Data News

Compos Mentis
Sanity Speaks

"It isn't a question of backup and recovery but a question of what is the best way to protect my data."

The experts have said for years that tape was going away, yet here we are and it's still a part of every data protection conversation we have. Library manufacturers and drive manufacturers continue to invest large sums into R&D to make tape better. Meanwhile, the way tape is used is changing.

While many organizations still use tape as a primary method of Backup and Recovery, a greater number are now using it as an archive solution. The reason for this is that new technologies perform the backup and recovery function faster, and with greater reliability, while reducing the overall risk of data loss. Another reason for the change is the commoditization of drive and RAID technology, which reduces costs exponentially.

It seems that every day one of our partners, or a company who wants to be our partner, comes out with "the next best thing," and reasons why it's going to change backups forever. But we all know that nothing is forever, especially in the field of technology. Let's look at a couple of backup methods that we have installed. There are tape drives, automated tape libraries, disk-to-disk-to-tape, virtual tape libraries, data deduplications, single instance stores, full backups, incremental backups, MAID solutions, synthetic fulls, snapshots, continuous data protection (CDP), archiving solutions, and replications.

Are any of these solutions the Holy Grail for backup and recovery? I personally don't think so; they all have their place and they should all be considered. So which one is right for your unique environment? A challenging question, certainly.

If you remember the TV show "MacGyver," then you remember that he could always build something from nothing. I liken this to the different ways we can perform backup and recovery; any of them "could" work, but some will work better in one environment while others will work better when variables change—as they do in the world of IT.

We have been building storage solutions for a long time and know that different environments require different solutions. There are many questions that need to be answered prior to deciding which is best for you. Questions that include:

• What is your data size?
  
• What is your recovery point objective?
  
• What is your recovery time objective?
  
• What is your growth rate of data? (You don't want to be pennywise and pound-foolish and replace the solution next year).
  
• What do you currently own? (We help save you money by not throwing away what can be used in another way).
  
• What are your other storage needs? (You might solve two problems with one product if we look at this holistically).
  
• What is the size of your staff and what is their experience?
  
• What is your budget?
  

Remember to answer these and other questions before you start on the road to data management bliss. By answering "business" questions FIRST, you are likely to integrate the right solution. After all, your business should guide technology purchases. Never allow technology to dictate what your business can and cannot do or you will change technologies sooner and more often, which isn't the best decision for you or for your organization.

Sincerely,

Jason T. Cherveny
President & Chief Executive Officer
720-570-1668 x 601

Mix is married and has two young children, Whitney and Mason. In his free time he trains for triathlons, plays golf, and reads historical creative nonfiction. He has also eaten at almost every restaurant in Denver. Sanity Spotlight John Mix Originally from Annapolis, Maryland, John Mix graduated from East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. Prior to joining the Sanity team as an outside account executive, he sold food service products for SYSCO and U.S. Foodservice as a territory manager in Denver, Colorado and Washington DC. I joined Sanity Solutions 3 years ago, when I was looking for a change of industry and found technology was a good fit for me; I was recommended to Jason by a mutual friend and business partner when Jason was starting the company, and I've been a part of the team ever since. Whether it's fixing a current problem, mitigating risk, or lowering costs, I bring value to my clients because I have a core understanding of how to meet their objectives, no matter what. Being able to ask the right questions is key in determining what these objectives are, and I've spent my career making sure I always ask those questions. I have to be comfortable saying, "Hey, here's the problem," and then being able to take care of it. The bottom line: I take care of my customers and they trust me. Because of this they often return to me for other solutions. As far as working at Sanity goes, I really like the freedom. Internally, Sanity doesn't play politics. No one here says, "No, I'm not going to do that for you." The same can be said of our partners; it's easier to get things done because we are working with the right people. Something that might take weeks in another firm is accomplished in an hour or two at Sanity. That's a huge benefit to being part of the Sanity team; my clients are happier because I am better able to do my job.

Architecting Your Future Success

Best Practices by David Stalcup
In our previous discussion, we reviewed the importance of the Business Impact Analysis (BIA) as the starting point for developing Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery (BC/DR) efforts. In the event of an outage, the BIA will serve as the blueprint for prioritizing the restoration of services and applications within your environment. With your blueprint in hand, it is now time to don your technical architect hat. Your BIA process should have defined your Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and your Recovery Time Objective (RTO). These goals, along with the quantity/type of data and your current infrastructure, will drive your architectural decisions and fulfill your Service Level Agreements (SLA's).

BC/DR design and implementation is an evolving process. Changing business needs and improving technologies creates a fluid situation that requires convergence of these two paths into an efficient, manageable IT infrastructure. We can view these recoverability challenges and prioritize them with our BC/DR pyramid.

The options displayed in our pyramid present an enormous gulf between costs, technologies and technical skill sets to implement. A BC/DR plan can be as simple as having available standby hardware for failed systems, in which a system administrator must do a bare metal restore to return that data into a functional state. Or, your BC/DR scheme can be as complicated as multiple load-balanced sites, which mirror your data. A well-developed BIA will allow you to select the level of data protection that is acceptable for your organizational goals. By utilizing the BC/DR pyramid, your organization can begin to develop an infrastructure build-out plan, allowing you the agility to adapt to changing technical and business climates.

You may be asking yourself, "Why aren't we talking about specific products?" The answer is simple, if you dive into point specific products prior to understanding your organizational needs and goals, then you may invest in the wrong technology. Making the wrong hardware decisions has the potential to undermine your SLA's and compromise your budget. In addition, you and your IT staff must begin the arduous task of documenting your physical environment and building the ever important repeatable processes for operations. These are overlooked, yet critical steps that provide the successful execution of your BC/DR plan. Disasters arrive in a variety of confounding scenarios from hardware and infrastructure failures to natural disasters that could disrupt your workforce. In these most extreme events, you must have detailed operational documentation for associates who lack extensive IT training. Do not underestimate the impact a disruption can have on the workforce. This Business Continuity Journal article captures the criticality of incorporating the appropriate measures of integrating your workforce into any BC/DR scenario.

Finally, all well developed BC/DR plans will fail unless the appropriate physical infrastructure is deployed. The fundamental concept here is to eliminate any singular point of failure. A redundant physical environment will be able to withstand numerous DR scenarios. Understanding the Data Center design concepts is essential to ensuring you have mitigated the risk of a physical failure within your environment.

BIA's, RPO's, RTO's, Repeatable Process, Documentation, and Data Center Design are all concepts you must master as you develop and implement a BC/DR plan. You can see that effective Business Continuance is more than just a set of redundant hardware at a remote location. Take advantage of your professional contacts to learn what your peers have done when tackling this critical project. Also, take the time to discuss this project with your Solutions Provider. The Solutions Provider has the unique opportunity of working in a variety of infrastructures from the SMB level to the Enterprise level. Their experiences can provide tremendous insight into developing your own plan of Business Continuance.

For additional information
Cisco's Data Center Design Click Here
APC's Network Critical Physical Infrastructure Click Here

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