to full backups forever. Good riddance!
For more information click - www.CloudCaboodle.com or call 800-557-6540 x111
Office in Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, Texas, California, Arizona, and Colorado. Magic Quadrant. EMC VMX, Data Domain, Cloud Storage, Backup, Archive, HP, Dell, Azure, Amazon, Rackspace, vmWare, Cisco, Virtual Datacenters, Disaster Recovery, EVault, Mozy, NetApp, IBM, Network Storage, Networker, Commvault, NetBackup, Backup Exec 2012, SSD, LTO-6, Tape Library, Exagrid, Quantum, de-dupe, sync to cloud, free, trade in, cheap, storage, CA Arcserve, Windows 8 whitepaper, case study, education, government
High Performance Architecture Delivers 50% Faster Backups and 3x More Scalability, Client Direct and Data Domain Boost Integration Among Wide Array of Compelling New Features
EMC announces a significant new release of its NetWorker® Unified Backup and Recovery Software.
EMC NetWorker 8.0 delivers increased performance and scalability, deeper integration with EMC Data Domain® deduplication storage systems, expanded enterprise application support, and enhanced management and security.
Key NetWorker 8.0 developments include a new high-performance architecture, a Client Direct feature for backup to disk, Data Domain Boost™ integration with the NetWorker client, enhanced support for Microsoft applications and a new multi-tenancy feature to enable cloud service delivery.
EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) today announced a significant new release of EMC NetWorker Unified Backup and Recovery Software. NetWorker 8.0 advances the EMC vision for backup and recovery to support the data protection needs of IT environments today and in the future. As enterprises transform their IT infrastructures to move to cloud computing models and deliver IT-as-a-Service, backup transformation is an essential foundational element. NetWorker has been equipped with a wide array of new features and capabilities that align to the requirements of these transformational IT initiatives.
With over 23,000 customers globally, EMC NetWorker has been a field-proven mainstay of the enterprise backup and recovery landscape for over twenty years. Today, NetWorker has been enhanced with a streamlined architecture for dramatically improved performance and scalability. It also delivers the industry's deepest integration with EMC Data Domain deduplication storage systems and broadened support for Microsoft applications, as well as new multi-tenancy management which enables cloud service delivery.
EMC NetWorker 8.0: Built for Backup Transformation
New NetWorker developments include:
An innovative new architecture that lowers server processing and delivers 3x more scalability, enabling users to do more with existing resources.
A "Client Direct" feature that enables NetWorker clients to backup directly from the application client to disk, improving performance by up to 50%.
DD Boost integration with the NetWorker client that brings benefits to all backup workloads while enhancing Data Domain system performance. Benefits include lower network traffic, integrated management with clone-controlled replication, and automated configuration, monitoring and reporting capabilities.
Microsoft data protection that is enhanced with new capabilities for SQL Server, including support for SQL Server 2012 and Granular Level Recovery for Exchange, SharePoint and Hyper-V.
Multi-tenancy management that delivers logical zoning of data, devices and users in shared backup environments.
Complementing these new NetWorker capabilities are services from EMC Global Services that optimize the performance, reliability and efficiency of the backup environment. These include infrastructure assessments that provide recommendations for optimizing and stabilizing the current backup infrastructure, as well as EMC Health Check services that help improve the capacity, performance, and throughput of the environment. These offerings are part of EMC Global Services' deep portfolio for backup and recovery, spanning the entire technology adoption lifecycle.
Customer Quotes:
Dan Yancey, Systems Engineer, Cook Children's Hospital
"Our environment here at Cook's is about 85% virtualized with approximately 650 virtual machines. We backup as much as 10 TBs nightly to a Data Domain system, then replicate to a second remote Data Domain system. As a long time NetWorker user, we were quite eager to participate in the 8.0 beta program, and were really pleased with the new enhancements to the product on several fronts. DD Boost at the NetWorker client combined with the new Client Direct feature improved backup performance to the point where we could run backups two times a day-or even more, which is really important in a large hospital environment. As a Microsoft shop, we found the additional application support features to be very helpful, and the new configuration wizards were very useful--especially to some of the newer team members who were not as experienced with the NetWorker product."
