Entries categorized under “Continuous Data Protection”

Here is what determines how much storage a CDP product needs. CDP initially needs an allotment of storage capacity that is equal to the size of the volume on which the data resides that is being protected. This is needed so the CDP product can make a copy of all of the blocks on the production volume. However, the wild cards in how much storage the CDP product requires are based not the size of the production volume but two other variables. (read more)

The introduction of disk and deduplication into the backup process over the last few years has certainly helped to minimize existing backup problems. Organizations using these technologies have found that their backup success rates now approach 100% and that they no longer have to continually troubleshoot backup problems. But while these technologies may fix existing backup problems, they relegate disk to a glorified form of tape and do not serve to fundamentally transform the recovery process. (read more)

Small, mid-sized and large enterprises are not the only ones looking to consolidate and simplify their IT management to create more cohesive management solutions. In the last few years, Symantec has been taking many of the same steps to integrate components of its Backup Exec, Enterprise Vault and NetBackup product suites to deliver solutions appropriate for the different size organizations that it serves. The progress that it has made in delivering on these ideals is reflected in today's Backup Exec 2010 and NetBackup 7 product releases. (read more)

Right now on Yahoo finance it is counting down what it considers the top 10 tech trends for 2010. However some of the trends that it is including in its top 10 are so broad in their definition that when it lists 'Data Centers' as its #2 trend and then identifies nearly every technology company in the space as being part of this trend, you have to question just how real this trend is? The list of what I consider the more subtle storage trends of 2010 will be a bit more specific in terms of what features, products, services and/or vendor alliances are taking place that support these theories. (read more)

Small enterprises want to make technology changes but can't afford it. Large enterprises can afford to make technology changes but won't. That leaves it to midsized enterprises that are seeing the benefits, have the resources and are making the changes that are resulting in them emerging as the new IT leaders in 2010. This in a nutshell summarizes the 83-page 2010 State of the Data Center report just released by Symantec. (read more)

Deduplication is now widely recognized as a prerequisite technology for next generation data protection. While this is a correct view, to classify it as the only new technology that organizations need to consider in order to successfully redesign their backup infrastructure does not paint a complete picture. More specifically, the recent and rapid maturation of continuous data protection (CDP) has put organizations in a position where they need some criteria to make an informed decision as to how to proceed with these two technologies. (read more)

It is no longer a question of if organizations are going to use disk as a backup target but a matter of what form of disk-based backup are they going to use. File servers (NAS) and virtual tape libraries (VTLs) are two common forms of disk-based solutions that organizations deploy but these approaches fail to take full advantage of the robust recovery capabilities that disk can provide. It is for this reason that more organizations are leveraging continuous data protection (CDP) to fast track their application recoveries. (read more)

This past spring a debate erupted on BackupCentral.com between a user complaining about not getting new features in his backup software as part of his annual maintenance contract and his backup software provider wanting to charge extra for it. The user was, in his words, 'faithfully paying his annual 20% fee for maintenance' and now wanted the backup software's new Advanced Recovery option as part of his support costs. (read more)

The reasons for using CDP for data protection and recovery are pretty well documented. There are no gaps in your data protection. You eliminate backup windows. You can do any point-in-time recoveries. You can do roll forward and roll back recoveries. However positioning CDP strictly in the context of backup and recovery may not demonstrate the cost savings that are necessary for companies to take funds budgeted for backup and recovery and re-allocate them for CDP. (read more)

"Business Continuity" and "Disaster Recovery" are two aspects of IT and business planning and process management that no organization can afford to get wrong. So it is somewhat disconcerting that a recent article reports that the majority of businesses do not yet have a disaster recovery plan or business continuity process in place or, if they do, they do not regularly test it. (read more)

New corporate mandates for improved application availability are placing a new premium on software that can deliver centralized data management. These requirements call for software that can provide a central management console from which data management policies can be set and applied. Enterprise backup software is where many organizations are looking to deliver this functionality but for this to become a reality, features like archiving, continuous data protection (CDP), deduplication and support for disk-based backup targets must come under backup software's purview. (read more)

A single software product that can deliver continuous data protection (CDP), replication and automated application recovery for heterogeneous open system environments is still an anomaly in today's world. Most software that does CDP, replication or application recovery may do one of these functions well but rarely can it do all three well or deliver the breadth of functionality that enterprise IT managers desire. However today's announcement that Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) will co-brand and resell InMage System's Scout as part of its worldwide storage solutions offerings is a tip-off that such a solution exists and is ready for prime time in enterprise midrange shops. (read more)

VMware ESX Server and its latest vSphere software release have become instrumental in helping organizations tame server hardware costs within data centers while improving the ROI associated with existing and new projects. But this isn't to say that virtualization doesn't come with any pain points--and managing virtual storage infrastructures is one of the biggest. So to help combat these challenges, FalconStor Software today announced at VMworld 2009 a comprehensive VMware Initiative that will help organizations bridge their physical and virtual infrastructures and provide continuous availability in multi-vendor storage environments. (read more)

