Backup is essential for any IT system, especially given the rise in ransomware attacks that can wipe out critical data in an instant. Today, effective backup strategies are more challenging. IT departments now handle a mix of systems, like virtual servers, desktops, and containerized applications across various data centers and cloud environments.
Let’s break down what backup actually means. It involves duplicating data to another location so you can recover it if the original data is lost. Data loss can stem from hardware failures, cyberattacks, natural disasters, or even human mistakes like accidental deletions. A solid backup plan is vital for any organization’s data protection strategy, business continuity, and disaster recovery planning.
The growing influence of analytics and AI highlights the importance of backups. These backups store a wealth of corporate knowledge, serving as a vital resource for AI-driven analytics.
So, what data should you back up, and how often? Ideally, backup jobs should run on all critical sources, including physical and virtual servers, databases, cloud storage, and endpoints like laptops and mobile devices. During this process, backups are copied to a designated target, whether that’s a tape library, a dedicated disk array, or cloud storage. Applications and data should be recoverable down to specific files or entire data centers.
How frequently should backups run? It depends on the data’s importance and how often it changes. Full backups can occur daily or weekly, often scheduled during non-working hours to minimize system impact. Incremental backups can fill the gaps in between, as they’re less resource-intensive.
Service-level agreements (SLAs) dictate backup frequency and data restoration speed. Here, recovery time objective (RTO) specifies how quickly you need to restore systems after an interruption, while recovery point objective (RPO) defines how much data loss you can tolerate based on the time since your last backup.
Speaking of backup types, you have several options: full, differential, incremental, and hybrid approaches. A full backup copies all data in a specified set. Though it’s the most comprehensive, it also requires the most time and storage. Incremental backups only save the data that changed since the last backup, making them more efficient. Differential backups capture all changes since the last full backup and are generally easier to restore than incrementals.
Then there’s the 3-2-1 backup rule: keep three copies of your data, with one being the original, two others on different media, and at least one backup stored off-site. This strategy ensures that even if one copy is compromised, others remain safe.
But remember, backups aren’t the same as snapshots or replication. Snapshots capture the state of data at a specific moment using pointers but don’t replace the need for traditional backups. Replication creates an exact copy of data, whether it’s a drive or volume, but again, it doesn’t serve as a substitute for backup.
Backups play a crucial role in fighting ransomware. A robust backup routine allows you to recover from ransomware attacks by restoring to a clean version of your data. The farther back your backups go, the more likely they are to give you a clean copy before the infection occurred.
Now, what about backups for virtual environments? As companies transition workloads to various hypervisors, backing up that data becomes vital. Companies like Veeam and Rubrik support a range of virtual platforms, making it easier to maintain backup and recovery plans even amid changing virtualization strategies.
Containers, too, need robust backup strategies, especially as Kubernetes gains traction. Organizations are now turning to both dedicated and broader backup tools to protect containerized data. Options like Veeam’s Kasten, Pure Storage’s Portworx, and TrilioVault offer varied features to ensure container data is safeguarded.
Finally, there’s cloud-to-cloud backup. Remember, cloud providers typically don’t offer backup and recovery for customer data. This gap drives customers to seek cloud-to-cloud backup solutions, which can protect data from accidental deletions, ransomware, and other threats. Many providers now support backing up across different cloud environments, ensuring that your data remains safe no matter where it’s stored.