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Developing a StorageBackup Strategy

an Storage eBook


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1

contents

This content was adapted from Internet.com'sEnterprise Storage Forum, Enterprise IT Planet,and InternetNews Web sites. Contributors:Drew Robb, Mike Harwood, Henry Newman,and Paul Shread.

Developing a Storage Backup Strategy, an Internet.com Storage eBook. 2008, Jupitermedia Corp.

2 Don't Let BackupTake a BackseatDrew Robb

4 Getting Backup RightHenry Newman

7 Backup StrategiesMike Harwood

13 Finding a Disaster RecoverySolution That Won't Breakthe Bank

Drew Robb

16 Small Businesses Turnto Online BackupDrew Robb

Developing a Storage Backup Strategy

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With storage requirements moving into the tera-,peta- and exabyte ranges, companies need torefine their backup strategies to ensure availability

of their growing data stores.

Many data centers still performbackup operations the same theyhave for decades and it doesnot work any more, says LaurenWhitehouse, an analyst atEnterprise Strategy Group. It istime to re-evaluate the capabili-ties and requirements, and resetexpectations just because a4GB Oracle database could berecovered in three hours in 1987

doesn't mean it can be todaywhen the database is 4TB.

Accordingly, Enterprise IT Planetinterviewed several storageexperts and gleaned the follow-ing tips for improving your ownbackup and restoration proce-dures.

1. Plan in Reverse.

figure out what needs to be restored, and how fast,and then devise an appropriate backup plan.

What people should do, but often don't, is start withthe recovery requirements, says W. Curtis Preston, vicepresident of Framingham, Mass., storage consultancy

GlassHouse Technologies, Inc.

This means determining theRecovery Time Objective (howquickly the data needs to berestored) and Recovery PointObjective (how current the datamust be) for each class of dataand creating a plan that meetsthose requirements.

2. Save files to disk beforemigrating them to tape.

Disk staging makes a huge dif-ference, shrinking backup win-dows by as much as three quar-ters, says Ramon Kagan, manag-er of UNIX services at YorkUniversity in Toronto. We areable to do backups much fasterfrom the server standpoint andthen cycle it to tape during the

day, saving people and servers a lot of time.

3. Eliminate excess.

Do you need to store daily copies of a file that hasn't

2 Developing a Storage Backup Strategy, an Internet.com Storage eBook. 2008, Jupitermedia Corp.

Developing a Storage Backup Strategy[ ]

Dont Let Backup Take a BackseatBy Drew Robb

Many data centers still perform backup operations the same they havefor decades and it does not work any more

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changed in six months, or the personal copies of an e-mail the CEO sent to all employees? Deduplicatingfiles reduces the amount of storage needed and

speeds backup times.

We have commonly seen 20-to-1 capacity reductionusing data de-duplication, says Whitehouse.

4. Have backups stored outside the disaster impactzone.

At a minimum, backup tapes should be stored off site.Better yet, all data is mirrored to a disaster recoveryfacility far enough away that it is still on line when theflood/hurricane/earthquake/blackout brings down theprimary data center.

5. Track down and eliminate any network bottle-necks.

Bottlenecks will slow down backup and restoration. Thisis particularly an issue with server virtualization, wheremultiple virtual servers are using the same networkinterface card and network connection.

Make sure that you walk through the whole chain fromclient, to network, to server, to tape drive to ID bottle-necks, says Preston. You may be surprised to find

that the bottleneck is Gb Ethernet to the tape drive.Tape drives are often too fast for the network inter-face.

6. Minimize the number of backup products.

There can be advantages to using a best-of-breedproduct for a particular type of server, but make surethose advantages outweigh the cost and time of sup-porting multiple products.

7. Use multiple layers of protection, where appropri-

ate.

Depending on the business value, time sensitivity, andcriticality of the data involved we apply different back-up methods, says Dan Funchion, senior manager of ITInfrastructure/Operations for SunGard AvailabilityServices, who is responsible for backing up or replicat-ing 30TB of data daily. In many cases we will imple-ment multiple solutions for the same data sets (forexample, remote replication combined with tape back-

up).

8. Store a copy of the recovery plan with the backup

data.

Particularly when there is a major disaster, those whonormally handle backup/restoration may not be avail-able. Storing a copy of the plan with the tapes allowssomeone else to take the necessary steps.

9. Test the restoration process before it is needed,and test it on the actual equipment that will beused.

This is particularly critical when you are planning onusing a disaster recovery site that contains differentservers or a different network architecture. When talk-ing about a multitiered service, it doesn't do any goodto restore only one part. Or, if the application is used tolooking for a piece of code or a file on a particular serv-er in order to complete an operation, what will happenif it's on a different server? So test the entire system,not just whether the files restore properly.

10. Set up routine file restoration as a help deskfunction.

It doesn't take a high level of expertise to restore

someone's accidentally deleted Word file.

