Just about any business using computers needs backup for its data. (There may be some exceptions, but offhand I can’t think of any.)
Somebody might change or delete a file that shouldn’t have been altered. Data might be scrambled by software errors, power glitches or hardware failures. Hard drives fail. A site might become inaccessible, due to network problems, weather, or other events. Backups let companies recover and regain access to data — and depending on the company’s industry, may be required by regulatory compliance.
But what form of backup should you use? Ideally your data is both offsite, to protect against the broadest range of failures, and your data is online, to allow the quickest recovery. Cloud backup can provide both and more.
“Premises” backups, a.k.a. local backups — backups kept on site — let companies restore large amounts of data quickly and easily. But local backups don’t protect and provide access to data when site-level events occur that damage onsite IT gear and/or keep employees and customers from accessing data. For example, network or electrical outages; weather and environmental occurrences like fire, flood, tornado, earthquake, or snow storm; or deliberate human events like IT theft or vandalism.
Offsite backups provide the security of insulating the backup from on-site circumstances. “Old-school” offsite backups saved data to tapes, which are physically couriered to and stored in a distant secure facility, and, when a backup is needed, located and read. (Assuming the tape can be found and can be used… which is not always the case.) More recently, many companies have turned to optical media or removable hard drives instead of tapes for this approach.
“Online” backups transport the backup data over network links, such as via the Internet, either “nearline” to robot tape libraries, or online, to disk-based virtual tape libraries (VTL) or other storage systems. This lets companies avoid putting their backup data at risk in transit (not a bad idea, given how many backup tapes, CD/DVDs, and hard drives have gone astray).
Some online backup solutions also provide varying degrees of browser-based access to files for recovery or sharing, along with the ability to request larger restores for download or physical shipment. However, this access is generally “silo-like,” meaning the backup is accessible only by the company — either IT administrators or end users.
Today, cloud backup providers are taking online backup several steps further:
- Offering not just browser-based, silo-like recovery/restore access, where only the user can access the online backup, but access by other authorized companies and individuals, and also mounted by other servers or cloud services. This lets cloud backups be used not just for sharing and collaboration, but also to connect to BC/DR (Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery) services.
- Providing the ease and simplicity of low/no-premises software or hardware, and minimal configuration or administration.
- No capex (initial or ongoing capital expenditures), and pay-as-you-go service — pay for what you need.
- Simple scaling. All the additional capacity you want is available when you need it.
And for companies who want the speed of local backup with the protection and flexibility of cloud back-up, there is the option of doing both, either separately, or using a hybrid local/cloud combination. Depending on the architecture of the combined solutions, this hybrid approach can add management complexity and costs.
Is cloud backup right for you? To answer that, your company needs to understand and decide its backup needs — and understand the factors that differentiate cloud and other backup solutions. In a series of upcoming posts, we’ll be talking about these topics.
In the meantime, learn more about Zetta cloud-based enterprise online backup and recovery here.
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