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An appliance approach to data backup

A single technological development – backup appliances – has resulted in a giant leap in automation in the past three years for all three data recovery functions.

What are we hearing in the educational arena regarding IT today? Use resources as efficiently as possible. Get more out of what we have. Leverage a well-working IT implementation across multiple departments. Balance rising maintenance costs against cost-saving new technologies.

The austere mantras reverberate everywhere.

Backup appliances have found an industry in which they are needed more than ever. Automating data protection and cutting the costs of manual tasks could fit the bill for many school and university IT departments that have not taken the backup appliance plunge. An added benefit? Doing so creates cost savings in data protection while increasing new data recovery expectations.

Data recovery solutions should always include all three major areas for ensuring restores: backup, archive, and disaster recovery. Implementing technology to perform these three key functions separately creates huge divides in both management and successful implementation. Skipping out on any one of these areas will leave the facility both vulnerable and out of compliance.

A single technological development – backup appliances – has resulted in a giant leap in automation in the past three years for all three data recovery functions. Bundling all the components required for data recovery is a thing of the past. The modern solution? IT departments now purchase this all-in-one data recovery solution designed for enterprise-class operations. However, this platform is not relegated to just universities. The smallest school districts share similar requirements: multiple platforms, remote offices, large numbers of users (at every level), separate retention expectations from different departments, and a host of legal rules to follow.

All backup appliances are not made equal

As appliances now constitute a major category for purchasing a backup solution, one thing needs to be made clear: all backup appliances are not the same. The reasons for automating a typical “pieces and parts bundled solution” into an appliance identify the very elements for how appliances are different—software, technologies, hardware, support, and the “other” parameters. Let’s take a look at each of these components:

Software

Software is the ultimate automation transformer of all time. Of course, it is just a bunch of weightless ones and zeros without hardware, but frankly, the software rules.

Consider the software’s database engine and its ability to manage complexity. Users must have a “relational” database in the software. The database must expand into dizzyingly huge sizes. Limits on growth send backup administrators into apoplexy.

Appliance software now requires the obvious—only back up a file once. Backup software that still requires users to “periodically” start over and back up everything again is probably not using a relational database, or is not designed properly.

Finally, insist upon homogeneous client backups with the same software. Using different software for different O/S platforms is so 20th century.

Technology

It is important to understand the technology “musts”:

Hardware

The hardware parameters include not just the cool factors in server technology and the enterprise capability of the disk (SAS is probably the primary way to go), but how these pieces all work together and grow together.

Bundles typically fall apart at this juncture, because the slapping together of servers, storage, and networking do not attend to the dynamic changes of environments. First, networks are getting faster and more reliable. Next, servers are continuing to duplicate in capability every 18 months. Lastly, storage will always get cheaper and more dense over time.

Consequently, the primary issue around the hardware (while stability and performance cannot be compromised) remains flexibility and scalability. Appliances that limit users to one offering of disk, and even some specific type of disk, probably will not be able to incorporate new technologies over time. Appliances that do not allow users to include legacy storage, or even separately purchased storage, are probably not enterprise.

The nature of backup causes a customer to think about the consequences of tomorrow. Backup prepares a customer not just for what might happen, but for a restore that will happen when his or her company looks differently, and when the technologies evolve.

Support

The support offering of the appliance is perhaps its most important feature. Appliance companies usually do not tout their ability to fix and repair stuff that will break. Yes, we all know that stuff breaks. Sometimes a breakage is simply changes in compatibility or settings that must be updated. Support from the appliance manufacturer has three of its own appliance-conscious elements: range, cost, and diagnostics.

The range of a support contract for backup appliances must include end-to-end or head-to-toe maintenance. Stove-piped support that moves users from software to hardware engineers during a break-fix call kills the effectiveness of an appliance. The appliance vendor needs to support what they build as one unit.

The cost of support should follow industry expectations of 12-to-18 percent each year for a comprehensive support contract. If an appliance vendor only offers 90 days or one year hardware replacement, run away. Costs should include everything inside the appliance and under one agreement, too.

Diagnostic support defines the appliance offering. To diagnose means to root out the source of the problem, from software to hardware, and then proceed to fix that for the customer.

Today’s appliance vendors offer some capabilities. Many of them even have good service options that offer a number of interesting features. However, schools and universities need a solution that has everything. Use these parameters to find a solution that offers just that—everything.

John Pearring is manager of sales for STORServer [1]. As STORServer’s president from 1995 to 2008, John built the original OEM alliances and the original e-business infrastructure for the company.