It is important to push as much of the restoration func-tion to the help desk so storage professionals can workon improving levels of service, says Robert L.Stevenson, Managing Director, Storage, for TheInfoPro,Inc. in New York City. That will give you more flexibilityto handle growth and address areas where there areinadequate backups. I




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Iwas recently at a customer site working to architect abackup solution for a large environment that containedscientific data. At this site, a majority of the data is under

hierarchical storage management (HSM) control, but depart-

mental network-attached storage servers for home directo-ries and smaller site-specific tasks were not being backedup.

The customer and I startedtalking, and I realized thatboth of us were approachingthe backup problem back-wards. We were looking at theproblem from the referencepoint of how to back up thedata, which is the wrong

approach. The problem withlooking at things from thebackup side first is that youmight wind up planning anarchitecture that cannot sup-port your restoration policy.So let's explore the reasonswhy I think restoration is the most important thing thatneeds to be planned, and some of the issues involvedin planning and creating a restore policy.

Gathering RequirementsI'm a big believer in gathering requirements at the startof the process. When I was visiting this customer, I

started to gather their backup requirements and thentheir restoration requirements.

The discussion led to some detailed information on

which machines were critical servers and whichmachines were not. We determined that the service

agreement with the hardwarevendor determined whether amachine was critical or not. Ifthey have four-hour hardwareresponse around the clock,then it was a critical machine,and if a machine was next-dayhardware service on weekdaysonly, then it was not critical. Iasked what their service-level

agreements with the usercommunity were for softwarerestoration, including theoperating system and userdata in the event of a disaster.The customer had not thoughtabout how fast they had to

restore the data.

It dawned on me that the issue was not backup time,but the time it would take to restore the data. Backupis pretty easy you can buy software from a variety of

companies that can deal with big and small backup andrestore problems, but the hardware and other softwarethat is needed to restore the environment and meet



Getting Backup RightBy Henry Newman

The problem with looking at things from the backup side first is that you might wind upplanning an architecture that cannot support your restoration policy.

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the expectation of the organization for coming backafter a disaster are far more difficult. We have all delet-ed a file that we wanted to get back, so you need to

consider not only the restoration of the system, but theprocess within the software for restoring a single file.Gathering requirements for restoring data shouldaddress two issues:

How are you going to restore the operating systemand what are the expectations for how long this willtake? How much user data will need to be restored andwhat are the expectations for how long this will take?

I once worked with a customer that wanted to use

backup and restore for a critical system that required99.995 percent uptime. I told them that it would beimpossible to get the 4TB of data restored in therequired time frame without hundreds of tape drives.Once they understood the technology issues, theychanged from backup/restore to HSM because it mettheir operational requirements better with the HSMsystem, they could get back online faster even thoughall of the data was not available on the primary storage.The customer determined that not all the data wasneeded when the system was booted. A completeunderstanding of the service-level agreements youhave with the users is one of the first and most impor-tant steps for the architectural planning process.

Some of the areas that must be planned are: Network configuration The number of incremental backups compared tofull backups The backup medium.

Network ConfigurationAs part of the architecture process, the architect mustconsider a numbers of areas of network architecture. I

am assuming that you are not doing a backup for eachmachine with a separate tape drive, but a networkbackup for a group of machines. Some of the networkissues include:

How much data will be backed up and at whatintervals? What is the current and planned network infrastruc-ture? What is the current and expected excess capacityavailable for backups?

The key to all of these network issues is bandwidth andlatency. If you have a large amount of data, you aregoing to need a large amount of bandwidth to support

the backup process. If you have many users that areactive when you are using large amounts of networkbandwidth, you have the potential for a significantlatency problem for the user community. Add to thiswhat happens if a machine needs to be restored in themiddle of the day, and you could affect the whole busi-ness by using up all of the available network bandwidthfor the restore.

Understanding the network topology and usage pat-terns and the impact that both an inopportune restoreand your standard backup will have must be consid-

ered. Sooner or later you will have to do a restore atthe worst possible time. If this is a critical businessissue, then you need to consider an architecture con-cept we often use called "Engineering to Peak." Whatthis means is that you develop an architecture with aset of worst-case scenarios in mind. These scenarios aredocumented and agreed to by all parties.

A good example might be that you use four-trunkedGigE for your network interface to the backup/restoresystem to meet your required restoration time. As partof this architecture, you have a single GigE as a hotstandby in case one of the four GigEs fails. If two GigEsfail, you cannot meet your restore service-level agree-ment. Since the chance of two failing are very low, aslong as this is documented and you have "engineeredto peak," you have met your service-level agreementwith management because everyone agreed that thefailure of two GigEs was not planned.

