In this article, we’ll be discussing the history and importance of backup and disaster recovery solutions, or BDR solutions. These technologies have progressed quite significantly over time, and monitoring the past of these solutions can give you a better idea of where we are now and where we can go in the future. The importance of proper data security is fairly difficult to understate, and the best way to help employees and business owners understand that is by exploring their history.
Additionally, we’ll be talking about a concept that goes a little bit beyond backups: business continuity. This is the concept that a business should have as little downtime as possible, which means business owners should be using different metrics to choose their backup solutions.
The Old Ways [Physical Media]
Since the 60s, businesses have started backing up their data with formats a little bit more advanced than punch cards. The format that changed things was tape — yes, tape –– that could be used to safely store data en masse for long periods of time, well before hard drives took over the scene in storage. The primary issue with tape was that accessing that data took ages, since it needed to be stored sequentially and be rewound/fast-forwarded. (The restrictions of your VCR are the same ones that restricted tape as a backup solution.)
Magnetic tape is still used in some implementations today, and it significantly outlasted its first real competitor, the floppy disk. Floppy disks were quickly made irrelevant by CDs and DVDs, thanks to their massively increased storage space versus the old floppy. Even those formats would later be overtaken by the more recent advancements in local storage technology, such as Blu-Ray disks and large-capacity hard drives.
Starting in the eighties, however, a new form of storage popped up alongside the LAN, or Local Area Network. As networking technology advanced, Network-Attached Storage (NAS) became possible, and eventually wholly-online backup solutions entered the fray, too. These remote backup solutions found their way to businesses small and large, and set the path for the next point in history we’re about to discuss.
Prevention and Recovery
While having backup solutions was a great step forward, it failed to address the core problem: that data could still be lost. Tape archives and other solutions made it possible to archive data and create backups that could restore a system in case of data loss, but a system in place to actually prevent that data loss didn’t exist for quite some time. With the creation of stronger networking infrastructure and on-site servers, businesses found it was possible to protect integrated systems while keeping them on physically separate servers managed by different employees.
Evolving data management systems have progressed from a control backup team-based model to application/cloud-based remote models. With this progression, the move toward BDR solutions is more customizable than ever, and CEOs have more questions than ever to ask before implementing these solutions. These questions go beyond basic “backup” concerns, and take a further step into preventing data loss and minimizing recovery time. We’ll expand more on these questions at the end of the article.
The Modern Way [BDR Implementations]
Backup disaster recovery (BDR) plans are a key part of assuring business continuity, and are therefore packaged by most IT and cloud computing providers. When marketing these solutions to government, large enterprises, banks and other businesses, it’s important to emphasize the BDR aspect of your offerings in your sell. You have to be able to demonstrate the power and efficiency of that BDR solution, offering maximum continuity for their business and minimal downtime. Some clients don’t look for this proof, but providing it anyway provides you with peace of mind and is guaranteed to impress them.
Your plan as a provider can include backing up and monitoring data, testing BDR systems and managing security. More and more businesses are starting to favor backups of direct apps and storage, and hiring data/business management experts can improve productivity, compliance and efficiency. If your in-house IT department or MSP can’t provide this function, you may need to outsource: but it’s a critical one to have for your business.
A proper service provider will have the necessary experience to provide and design proactive management/monitoring of the final product. Additionally, adopt hybrid BDR solutions — sticking with cloud-only or local-only is pointless when you can use both and have the best of both worlds. Local onsite copies can be used for quick restores, and these copies can then be encrypted and uploaded to the cloud. Sufficiently powerful hardware will be able to virtualize a failed service within minutes, and the cloud copies need to be tested regularly for reliability.
Having regular, rapid backups made every few hours is a steadily-increasing trend in the world of high-end IT and cloud service providers. These implementations are, thanks to increased ease-of-use, reliability and affordability in BDR solutions, and these plans continue to evolve to meet everyone’s needs for data recovery and backup servers.
The Questions You Should Ask
Finally, here’s what you should be asking your clients — in particular, the CEOs — to ensure the highest level of business continuity. Their business will inevitably fall victim to major crashes, accidents or data loss. Someone could accidentally wipe important files, an accident could damage their on-site storage, or a thief/virus could steal all of their business’ vital data. In these scenarios, how long can they afford to be out of commission, and how much money will they lose from that downtime? Depending on their needs, they should look into different BDR solutions. For instance, a business that doesn’t deal with large volumes of data may not need an advanced solution.
The best choice remains, though: using the latest technology and a combination of on/off-site storage, they can protect their business continuity.
About the author
Brent Whitfield is CEO of DCG Technical Solutions, Inc. providing IT Support in the Los Angeles area since 1993. DCG exists to help our clients choose, implement, and manage IT and cloud solutions that are cost effective and reliable. DCG’s pro-active approach to IT is ideally suited for companies who depend on reliable IT infrastructure, but don’t want to spend a lot of money to keep it that way. DCG was recognized among the Top 10 Fastest Growing MSPs in North America by MSP mentor. Brent has been featured in Fast Company, CNBC, Network Computing, Reuters, and Yahoo Business.