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Understanding Data Backup and Recovery Systems
Steve Goodman, Vice President of Business Continuity, SonicWALL, a Silicon Valley provider of network security and data protection solutions tailored for small and growing businesses.
E-mail: sgoodman@sonicwall.com
Website: http://www.sonicwall.com

Introduction
Problems with Today’s Backup Systems
The Realities of Tape Backup
Goals for a Modern Backup and Recovery System
Conclusion

Introduction
Because valuable information like databases, client files, and emails are stored on networks, which can be unstable, a business can be at serious risk of losing irreplaceable data if it lacks a back up system that protects data at all times. A number of studies in the United States and overseas have shown that an overwhelming majority of companies that suffer a major data disaster go bankrupt within five years – up to 90 percent, according to one British study.

Despite the importance of preserving data, the IT investments that technology managers dislike most, and often neglect, are backup, archiving, storage, and disaster recovery. While the benefits of this planning are not readily obvious and — in the best-case scenario — backup and recovery is something you never have to use, saving your files to floppy disks, tape, CD, or a redundant drive are critical to the recovery of an enterprise’s essential data.

Problems with Today’s Backup Systems
The typical small to mid-size firm commonly saves data by burning it to CD-ROM disks or storing it on USB hard drives. These inexpensive, relatively simple approaches may work well for new businesses, but the techniques work reliably for only a few users. Even then, the manual nature of the process, plus the added chore of moving and keeping the data offsite make this system less than ideal for long-term protection of data.

Growing firms often embrace tape backup systems just because other enterprises use tape backups, and decision makers mistakenly believe that tape backup will protect their data assets as well. What such firms don’t realize is that most enterprise IT administrators have stopped relying on tape as their primary backup because of the problems it causes.

The Realities of Tape Backup
Although tape may initially be seen as a cost-effective solution to backup, firms may be disappointed at the price tag attached to the tape units themselves and the expensive consulting services that are often needed for initial set up and configuration. Speed is another problem; businesses using tape are often forced to back up only at night because data transfer rates are so slow that it may take hours to capture data.

In addition to the slow pace of back up, failed data restoration is another common disappointment. Growing companies use multiple tapes, meaning recovering a simple file can take hours, if not days, because the system administrator or IT consultant has to find the right tape and restore the data in the right order. Tape restoration failure rates, especially with older systems, are so high, that the file is often either lost or unrecoverable.

Additionally, the continued growth of company data can strain tape technology. Manual tape rotation often means no tape rotation. Tape autoloaders resolve the manual tape switching problem, but are expensive and lead to reduced offsite tape storage. Lack of offsite tape storage places a company at major risk should disaster strike its facility.

Tape backup systems also do little or nothing to support remote users, especially mobile workers. Waiting until a mobile worker reconnects to the office network leaves huge gaps in protection. Companies rationalize that leaving a day’s worth of data unprotected by tape is not such a major issue, since they can only run their backups at night. But stretching the gap to several days may be too high a risk.

Furthermore, backup without the ability to recover is of little use. Today’s technology means that companies can now go beyond the limitations of tape archiving to achieve "any point in time" recovery.

Goals for a Modern Backup and Recovery System
Companies should insist on a modern backup system to keep data safe. To be most effective, the solution must be automatic, reliable and include offsite backup. Anything less than this is too risky.

Essential elements to look for in a modern backup system include:

• Continuous data protection (CDP). Once a technology affordable only for large firms, CDP is now within the budget of businesses of any size. CDP is an important component of the data backup solution because it automatically replicates any new or changed data — in real-time.
• Local and offsite backup. The combination of local and offsite backup storage provides complete data protection. Restoration from a local server saves time and Internet bandwidth, while offsite backup saves company data from common disasters such as burglary, virus infection or fire.
  
• Open file backup. A serious shortcoming of most tape backup systems is their inability to backup open files. Look for a solution that is able to monitor file changes at a binary difference level. Rather than reading an entire file, a backup solution should read only the changes in the file, saving storage space and time.
  
• Instant recovery and versioning. Seek out a backup solution that allows specific versions of each file to be re-created according to previous points in time. Instant recovery and versioning features empower users and decreases helpdesk calls and downtime.
  
• Bare metal recovery. Industry trends show that costs of more sophisticated archiving and disaster recovery systems – those that deliver continuous data protection and the possibility of a full, bare metal recovery — are fast becoming affordable, even for smaller businesses. Users can recover an entire system through a simple management interface, in minutes as opposed to days.
  
• Security. Data should be secured by encryption key technologies to ensure proper protection. Advanced encryption technologies, such as AES 256-bit and digital certificates, are important deterrents to data theft.

Conclusion
The modern backup system goal — continuous data protection, local and offsite backup, open file backup and remote backup — is to ensure security of business data. The combination of continuous data protection, offsite data backup, and bare metal recovery affords the greatest protection in the event of a disaster and forms the foundation of a workable disaster plan. These factors combined can make the difference between getting back in business after a catastrophe, or suffering losses so monumental that economic recovery is impossible.

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