Incremental and Full BackupsIncremental backups allow the backup process to takefar less time, but they lengthen the restoration process.As part of the backup and restoration planning process,

you need to determine how much time you have torestore a machine. Given that information, you can planhow many incremental backups you can have beforeyou have to do a full backup. Remember to includetape pick, load, position, rewind, unload, and robotplacement of tape as part of this time calculation.

Backup MediumWhat is the backup medium? For the most part, tape isstill the backup medium of choice. MAID technology,




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or massive array of inactive disks, is being used moreand more in the large environment backup market.One of the tradeoffs with MAID is that the MAID ven-

dors do not currently support hardware compression,which tape drives support. Of course, your compres-sion mileage may vary depending on data type.

Whatever technology you use, it is important to ensurethat the technology is cost-effective and meets yourperformance requirements. Having lower-cost DLTdrives, compared to higher-cost drives from the likes ofIBM and StorageTek, might not make sense when youconsider that the compression of the drive and thehigher performance allow you to have fewer drives,fewer tapes and potentially a smaller robot.

There are no simple answers because without goodknowledge of your requirements, your data and thecompressibility of that data, making decisions in thisarea is difficult. Add to this that some backup packageshave the option of compression within the backup soft-ware, and you have a very confusing situation. The onlyway to figure this out is through real-world data.

ConclusionsArchitecting for backup correctly means basing yourarchitecture on your restore requirements. Thoserequirements will often vary for each machine in anenvironment, depending on how critical they are foryour business. What many organizations' IT depart-ments do is set up a set of services for all the machinesin the environment. This is often based on the hard-ware maintenance plans for the machines, since this isoften a very good measure of the criticality of amachine.

Whatever you decide, it's important to look at therestore requirements first before you consider the back-up issues. You will need to test your restoration time at

least once a year to make sure that the process worksas planned, but we'll save that topic for another col-umn. I




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It is certainly not news to say that the amount ofelectronically stored data is growing. It's because ofthis increase in storage space requirements and the

trend toward data centralization that our backup solu-

tions must scale to SAN and NAS storage demands interms of speeds, reliability, and security. Because ofthe importance backupsplay in the design andimplementation of a storagestrategy, they must be care-fully considered.

As we know, a backup issimply a copy of electronicdata that is used as a meansof recovery should the data

become lost, corrupted, orcompromised. Though thedefinition of a backup maybe straightforward, the actu-al implementation of a stor-age backup solution can bea difficult task that encom-passes many obvious andnot so obvious considera-tions.

Lets explore some of the factors to consider whenimplementing a backup solution for a storage areanetwork, starting with one consideration that datesback to the origin of the Local Area Network deal-

ing with the backup window.

Dealing with Shrinking BackupWindowsA backup window refers to the time it takes to com-

plete a given backup. Thisbackup window is deter-mined by both the amountof data that must be backedup and by the speed of thenetwork infrastructure thathandles the data. For someorganizations, the backupwindow doesn't present anyreal problems. Such organi-

zations typically have theability to complete databackups in the off hourswithout running into produc-tion time.

However, as the amount ofdata grows, so too does thetime it takes to perform the

backup, and soon backups will run into productiontime. Further, many organizations today do not havean off hours period they require network access24/7, leaving a very small or even nonexistent backupwindow.



Backup StrategiesBy Mike Harwood

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Because of the importance backups play in the design and implementation of a storagestrategy, they must be carefully considered.


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There are many ways to address the backup windowissue, and the one chosen will depend on the needsof the organization, budgets, and of course the

amount of data that must be backed up. Some of themethods used for operating within a backup windowinclude using differential and incremental backups,snapshots, hardware and infrastructure upgrades, andpotentially modifying the network backup designusing server-free and LAN-free backups.

Backup AlternativesStarting at the beginning, some of the oldest methodsof dealing with the backup window are using incre-mental or differential backups instead of regularly per-forming full backups. Before designing a backup solu-

tion with these methods, it's important to first have asolid understanding of backups in general and whateach of the alternatives is designed to do.

A full backup saves all directories and files, and whileit might sound ideal to perform a full backup everytime we back up our data, the backup window oftenprevents this. Because of the time and media space afull backup can take, they are often restricted to aweekly or monthly schedule, although the increasingspeed and capacity of backup media is making nightlyfull backups a much more realistic proposition, even

for those with hundreds of gigabytes of data.

Full backups, if you have the time to perform them,offer the ultimate in data protection. In effect, a singletape, or set of tapes, can provide the ability to com-pletely resurrect a server to its current state. Full back-ups are not, however, without their drawbacks; one ofwhich is security-related. Each tape contains an entirecopy of the data on a given server. If the tape were tobe stolen, the thief would then have an entire copy ofthe data.

The Incremental BackupThe incremental backup provides a much fastermethod of backing up data than a full backup. Duringan incremental backup only the files that havechanged since the last full or incremental backup areincluded. Because of this, the time it takes to conductthe backup may be a fraction of the time it takes toperform a full backup. To determine whether a file haschanged since the last full backup, the backup soft-ware checks a setting known as the 'archive bit.'



