Seven Guiding Lights of Backup and Recovery

This article, The Seven Guiding Lights of Backup and Recovery, was writtent by Kevin Moreau, VP EMEA, Unitrends, Inc.

Of course, we all know there is danger inherent in any IT application. Data can get lost or corrupted. Systems can break down or get damaged. But isn’t that like the rest of life? Anyone can have a roof that suddenly springs a leak or a broken water heater discharges water all over the basement floor.

But do they sit around in fear and trepidation waiting for the other shoe to drop? Or do they do what most people do-go about their business knowing they’ve installed the best equipment available and bought insurance for when it breaks down or some other unseen eventuality takes place.

Smart, well-managed companies are like smart, well-organized people. They do the latter. Ultimately, everyone wants to enjoy pursuing their goals and aspirations as freely and confidently as possible. That’s why, when it comes to backup and DR, every organization needs a solid, efficient strategy and solution set they can count on. They also need to know that the provider they choose to provide that solution set is one that truly understands the business and adheres to seven underlying principles, or guiding lights, necessary to ensure their customers’ success.

So what are those guiding lights to which it is so important for data protection and DR providers to adhere?

Guiding Light One: Backup More Than Just Data
Backing up both the data and the OS is the cardinal rule of storage. For that, a centralised backup and recovery solution, protecting both workstations (OSs) and servers, is needed. Organisations too often think of user data as the only volatile part of the environment, the only part requiring protection. Today’s data protection processes need to include backups of user data as well as the OS layer and all resident applications, along with the ability to quickly restore and recover each. Fortunately, today’s technology not only makes this both practical and straight forward, but relatively economical as well.

Guiding Light Two: Make Sure All Backups Are Tested
Letting some backups to go untested while others are left unchecked flies in the face of the most basic tenant of data protection and DR systems-everything must be fully tested, and shown to be effective, on a frequent and ongoing basis.

Guiding Light Three: Plan Fully for Recovery
There is no recovery without planning. In our current world of reports and archiving, it is necessary to always document your backup policy, noting key elements such as who is responsible for looking after backups and how the organization needs to respond in the event of system downtime.

Most mid-sized organisations have some level of data recovery plan. However, these plans often encompass only systems as they exist today. They need to lay out a roadmap for the future, taking into account a number of possible eventualities, and be very clear and specific about an organisation’s recovery sequence and priorities.

Guiding Light Four: Plan for Dissimilar Recovery Environment
Following on in the planning vein is the need to plan for a dissimilar recovery environment. At the end of the day, IT professionals need to plan for realistic restoration that takes into account all system drivers, applications, patch complexities and file compatibilities.

Guiding Light Five: Maintain Offsite Copies
Make sure your organization has offsite copies. Whatever type of backup you choose to implement, it is important to select where you are going to store your backups. Most often it’s best to ensure you have at least two targets to backup to, one local for fast recovery, and another external one such as a tape drive or a networked storage device.

The logistics of keeping data offsite are much simpler today than in previous years. Using recoverable disk drives as an archiving medium reduces the physical space required for offsite storage; today’s systems typically provide fully integrated support for archiving as part of the overall backup processes.

Guiding Light Six: Separate Replication From Vaulting
Replication is typically used by SAN and ‘data mirror’ products. It is utilised by many leveraging near real-time, block-level communications to constantly synchronise data between two different locations. The advantages to this method are near real-time protection, and ease of configuration and maintenance. However, it is highly resource intensive and can lead to errors that will occur naturally over time.

Best practice suggests that IT professionals look for a vaulting system that moves only changed data, not the entire backups or original data source. This minimises bandwidth requirements and maximises backup windows. Vaulting also uses less real time technology but allows a level of file system integrity not found in a replication environment.

Guiding Light Seven: Adopt Flexible Solutions
Last, but not least, adopt flexible solutions. Any post-event environment will at least be somewhat different than the one that was anticipated and planned for, which puts a premium on solutions that incorporate natural flexibility.

Pick a business system continuity solution that accommodates the majority of the needs you’ve already identified, plus others that may not be in today’s plan but could still be useful. The more options you have, the sooner you’ll be back in business.

Doing What You Do Best
For medium-sized enterprises, IT systems have evolved into critical elements of conducting normal, day-to-day business. An organization’s backup and recovery systems should not only be flexible and robust enough to restore user data quickly and accurately, but also restore entire systems and applications. Careful planning, testing and redundancy joined with the correct technology are the ways you can ensure your organization stays focused on doing what it does best rather than living in fear of the worst.