2. Introduction to ZSL and Practice Area
Backup and Recovery - Terms and Definitions
Identifying and Defining Recovery Objectives
Trends and Best Practices
Q &A
3. 15+ years Global Technology Integrator & Business Solutions Provider,
Headquartered in Edison, NJ
State-of-the-art Technology Research & Development Centers in US, Canada and
India
4000 employees with offices in US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Malaysia,
Singapore, Middle-East and India
Dedicated R&D Division to Offer Value Added R&D Services & Product
Development Services to the ISVs and SPs
Emerging Technologies Specialization with the leading technology vendors
alignment
Pioneer in Industry Solutions Development (Insurance, Finance, E-Governance,
Consumer Electronics, Pharmaceutical & Telecom)
Award Winning & Proven Partnership Program “Get IT Together” Partnership for
ISVs, VARs, SPs and SIs
ISO and CMM Certified Solution Provider
4. Enterprise Infrastructure and Managed Services
Based out of Edison, NJ and Chennai, India.
IDEA Lab – Value-added R&D, Product Development/Engineering
Portfolio of Technologies and Professional Services:
Virtualization – Server Virtualization, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, Private
Cloud Implementations
Data Center and Unix/Linux/Windows Services – Assessments, Implementations,
Deployments and Migrations
Managed Services – Manage, administer and maintain servers, networks, IT
Infrastructure, Backup/Recovery services.
5. Recovery Time Objective (RTO) – Maximum elapsed time
required to complete recovery of application data.
Recovery Point Objective (RPO) – Point in time to which
application data must be recovered to resume business
transactions.
Continuous Data Protection (CDP) – A highly dependable
means of real-time, continuous data replication. Required
for aggressive RTO/RPO.
Replication – Anything (software or hardware) that can make
additional copies of existing data to improve data availability.
Virtual Tape Libraries (VTL) – Disk-based backup medium
which simulates tape medium.
D2D/D2D2T – Disk to Disk; Disk to Disk to Tape.
6. Snapshots/Copy on Write/Point in Time Copy – A snapshot is
a set of reference markers, or pointers, to data stored on a
disk drive, on a tape, or in a storage area network.
7. De-duplication – A method of reducing storage needs by
eliminating redundant data.
8. Combined Responsibility – Recovery objectives should be defined by
data/application requirements, business policies and IT processes.
Define RPO/RTO – This will determine the type of backups, frequency,
medium, geographical and level of redundancy.
The medium is the message – Will you be able to restore from the
chosen medium in 5/7/10 years time? What will be the cost for long
term storage?
Length of Retention – Regulatory, compliance and policy driven.
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plans – Backup and recovery
should be part of the overall BCP/DRP. BCP/DRP starts here and goes
much beyond.
9. Disk-based Backups – Data is backed up from high-performance disks to low-
cost commodity disk systems. Combined with deduplication, snapshots and
compression, disk-based backups allow for very fast recoveries and return to
service. VTLs are being replaced by multi-tiered D2D and D2D2T
technologies. By 2014, advanced disk-based backup will capture 80% of the
overall $5-6 billion market (Gartner, January 2011).
SAN to SAN Replication – Data is replicated from primary site/server to
secondary site/server. Built-in SAN feature or third-party software built
around virtualization technologies. Heterogeneous replication is big
advantage of using software based replication.
Snapshots – Virtualization is driving snapshot deployment and adaption.
Makes for near-instantaneous backups and aggressive RPOs. Deduplication is
maturing from a stand-alone to becoming an “must have” feature.
10. Backing up to the Cloud – Data is backed to an “cloud” based offsite
facility. You pay for the space used on a monthly basis. Typically being
used for “last tier” and archival data. Typically data is encrypted during
transit and at rest. Gartner: 70% of all businesses will consider Cloud-
based backups in the next 12-18 months.
Continuous Data Protection – CDP (and near-CDP) is an increasingly
affordable and required method of data replication. CDP-based
solutions can provide fine granularities of restorable objects ranging
from crash-consistent images to logical objects such as files, mail boxes,
messages, and database files and logs
“Bare-Metal” Recoveries – Increasing use of virtualization technologies
is changing the meaning of “bare-metal” recoveries.
11. Backup to S3 – Run a traditional backup utility and dump the data to
Simple Storage Service (S3) which is inexpensive and is available in very
large quantities. Make sure the backups are on redundant availability
zone and regions.
RAID built from S3 – Use S3-based virtual disks to build your own RAID
to mirror and replicate your data onto multiple S3 volumes. Data
protection comes from RAID’s high-availability and mirroring.
Virtual SAN/NAS – Build a virtual iSCSI SAN or NFS/CIFS NAS in EC2
so that multiple instances can served and backed up from a single
instance.
Replicated/Distributed FS - Use a distributed filesystem like GlusterFS
so that your EC2 instances can replicate each other’s data. Make sure
there are a large number of participant instances since this increases the
redundancy and availability of the data.
12. Policies and Processes – Backup and restore procedures and infrastructure should be built
upon and driven by business policies and IT processes.
Define Recovery Objectives First – Recovery objectives should drive backup decisions and
procedures, not the other way around. For example, data backed up to the Cloud can take a
long time to recover; so this is not ideal for applications that have an aggressive RTO.
Test Regularly and Randomly – A backup that cannot be restored is a waste of effort, time
and resources, besides building a false sense of security. Test and verify your backed up data
and recovery procedures at regular intervals. Mix in some randomly times fire-drills to check
skills and training levels.
Prioritize and Classify – Work with all the stake holders to define and prioritize your data
into different tiers based on business importance and policies. Build your backup/recovery
infrastructure accordingly. Re-visit these decisions at regular intervals.
Think Long Term – Data sticks around for a long time. Chose your backup methods and
media such that data is recoverable at the far-end of the retention periods. Consider costs
for the long term as well. For example: It costs a lot to keep disks spinning for 5 to 7 years;
tapes can be store data without burning watts. Make sure you complete an ROI analysis
before committing.