Given how cheap storage has become, it's

understandable enterprises are expanding

arrays to house growing data. But stocking

up on hardware and software to hold more and

more information is a costly misstep, according to a

Gartner report.

New regulations and legal concerns are likely

prompting IT to keep every bit and byte of data just

in case some litigation issue arises, and since stor-

age costs are decreasing, the urge to push another

box into play can be tempting.

The problem is that data growth will ver y quickly

outpace the savings in storage, according to Whit

Andrews, an analyst at Gartner.

"It's time for companies to modernize storage

strategies and understand how information access

technology can be a good tool for making sure they

need what they're keeping," Andrews told

InternetNews.com.

According to Gartner, the highest reported price in

the first quarter of this year for managed storage

was $12.50 per gigabyte per month, and the lowest

was $0.29 per gigabyte per month for archive stor-

age needs.

A recent survey of Gartner clients reported that

none expected its storage budget to decrease this

year, and that 67 percent expected the budget for

storage hardware to increase. Of those polled, 64

percent also expected storage software costs to

increase as well.

Just a quick look at backup storage provides a clear

view of how storage costs are decreasing. Prices

dropped by about 30 percent from 2006 to 2008,

according to Gartner.

But then cheap storage isn't really cheap when

additional management costs and increased power

and cooling costs are factored in.

Enterprises that choose to retain everything run

the risk of significant future costs, Gartner report-

ed. Also, the longer information is saved, the hard-

er it is to discern value, according to the survey.

continued

The Data Pileup: Save

Money or Save Data?By Judy Mottl


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When a file is changed in any way or copied from onearea of the disk to another, the archive bit is set toindicate that, at the next scheduled backup, the file

needs to be copied or archived. Full backups do notconcern themselves with whether or not the archivebit is set before backing a file up, but they do clearthe bit after the file has been copied to tape. Any filesthat then change have the archive bit set, indicatingthat they need to be backed up again.

Unlike differential, which does not clear the archive bitafter copying a file, incremental backups clear the bitso that unless the file changes again, it does not getbacked up unnecessarily. The use of the archive bitalso allows you to visually see which files do need to

be backed up.

The convenience of quicker backup times comes witha price in this case, the restore time. When restor-ing from an incremental backup, you need the mostrecent full backup as well as every incremental backupsince the last full backup. For example, if you weredoing a full backup Friday and incrementals onMonday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and the servercrashes Thursday morning, you would need four tapes Friday's full backup and the incremental backupsfor Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

The Differential BackupDifferential and incremental backups often get con-fused, but there's a clear distinction between the two.Whereas incremental backs up all the modified filessince the last full or incremental backup, differentialbackups offer a middle ground by backing up all thefiles that have changed since the last full backup.Restoring differential backups is a faster process asonly two tapes are needed the last full backup andthe latest differential.

Differential backups work well in environments thathave a reasonably large window to conduct backupsand that have the capacity to do so. In the case of dif-ferential backups, they work by looking for files thathave the archive bit set, and then back up only thosefiles.

As stated above, because differential backups copyany data that has changed since the last full backup,which would have cleared the archive bit, it does not


Developing a Storage Backup Strategy[ ]Information-Access toolsCompanies need to create a clear distinction on

which data should be saved on primary storage and

what data should be housed on cheaper secondarystorage, as the costs vary greatly in terms of hard-

ware and software.

Gartner provided a scenario, using a rough estimate

of $5 per gigabyte for backup storage and a genera-

tion rate of 10 gigabytes per employee per year. A

5,000-worker company faces annual costs of $1.25

million for five years of storage with those finan-

cials. Cutting the amount of data by 80 percent

could save about $1 million for five years and lower

the organization's liability, noted the report.

Information-access technologies include a wide

range of tools such as enterprise search, contentanalytics, and social search. Integration and deploy-

ment typically require some expertise, such as an

information architect, to get the tools in place and

working well, Andrews explained. And it's not

cheap, either, as products can range from $10,000 to

millions for advanced applications.

Still, companies can offset the costs through stor-

age savings, as well as benefits from improved busi-

ness processes.

The first step, according to Gartner, is to initiate

and develop a content valuation process. "This is

determining what's important to keep and how acompany decides what to keep," explained Andrews.

"It means establishing criteria on what data is to be

stored, where and why," he added. "Cheap storage is

expensive when it's storing data that doesn't need to

be stored," he noted.

A good best practice is establishing a content-valua-

tion policy on legacy data and making sure what's

stored requires that storage investment.

While some enterprises are using information-

access technologies, the majority isn't at this point,

according to the research firm. But sooner or latercompanies will realize the waste taking place in

storage and the costs of retaining data that has no

value, Andrews said.

