Backups: There’s gotta be a better solution, right?

 Author: Chris Sutherland, CSutherland@jackhenry.com

Almost any Network Administrator you poll will tell you that the #1 pain point in their organization is backing up the data on their network. The problem is that as data grows, the tools and solutions used to back up the information simply do not keep up at a good pace. So what options exist to help your IT department with this challenge?

While in the past using backup tapes has been commonplace, tapes are notorious for running out of space and can only be written to so many times before they become unreadable. What if you don’t know that and your system goes down, then you need to get it back up and running?

From experience, I can tell you that if you are using tapes, you’d better hope the tape is readable and has backed up everything you need. And since tapes can only write so fast, you should plan to spend several hours working on that project. There has got to be a better way, right?

Now for some good news: New products have come out that offer help with the backup dilemma. One of the latest solutions on the market, AppAssure® Replay4®, has provided some of the largest leaps in backup technology advancement over the last several years. It is a tapeless backup solution that offers:

• Up to 8GB/minute backup and recovery speeds
• Block-level snapshots with incremental forever data capture
• Integrated server level de-duplication that reduces your backup storage footprint by up to 80%
• Flexible disaster recovery options, including bare metal restore and failover virtual machines
• Replay Live – which allows you to start a server rebuild and have access to data almost immediately
• Server rewind feature that gives you the ability to roll back to any point-in-time, and recover the entire server or individual files, emails, SharePoint, and SQL objects
• Application-aware modules that check data consistency to ensure successful recoveries every time
• Integrated replication to reduce storage costs and enable off-site and cloud-based backups
• Centralized enterprise console to manage a large number of servers and desktops

Another option to consider is offered by Riverbed®, the leader in WAN (Wide Area Network) optimization. Riverbed has created an appliance that can assist you in getting your backup solution offsite. Its Whitewater Public Cloud Storage offers offsite “cloud” data protections, providing  storage and a local repository of your data, while minimizing the bandwidth needed to perform the tasks of getting your information securely offsite. A future release of the appliance will include the ability to use storage at your Disaster Recovery location to have your backups available at your site as well. This could revolutionize backup solutions even further.

As you can see, there are some new options out there to help you solve the ever-challenging “backup puzzle.” The days of relying on tapes – and keeping your fingers crossed that you have enough space – will hopefully become a thing of the past. And IT departments can spend those business hours on better things.

Your Chance to Speak

What’s been the experience at your FI? How do you solve the “backup puzzle”?