In the last few years no technology has experienced more of its shares of ups and downs than continuous data protection (CDP). Initially hailed by some as a likely successor to backup software, CDP has yet to come close to fulfilling on that original promise. However recent changes in IT data center environments coupled with ongoing improvements in CDP are giving this technology a second chance. (read more)

Most VARs who have had success selling Data Domain systems over the last couple of years are feeling a bit uncomfortable right now: EMC has announced its official take-over of Data Domain. VARs have made a good living on Data Domain, contributing to Data Domain's success as having one of the best-selling, fastest-growing deduplication storage systems in the market. VARs are now feeling vulnerable to EMC's goodwill - or probable lack thereof. (read more)

Recent feedback from InMage Systems' existing customer base indicates that 100% of them use its Scout software for disaster recovery. That probably comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with Scout or its heterogeneous recovery capabilities. But what may come as a surprise to some is that nearly 40% of these existing Scout users are seeing a 200% return on investment (ROI) in Scout because of how it can be used in multiple ways in a company's IT infrastructure. (read more)

Bounce the phrase "consolidated recovery" off of most individuals in IT and you are just as likely to get a blank stare as a good answer as to what it means or how to accomplish it. Most IT staff keeps so busy on a day to day basis just managing their assortment of backup, clustering and replication products that they never get much beyond focusing on the protection and recovery of each application. So for them to contemplate the consolidation of protection and recovery using just one methodology has more than likely not even crossed their minds. (read more)

Synchronous replication may be viewed by users as the "Gold' standard when it comes to achieving the highest levels of application availability for business continuity and disaster recovery. But as I previously discussed, using synchronous replication for business continuity and disaster recovery can actually take longer and cost more for organizations to remotely recover applications than if they use asynchronous replication. Now organizations can use asynchronous software like InMage Systems Scout to deliver the same or better results as synchronous replication at a substantially lower cost. (read more)

Replication software is increasingly entering the conversation as the logical replacement for backup software in client environments. Yet replicating data is really the easy part. Integrating the replication software so it becomes part of the fabric of a company's infrastructure is a far more difficult task. It is also one of the reasons that replication software has, to date, made so little headway in terms of displacing backup software for enterprise wide data protection. But as replication software matures, that will change. (read more)

To understand a specific company's technology, sometimes you have to do more than just understand the company behind the product, you have to understand the philosophy of the company behind the product. That was probably what impressed me the most when I recently had a briefing with Fadi Albatal, FalconStor's Director of Product Marketing. Yes, we went over FalconStor's new HyperTrac Backup Accelerator for VMware feature, but what really piqued my interest was how HyperTrac fits into FalconStor's overall data protection methodology and why FalconStor's customers can anticipate further innovations like this in the future. (read more)

One of the more critical pieces of information that organizations need as they put together a disaster recovery plan is how much data they have in their environment and how quickly it is changing. The reason this information is so important is that without it, organizations often have no way to effectively size how much or what type of capacity they need to protect and recover their production data. In fact, I was astonished at how little information this was available about this topic or the fact that there were so few good articles on the subject. (read more)

"We're all doomed!" That phrase appeared in a recent Computerworld headline and encapsulates the feelings that some individuals are having during this current economic crisis. While the headline goes on to conclude that the end of the world is probably not at hand, the text of the article explains that many companies are experiencing financial troubles and need to shift gears in terms of how they act during this economic downturn. Among the actions that the author recommends a company should pursue is taking the time to evaluate every supplier and only pursue those that deliver results for the company. But what are the benchmarks by which companies should measure these results and how are these results measured when it comes to technology? (read more)

Many of the clients I work with are taking a closer look at their data protection solutions. Currently much of their focus is on trying to decide between purchasing additional storage (disk or tape), replication licensing, or deduplicating virtual tape library (VTL) technologies. The trouble is there are so many data protection products that the selection process becomes extraordinarily complex. So while companies may think of data protection as a singular function or strategy, companies will employ multiple strategies, staff and point products in order to attain a form of universal data protection. (read more)

Today's tough economic times are changing many aspects of the way businesses run that range from the way businesses promote themselves to the way they purchase products or support their growth internally. Yet one thing that all businesses have in common is that tough economic times force them to focus on their core objectives and how well their current technologies are delivering on meeting these goals. As companies go through these self-examinations, businesses tend to discover that the promised features of technologies they purchased in the past may turn out to provide them far less value than they anticipated or are becoming irrelevant as their infrastructures evolve. Nowhere does this hold truer than with their approach to enterprise data protection. (read more)

As 2009 approaches, the traditional benchmarks for enterprise backup software such as the management of physical tape libraries, support for multiple operating systems and SAN backups are yesterday's news. Instead support for backup to disk, continuous data protection (CDP), protection for laptops and desktops and a common repository where protected data is stored, deduplicated and available for rapid access and search is how enterprise data protection software is now defined and measured. Yet even when one factors in these new benchmarks for enterprise data protection, how products such as Atempo Time Navigator play in this rapidly evolving space, and in which verticals they best play, are less than intuitive to the untrained eye. (read more)