He adds, "Is what you're storing on tape valuable at

this point, because if it's not, then you don't need it."

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change the state of the bit. The upside of thisapproach is that only two tapes are needed to effect acomplete restore. The downside is that at each differ-

ential backup, there's a high probability that somedata (that which has changed since the last full back-up but not since the last differential) will be backedup more than once.

Synthetic Full BackupOne final backup method worth mentioning is thesynthetic full backup. Synthetic full backups are usedwhen the backup window is too small for the otheroptions. In a synthetic full backup, information istaken from a full backup and the differential or incre-mental to create a new full backup tape. This allows a

full backup to be created offline, allowing the networkto continue to function without any performancedegradation or disruption to network users.

File System SnapshotsAs data continues to grow and our backup windowscontinue to shrink, new technologies are needed toaugment what we can do with the previously men-tioned backup methods. In the latest UNIX versions,we have a strategy called file system snapshots.

A file system snapshot is a frozen image or picture ofa file system at a given instant of time. Snapshotsallow for many important features, including the abili-ties to provide:

Backups of the file system at several times duringthe day without needing large amounts of addition-al storage media

A way to perform file system integrity checks on arunning and changing file system in an effort toreclaim lost blocks

Perhaps most importantly, reliable off media back-ups without the need for long backup windows.

File system snapshots offer system administrators thefreedom to create reliable backups of their systemswithout needing to shut down running applications forfear of data on disk changing while the backup is hap-pening. Some vendor implementations of snapshotshave the ability to mount this Point In Time Recovery

(PITR) image as a read-only file system that you canthen easily recover individual files from. According toDarcy Buskermolen, a network administrator from

Wavefire Technologies:

"The frozen point in time image is extremely usefulwhen it comes to being able to back up databases,allowing you to make a perfect backup of the data-base without needing any sort of maintenance win-dow, thereby increasing your product/applicationaccessibility uptime, as well as providing you with thereassurance that you are better protected from bothsystem failure and user mishaps.

"I recently used snapshots to recover from a botched

system upgrade that without them would have result-ed in 100s of hours of customer downtime, a sleep-less night spent restoring files from the full and incre-mental backups, and the usual barrage of phone callscomplaining of downtime," continues Buskermolen.

Volume Shadow Copy Technology inWindows Server 2003Windows Server 2003 introduced its own snapshottechnology known as Volume Shadow CopyTechnology (VSCT). The basic function of VSCT isthreefold: applications can continue to write data tothe volume during a backup; files that are open areno longer omitted during a backup; and backups canbe performed at any time, without locking out usersor having to worry about the backup window.

VSCT allows you to create shadow copy backups ofvolumes exact point-in-time copies of files, includ-ing all open files. For example, databases that arecontinually held open and files that are open due tooperator or system activity are backed up during avolume shadow copy backup. In this way, files thathave changed during the backup window are copied

correctly.

LAN-Free and Server-Free BackupsLet's review two types of network designs and howthey impact backup traffic.

When designing a network, careful consideration mustbe given to the location of backup devices, as theirphysical placement on a network has both perform-




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ance and security implications. In a traditional networkdesign, a backup device is located on the same seg-ment as all of the other network devices.

As you might imagine, there are both advantages anddisadvantages to this approach. When networkdevices are on the same segment as the backupdevice, it's relatively easy to configure all networkdevices, including workstations, to back up to thebackup device. Its also a low-cost solution, as backupdevices can be added to a segment without majorchanges to the network infrastructure.

However, because the backup device is on the samesegment, there's a greater security risk, as worksta-

tions may be able to directly access the backup serv-er. Furthermore, if backup devices are located on thesame segment, the volume of backup data beingtransferred can negatively impact the speed of thenetwork. This is why backups are often performed inthe off hours to prevent impacting network users.

Removing Backup from the LANFor those organizations that transfer huge amounts ofbackup traffic, there is another option physicallyremove the backup device from the LAN. In this sce-nario, the backup device is located on a dedicated

Fibre Channel segment. This network design is typi-cally more secure, as access from Ethernet networkdevices can be limited and controlled by the storageor network administrator.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of removing the backupdevice from the production LAN is in performance.LAN bandwidth is preserved for the production net-work, and backups can be performed at any timewithout impacting users.

On the downside, when backup traffic is taken off the

regular LAN and placed on a high-speed alternative,it can be costly in terms of both dollars and adminis-trative overhead. However, when in place, it providesthe ability to provide two unique backup strategies: aLAN-free backup and a server-free backup.

In early storage development, a common backupstrategy was to have backups performed to locallyattached tape devices. For larger network environ-ments, this approach had two significant drawbacks

cost and management. Maintaining a large number ofdecentralized tape drives and media became difficultand inefficient. This lead to the development of soft-

ware that allowed designated servers to act as central-ized storage devices. While this approach allowedbackups to be managed from a central location, italso meant that all backup traffic had to travel overthe LAN to the backup server.

