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Traditional v.s
Emerging Backup Technologies.
Hurricane Season starts in June now is the time to prepare. Is your
business data protected?
A
recent study discovered that, of companies experiencing a “major
loss” of computer records, 43 percent never reopened, 51 percent
closed within two years of the loss, and a mere 6 percent survived
over the long-term For small and medium-sized businesses (SMB’s) in
particular, these statistics suggest the necessity of crafting a
Business Continuity Planning (BCP) strategy grounded in a robust
data backup and recovery solution.
Unlike enterprises,
many smaller companies cannot afford optimal in-house strategies and
solutions in service of BCP. These companies are consequently at an
elevated risk of being put out of business due to any major loss of
data. Loss of data could mean emails lost, accounting data lost,
patient or client files lost, company records lost, client legal
records or orders lost and so on. This white paper evaluates the
scope of BCP for smaller companies, by examining their challenges,
range of existing solutions and their drawbacks. We’ll also discuss
how our solution overcomes commonly faced challenges to offer the
most comprehensive solution out in the marketplace.
Traditional Solution
vs. Emerging Technology
Implementing a data-oriented BCP strategy first requires designation
of a specific data storage medium. Magnetic tape and disks are the
two leading media for data backup storage. While magnetic tape is
currently dominant, analyst Dave Russell of Gartner believes that
“Recovery will move to online disk-based storage in the future. This
will cause a major shift in the backup market during the next four
to five years.”
Smaller Companies in
particular will benefit from the shift, as recent advances in design
and manufacturing lower the total cost of disk-based storage in
terms of storage per bit. Falling prices, combined with the various
performance advantages that storage industry analysts cite, render
disk increasingly attractive. Gartner Group highlights the
suitability of disk for these organizations by explaining that, “The
need for high-performance online recovery of data, combined with the
availability of low-cost disk arrays, has influenced enterprises and
small and midsize businesses to adopt a disk-based approach for
backup and recovery.”
Tape, in contrast to
disk, is physically delicate and easily compromised by environmental
factors such as heat, humidity, and magnetic interference. Moreover,
tape cartridges must be replaced frequently (every 6-12 months).
Tape’s innate sensitivity contributes to high failure rates, with
analysts estimating that anywhere from 42 to 71 percent of tape
restores fail. Even when magnetic tape backups are successful, tapes
themselves are subject to loss or theft, and may be in the
possession of an employee or vendor unable to reach a recovery site.
Thus, even when physical backup and restoration processes succeed,
tape may not prove to be as timely and appropriate a medium for data
storage as disk. Time is a crucial consideration because each hour
of server, application, and network downtime endured until data
restoration comes at a high cost, especially to smaller businesses.
Analyst Jon Oltsik of
Enterprise Strategy Group also points out that tape is seldom
encrypted, compounding the destructive impact of tape theft: “Very
few people encrypt backup tapes, which means that they rely on the
security of the backup and off-site rotation process.” Magnetic tape
encryption, unlike disk encryption, has historically been too costly
for all but large enterprises: “Encryption of any data that is
leaving the security of the data center, in transit, has always been
an option, unfortunately, a very expensive option,” explains Clipper
Group.
Disk offers not only
lower cost encryption but also other advantages. In contrast to
tape, “disks are more durable, last longer, withstand more
overwriting and you don’t need to clean any heads,” according to
Rinku Tyagi of PCQuest. Additionally, “When it comes to backing up
using disks, they are easier to manage. Disk backup systems include
management tools, often browser-based, for you to easily configure
settings and check status from anywhere.”
HP enumerates other
advantages of disk storage, noting that “Data is backed up to disk
much faster than tape, which translates to less impact on production
server availability. Disk is also a more reliable media than tape
and less prone to error, which translates to less failed
recoveries.” Clipper Group believes that the superior speed of disk
storage is an enduring advantage: “High performance disk will always
be the choice for online applications that require fast access.”
While disk offers
advantages over tape, it is not a panacea. After installing disk
technology, Companies will still be responsible for monitoring and
managing backup processes, encrypting and safeguarding backed up
onsite and offsite data, restoring data to new hardware, and other
functions. Without implementing a layer of governance over
disk-based data backup, these Companies court the danger of failed
backups and delayed restoration of data, thereby jeopardizing their
chances of successful recovery from major data loss.
Smaller Companies
unable or unwilling to invest in the human expertise and
infrastructure support systems necessary for data-oriented BCP can
leverage our data backup and recovery solution, which removes cost
and complexity burdens from your staff.
Business Continuity
Planning for Small and Medium Size Businesses
BCP is the blueprint for how businesses plan to survive everything
from local equipment failure to global disaster. Data-oriented BCP,
an indispensable component of business planning regardless of
organization size, poses the following challenges. Smaller
businesses generally lack the in-house IT resources to achieve these
demanding planning, technical and process requirements. Therefore,
many SMBs either neglect to implement any data-oriented business
continuity plan or else approach data backup and recovery in a
sporadic, rudimentary fashion that fails to conform to the best
practices of BCP.
Click
here for additional information.
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here for an online Video demo.
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