Michael Briggs, Head of Infrastructure, Cancer Research UK
"At Cancer Research UK, our goal is to bring forward the day when all cancers are cured and our IT department is viewed as a strategic weapon in this long-term battle. Our integrated EMC NetWorker and Data Domain systems are cornerstones in the protection of our scientific research, supporter data and mission critical applications. The EMC backup and recovery solution we implemented has performed flawlessly since we deployed it and will pay for itself within 18 months."
Industry Analyst Quote:
Jason Buffington, Senior Analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group
"EMC has delivered a rich set of new backup to disk enhancements for NetWorker users with its 8.0 release, some of which will have immediate impact in existing user environments and others that will help enable more progressive backup and recovery initiatives. Deeper integration with Data Domain, enhanced Microsoft workload support via its consolidated agent and the new Client Direct feature are high value additions that will make NetWorker 8.0 a particularly compelling proposition for large enterprises with diverse sets of backup data."
EMC Executive Quote:
Shane Jackson, Vice President of Marketing, EMC Backup Recovery Systems Division "With the introduction of NetWorker 8.0, EMC has clearly reinforced its vision that deep integration between backup software and backup appliances represents the future of backup and recovery for our customers. This major new release of NetWorker places competing products that much further behind the curve in terms of integration, performance, scalability and support for transformational IT initiatives."
For more information call (800) 557-6540 x111 or click www.CloudCaboodle.com
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Tampa, Florida -- IT research and advisory firm Gartner recently released a statement predicting that roughly a third of the world’s digital content will be stored on the cloud by 2016. This is based on users’ desire to share and access content on multiple devices, without the need to manually transfer and synchronize data. In 2011 alone, Gartner states that 7 percent of worldwide consumer data is already stored on the cloud, and the figures are likely to grow to 36 percent within five years.
Cloud computing is starting to gain a lot of support from both SMEs and large enterprise users these days. The cloud allows them to use software, apps and certain services on a pay-per-use basis, whereas in the past they were required to set up their own IT infrastructure in order to host the apps and services on their own.
In addition to the constant increase in the adoption of tablet PCs, smartphones and other portable computing devices, users are now able to gather huge amounts of data, particularly photos and videos. Sooner rather than later, they’ll find that they will need far more storage than their device and its expansion capabilities can provide.
According to Gartner’s prediction, the consumer digital storage needs of the world will increase from 329 exabytes in 2011 to 4.1 zettabytes in 2016, based on digital content stored on PCs, smartphones, tablets, HDDs, NAS and cloud repositories.
Gartner principal research analyst, Shalini Verma, states that while consumers have traditionally stored content on their personal computers, we are now entering a post-PC era. Consumers are using various interconnected devices, which will lead to a huge and sudden increase in user-generated content needing storage. The emergence of personal clouds gives the growing consumer digital content a chance to quickly become disaggregated from their devices.
There are now several well-established providers of personal cloud services, such as Apple’s iCloud, Microsoft’s SkyDrive, and Dropbox (which uses cloud storage backed by Amazon).
Gartner also posits that social media sites will step in and do their part in providing cloud storage by hosting photos and videos from users who want to share their content. This will result in average storage per household increasing to 3.3 terabytes in 2016, from the mere 464 gigabytes figures of 2011.
Gartner believes that the rapid increase in cloud storage needs will include users who have become increasingly dependent on camera-equipped devices. This includes tablet PCs, smartphones, and portable gaming consoles, at the forefront. This is because consumers are first trying out basic, free cloud services provided by companies, only to sign up for paid accounts once they realize they have a need for premium services.