In many environments, this can still be an effectivebackup design as long as the LAN can support theamount of traffic that the backups generate. However,in many of today's modern environments, the amountof backup traffic that must cross the LAN is simply toogreat for the LAN regardless of the LAN technology

used. The solution in this case is to take the data offof the LAN.

The LAN-Free Backup SolutionA LAN-free backup solution allows you to use a stor-age area network (SAN) to create a shared, central-ized backup and recovery point. It offers the manage-ment capabilities of a centralized backup solutionwhile at the same time also delivering the perform-ance of distributed backup solutions. LAN-free back-ups take the backup traffic off of the LAN by usingdedicated links to network servers with centralized

storage devices.

Each server maintaining data that must be backed uprequires a Fibre Channel adapter that connects to aFibre Channel hub or switch. The hub or switch is con-nected to a tape library or disk array.

In this configuration, a single server or server clustercan act as the central backup point for all servers onthe network. All backup traffic travels through dedicat-ed high-speed links, reducing the load on the regularLAN links and all but eliminating the limitations of the

backup window.

The Server-Free Backup SolutionLAN-free backups increase backup speeds and cen-tralize management, but what if it were possible totake backups one step further and transfer backupdata directly from disk to tape without using a server?This option is known as a server-free backup.When we talk about a server-free backup, we are




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referring to a process where the backup data pathdoes not go through a server. While a server is need-ed to control the overall process and maintain the

backup software, data is passed between disk andbackup library without requiring a server's CPU. Thisfrees server resources to be used elsewhere on theproduction LAN.

There are several advantages to implementing a serv-er-free backup solution, including offloading trafficfrom the LAN, reducing the load on server systemresources, and high-speed data transfer. As with mostareas of technology, though, there are also a fewdrawbacks. A server-free backup solution is more cost-ly and complex to design and manage, and when

something goes wrong, they can be very difficult totroubleshoot.

Other Backup AlternativesWhile a LAN-free or server-free backup solution maybe the answer to eliminating the backup windowissue, they are often too costly for many organizationsto implement. This can lead to rather creative meth-ods of increasing the speed of the backup process orworking within limited backup windows.

One method that keeps surfacing is replacing tape

with hard disks, as backups to disks are faster. While

there isn't the space in this article to fully explore thetape vs. hard disk debate, we can say that in mostenvironments, tape is still the leader. While hard disks

are able to store and retrieve data faster than tapeand provide real-time transmissions, tape media is theclear choice in terms of better portability and security.While hard disk transfers may be faster, newer tapedevices are able to transfer large amounts of data atreasonable speeds.

Tape backups do have some drawbacks, including ashorter media and drive lifetime than their hard diskcounterparts. Hard disks, however, are often viewedas a security vulnerability point, as data on the harddisk can be live and accessible to the network. Still, if

the backup window for a network is a real concernand time is critical, a combination of tape and harddisk backups may be the solution.

In summary, coping with the issue of the backup win-dow can be a costly endeavor for an organization. Asthe traffic generated by backups continues to grow,solutions will be needed that can handle the loadwithout disruption to the production LAN. While someband-aid solutions, such as hard disk backups, maybuy some time, the trend is certainly toward takingthe backup traffic off of the LAN. I




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It's been observed throughout human history thatyou generally have to get kicked in the teeth beforeyou see value in the art of self-defense. It certainly

seems to be true in the case of disaster recovery,

where vendors experience far more interest in theirDR wares immediately following events such as 9/11,Hurricane Katrina, floods, and tornadoes.

"We see spikes of interestfrom time to time when anevent occurs, and that doesdrive more communicationwith our customers," saidBrian Regan of IBM's infor-mation protection servicesunit.

A recent study byAberdeen Group foundthat 34 percent of compa-nies have yet to implementany kind of DR solution. Ofthe remaining 66 percent,25 percent don't performregular disaster plan tests.And when you get down into the SME sector, JeffreyHill, an analyst with Aberdeen Group, reported thatnearly half of those in the 100 to 1,000-employee cate-

gory don't have a BC/DR plan in place.

Cost or Complacency?The situation isn't solely based on complacency. Manyof the companies involved want to be able to recover

rapidly in the face of an event. But they just can't affordit. Say you wanted to set up a large-scale back-up/recovery architecture such as that used bySalesforce.com. Salesforce has to have the type of

backup and DR platformthat doesn't lose a singletransaction no matter whathappens. That takes a totalof nine copies of the data,each with different recoverypoints for failure. The com-pany's complex array of

tape libraries, disk arrays,servers, and databases costaround $20 million.Continuous data protection(CDP) is achieved via regu-lar shadow images of pro-duction data sharedbetween mirrored SANs onseparate coasts. Oracledatabases are also continu-

ously protected. Other scenarios are deployed rangingfrom four hours to recover all the way to 48 hours forless critical systems.

