Digital data is a crucial aspect in all fields of society. In a business setting you must have your data safe in case of a major disaster for easy recovery. Statistics from the computer and technology world highlight the need for a single backup strategy fusing backup and disaster recovery.
Shocking Data Loss Stats
According to a study by Computer Economics, 30% of all U.S businesses suffer a fire every year. A report by Strategic Research Institute (SRI) adds that 66% of companies that fail to recover their data in case of a disaster shut down within six months.
Evolving Backup and Data Recovery Management
As such it behooves upon every business owner to appreciate how data backup and disaster recovery practices have evolved. Traditionally, data backup was all about scheduling backup processes on removable media including external hard drives, CDs, DVDs and other media.
According to a study by Computer Economics, 30% of all U.S businesses suffer a fire every year. A report by Strategic Research Institute (SRI) adds that 66% of companies that fail to recover their data in case of a disaster shut down within six months.
However, the practice today is to carry out continuous backup protection (CBP) through incremental file backups to disk-based storage. This process might seem similar to the hitherto practices but differs on various fronts:
- Reduced accumulation of backup media: The same data will not have to be backed up over and over again. Instead only updates on the same copy are made.
- Enhanced data security: With continuous data backup processes, the system allows for more security. This is because data is replicated to secondary devices arrays such as cloud storage among other options.
- Time saving: Continuous data backup ensures more convenience for administrators both during the backup process and in case of disaster recovery. With less data to tackle during recovery, companies save a lot of time and in business this is critical.
In essence, the whole idea of converging backup and disaster recovery is pegged on reducing time needed to recover from a disaster. Additionally, businesses are able to save money on extra storage hardware that was required in traditional data recovery.
Continuous Backup Protection (CBP) in Brief
There are multiple vendors of CBP systems in the market in the wake of major disasters. However, all of them leverage on snapshots and differencing disks to initiate successful continuous data protection. A differencing disk is the backbone of successful CBP and allows for reserved virtual data storage.
A snapshot on the other hand works by redirecting write operations to the disk. When working in tandem, these two systems allow for instantaneous data recovery. The whole idea is to avoid costly and time-wasting traditional restoration by availing lost data virtually.
By incorporating data archiving, incremental file restoration, round-the-clock monitoring and full-backup, continuous backup protection systems are the future of security in computer technology.
To avoid modification of backup data due to its availability to the failed server a snapshot is created. This in turn necessitates creation of a differencing disk allowing the failed server to use backed up data only for read operations. Write operations are a preserve of the differencing disk and this keeps backup data intact.
The failed server is then repaired and backup data replicated to its rebuilt storage. The contents of the differencing disk can now be merged with the new storage. All operations are also switched back to the usual storage device used by the servicer.
The process used in continuous data protection can also be used in virtual lab technology. This allows for testing new development environments without burdening storage devices with more data.
By incorporating data archiving, incremental file restoration, round-the-clock monitoring and full-backup, continuous backup protection systems are the future of security in computer technology.
Is your business data safe a major disaster hits your business?
I like the time saving element that comes with CBP. It’s bad enough to lose files in any kind of disaster.It’s even worse to have to spend a lot of time retrieving the files. CBP gets back all the files right away.
That is shocking data loss stats. But you see, you can’t blame some businesses,especially the small ones. Backing up files can be costly as well. But fortunately, Carbonite has a business plan that’s affordable. And it incorporates everything from data archiving, file restoration, monitoring, automatic backup to mention a few.