While local storage will remain the primary means of hosting consumer digital content, Gartner predicts that it will progressively drop in share by 2016, dropping sharply from 93 percent in 2011 to 64 percent in 2016.
Gartner also predicts that the majority of the growth in cloud storage will come from Western Europe and North America, while Japan and South Korea will be showing the highest growth in the Asia–Pacific Region.
To learn more call (800) 557-6540 x111 or click www.CloudCaboodle.com
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New York, NY -- Amazon Web Services' (AWS) hiccup over the weekend saw a number of web and storage services suffer outages, but the issue was less to do with Amazon, and more to do with individual companies not using cloud services to their full potential, according to analysts.
Intelligent Business Research Services advisor Jorn Bettin laid the blame for the outage with providers failing to utilise cloud services as they should be.
He said that the real issue wasn't that such a huge cloud-services giant like Amazon had stumbled over a storm, but that the affected customers — Instagram, Pinterest, Pocket and Netflix, which all suffered from Amazon's recent outage on the weekend — hadn't used the ability of the cloud to create geographically redundant links.
"They could operate at a higher level of redundancy, so that these sort of outages would only have a minimal impact on them. It's a matter of cost," Brian McCarthy, CTO and Co-founder of Cloud Caboodle said.
McCarthy said that the cost of creating redundant connections, to ensure that a natural disaster in one area of the world won't affect services in another, could double cloud costs, however. Despite the call for Amazon to pick up the bill and shield customers from this risk, McCarthy said that this isn't the way that cloud services should be treated.
"It doesn't really make sense on a global scale that everyone relies on Amazon as, let's say, the ultimate risk manager for everything. That would be a dangerous proposition."
Instead, he said that the current hands-off model that Amazon has taken to giving customers, with the option to choose whether they want to pay for the risk, is more logical.
"Amazon's doing the right thing here of giving the customer the ability to do these switches from one [geographic] system to another."
What this has means, though, is that several companies have looked at their bottom line, and decided that the cost to mitigate the risk isn't worth maintaining 100 per cent uptime. Bettin said that these organisations tend to be small, and, in order to maintain any sort of profit, they have to be cutthroat with their costs. This is something that the cloud has enabled, but it also puts them at significant risk.
"They're effectively putting all their eggs in one basket. This whole topic is about managing levels of redundancy." Companies like Nivanix often quote 2, 3 and even 4 geo-seprate sites.
Gartner research vice president for IT services Jim Longwood sees the issue as problematic for Amazon, however, saying that after the most recent two issues, the psychological "third-strike" rule is in effect, and Amazon will be doing its utmost to prevent a repeat incident.
"You can bet your bottom dollar that Amazon will respond very strongly to this, and take remedial action, because if it does happen too often, it will affect their brand and their potential market penetration."
It will definitely be an opportunity for competitors, according to Longwood.
"All the competitors are making mileage from [this incident] already," he said, adding that this competition would then drive customer demand for reliability and availability. Nirvanix would be a great place to start.
"This is going to drive competition for improved services, particularly [for] reliability and availability. In two years' time, the tolerance will be much less, because they should be much more reliable. We're going to see more of [these incidents], but hopefully less frequently. Certainly, you'll see it amongst the smaller, newer service providers coming into this environment."
For more information call (800) 557-6540 x111 or click www.cloudcaboodle.com
Office in Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, Texas, California, Arizona, and Colorado. Magic Quadrant. EMC VMX, Data Domain, Cloud Storage, Backup, Archive, HP, Dell, Azure, Amazon, Rackspace, vmWare, Cisco, Virtual Datacenters, Disaster Recovery, EVault, Mozy, NetApp, IBM, Network Storage, Networker, Commvault, NetBackup, Backup Exec 2012, SSD, LTO-6, Tape Library, Exagrid, Quantum, de-dupe, sync to cloud, free, trade in, cheap, storage, CA Arcserve, Windows 8 whitepaper, case study, education, government