Of course, not everyone needs that level of protection.



Finding a Disaster RecoverySolution That Wont Break the Bank

By Drew Robb

A recent study by Aberdeen Group found that 34 percent ofcompanies have yet to implement any kind of DR solution.

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Accordingly, multiple degrees of DR have evolved,ranging from the "Remain live or die" category throughmore prioritized approaches on down to economy class.

Let's look at what may be considered basic -- somekind of regular backups occurring along with a plan torecover systems and data within a reasonable time. It'simportant to differentiate these two.

"It's hard to imagine that a company wouldn't have adata backup system, but just backing up data alonedoesn't constitute a disaster recovery strategy," saidHill.

Yet as the Aberdeen numbers prove, many don't make

it beyond backup to the point of instituting some kindof DR plan. And on the other extreme, you have thosewho are so fed up with the hassles of backup technolo-gy that they have implemented DR without any kind ofunderlying backup setup.

The Department of Consumer Affairs of the City ofNew York, for instance, uses StorageX from Brocadespecifically for DR. Its main office in Manhattan storesdata on an EMC Celerra NS500 NAS box. Its othermajor site in Queens has another NAS filer. Users atQueens actually write to the EMC box and then every-thing at Manhattan is replicated to Queens usingMicrosoft DFS. Brocade StorageX aggregates the filedata into one logical file system. If Manhattan goesdown, users are directed to Queens automatically.

So confident was the IT department that it conductedthe ultimate test -- unplugging the EMC box in themiddle of a workday. Even more surprisingly, thedepartment does not even use a regular backup sys-tem. It relies on this DR set up to safeguard all its data."When we tested it, everything worked beautifully,"said Matthew Miller, the department's LAN administra-tor. "The system failed over to the secondary location

and users didn't notice a thing."

Bunker MentalityAt the other end of the spectrum comes Pella Corp., amanufacturer of windows and doors based in Iowa. Itruns its business on Oracle E-Business Suite applica-tions and Oracle Database 10g using a centralizedarchitecture. It also deployed a remote data center forrecovery known as the bunker.

"Prior to the bunker, we had a lot of equipment forcomponent failure and documented plans for a site dis-aster, although it would have been a lengthy process

had we lost our data center," said Jim Thomas, Pella'sdirector of IT operations.

HP supplied its StorageWorks XP24000 arrays, one ateach of the two data centers. Both systems are inter-connected using Fibre Channel to replicate continuous-ly between the two locations. The bunker is hardenedto protect against tornadoes, and it has the ability torun all vital systems if the primary data center isdestroyed.

That effort took several years and multiple millions to

establish. But you don't necessarily have to spend inthat order of magnitude to protect your systems.Lipscomb & Pitts Insurance LLC, based in Memphis,went the appliance route. This type of solution fits bestfor SMBs or organizations that are shorthanded, or forlarger organizations that don't want to bring in furtherDR/storage expertise.

Lipscomb & Pitts purchased the appliance fromSTORServer of Colorado Springs. The company's vicepresident of finance, Mike Yates, said the move wasn'tprompted by the experience of a particular event."You do not know when a disaster will happen, so youhave to make contingency arrangements," he said. "Ifyou lose your data, your business shuts down and youcannot serve your clients."

The 100-employee company uses a combination ofEVault InfoStage and EVault InfoStage DualVault fromSeagate, all operated by masterIT, an IT managed serv-ices firm from Tennessee. It looks after Lipscomb &Pitts' backup/recovery and IT operations. Over 250 GBis backed up each night.

Yates says bunkers, massive automated tape libraries,

and expensive replication gear are fine for large enter-prises companies, but are out of the question for manySMEs.

"For a fraction of that cost, we're just as prepared anddidn't have to pay an arm and a leg," he said. "It's acomfort knowing the data is going out every night to adifferent region in a way that is largely transparent toour staff."




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No Time to WasteThere are many different strategies and technologiesthat can be employed when it comes to DR, all at dif-ferent price points. The choices made are often basedupon the cost of achieving various recovery pointobjectives (RPO) and recovery time objectives (RTO).

"If you have an unlimited budget and resources, anRTO and RPO of zero or close to it would be great,"said Greg Schulz, senior analyst and founder ofStorageIO Group. "But in reality land for many environ-ments, implementing the right tier of protection toapplicable threat risks is a means to maximize budgetsand spending."

Schulz suggested that small and mid-sized businesseslook to protect essential and time sensitive materialwith the lowest RTO/RPO they can afford while looking

at how to leverage different RPOs and RTOs for otherdata.

Whatever DR scheme is required, though, it should bedeployed sooner rather than later.

"SMBs cannot wait until a disaster of company-endingproportions occurs before allocating the resources todo this right," said Aberdeen's Hill. I




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Online backup seems to be all the rage as oflate. Vendors are springing up either cateringto a specific niche or claiming to do every-

thing for next to nothing. While such services aren't

likely to attract enterprise users, they are certainly lur-ing many SMBs. All you have to do is sign up, decidewhich files to backup, set a schedule and your files areautomatically backed up daily.

But the online backup marketisn't just attracting small start-ups. The big boys, too, arerolling out inexpensive servicesaimed squarely at the SMBmarket.

"Enterprise DR market growthis stalling, so vendors are look-ing for ways to reach new mar-ket segments," said LauraDuBois, an analyst atInternational Data Corp. (IDC)."Online backup services areparticularly attractive to the SMB market, as this meetssome of their unique needs."

So sudden is the upsurge in online backup that IDCdoes not yet monitor it as a separate category. The

analyst firm has no idea how much the of the $2.68 bil-lion data protection and recovery market is taken up byonline backup. But DuBois said IDC is working rightnow on sizing it.

"It's still a relatively smallish market, but with lots ofopportunity for growth in the SMB space," she said."More vendors continue to enter this market."

What's Out There?There are lots of online backup options out there. For

those with only a few staffersand a small amount of data toback up, a simple service likeBackup.com (recently purchasedby Symantec) is sufficient. I usethis and it costs about $50 ayear for my relatively modestneeds. Any new files or

changed files are backed upeach day. Any time I've neededsomething, I've been able torecover it in seconds.

Mozy.com from EMC is anothersuch service. According to

Vance Checketts, the company'sCOO and vice president of products, it signed up morethan 6,000 businesses customers in eight months.

"Businesses are realizing the only way to ultimately pro-tect corporate data from permanent loss is to store anadditional copy off site," said Checketts. "They recog-nize that it's more cost effective for them to outsourcetheir backup and archive services than it is to build the



Small Businesses Turnto Online Backup

By Drew Robb

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But the online backup market isn't just attracting small startups. The big boys, too, arerolling out inexpensive services aimed squarely at the SMB market.


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infrastructure and hire the team to manage backups in-house."

Mozy.com provides up to 2 GB free, and unlimitedspace for $4.95 per month. This allows business cus-tomers to restore files by downloading them from theMozy Web site or by ordering a DVD with next-day airshipping.

ThetaBackup.com, on the other hand, is focused mainlyon mid-size SMBs. Online backup costs a little under$50 per month. But the company prefers to offer moresophistication to those that require it.

"We provide general network planning, maintenance

and trouble-shooting for these businesses beside theonline backup service," said Attila Kozma, president ofThetaBackup.com. "It helps us to create the most accu-rate and efficient backup regimen for their needs thatwon't leave any chance for failure."

Remote Backup Systems (RBS) of Memphis, Tenn.,boasts more than 1.5 million clients in 68 countries. ItsRbackup software has mirroring capabilities that canautomatically back up RBS server data to a secondarylocation, message-level support for live MicrosoftExchange databases, multiple-instance support for liveSQL databases and automatic remote updates to theRBackup client software. RBS CEO Rob Cosgrove is dis-missive of lower-cost services.

"Services like Carbonite and Mozy are inadequate forSMBs because of several factors, including the slowspeed of backups, the cumbersome restore method,the lack of built-in agents to properly back upExchange, SQL Server and Lotus Notes," saidCosgrove. "Our RBackup software was designed fromthe ground up for SMBs. Other services that are ade-quate for SMBs include Asigra and LiveVault."

How Good Is Good Enough?How good a DR option is an online backup service forSMBs? DuBois believes many of these services aregood enough in terms of general protection. But shecautions that online backup service providers should berequired to serve as a partner in event of true disaster.That means asking for more than just backing up a fewfiles each day.

Kozma suggests several tips to help SMBs select anappropriate vendor:

The transferred data need to be encrypted andcompressed before transmission The online backup and data recovery practices ofthe online backup company should be verified todetermine if they store SMB data securely Recovery times must be rapid On-site professional help should be available when-ever requested at an affordable rate Open files should be backed up Many versions of files should be saved online, asopposed to only the last saved version The online backup client software should verify the

sent data for its correctness.

"SMBs are aware of the necessity of backing up theircompany data, but it is rarely done properly," saidKozma. "The main thing that is usually missing is theunderstanding of what needs to be backed up andwhere it is safe to store those data."

Cosgrove agrees with the above points, and stressesreliability, security, file versioning, good scheduling,automation, compression and strong encryption as nec-essary components of a good online backup solutionfor any SMB, regardless of size.

"Depending on the type of business, there may also bea need for assistance with compliance regulations likeHIPAA, for archiving, and for data discovery," he said.I

This content was adapted from Internet.com'sEnterprise Storage Forum, Enterprise IT Planet, andInternetNews Web sites. Contributors: Drew Robb,Mike Harwood, Henry Newman, and Paul Shread.


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