What is next-generation data protection

The current IT world is undergoing major changes, and outdated data protection solutions have been unable to cope with the rapid growth of data and the intensification of complexity. According to a recent survey by the Information technology industry independent Research Network Info Pro, one of the first tasks of this year's IT strategy is "backup Refactoring" (the Info Pro, 11/14/07). To address the current challenges of data management, users are aware of the importance of migrating to next-generation data protection platforms.

Next-generation data protection has three key characteristics. First of all, must be comprehensive, can comprehensively cover the complex environment; second, it must be disk-driven, enabling the use of existing disk arrays and simultaneously increasing the level of backup and recovery services; third, to restore as the center, backup operations are designed to be the most rapid and efficient recovery at all times.

Comprehensive data protection

For all businesses, information determines everything. However, this important asset is ubiquitous within the enterprise-servers, e-mail, business applications and databases, affiliates, employee laptops, workstations, and virtual environments-are different platforms and technologies that make such a complex environment. Next-generation data protection must be able to provide a comprehensive management platform to cover this complex environment:

Comprehensive coverage: a single data protection solution can cover all platforms, databases, and applications.

Comprehensive Depth: Powerful storage infrastructure and technical support such as data deduplication, virtualization, fine-grained recovery, and continuous data protection.

Full virtualization: Protection of virtual machines must be able to cover all types of virtual machines and mission-critical applications, as well as virtual machine policies from data centers to remote sites, and support for migrating virtual machines to heterogeneous environments with different platforms.

Comprehensive reporting and compliance: Centralized reporting across multiple domains, for multiple products, and full automation.

Full backup and archiving: suitable for various types of enterprises, with professional archiving capabilities. Powerful protection with shared report search and indexing, system protection and media management, and integrated data and policy management.

Comprehensive Windows Protection: as a market-leading technology is an essential element of next-generation data protection.

Disk driven

As business continuity demands become increasingly stringent, existing tape-based backups cannot meet current business requirements, and businesses have to find new ways to respond to new challenges. Disk can provide instant restore and failback with 0 downtime and data loss, enabling multiple site protection. disk-based Data de-duplication technology helps users manage storage growth by backing up changes, eliminating duplicate backups, and covering all of the enterprise's physical and virtual environments, from the data center to the remote site:

Data center: Disk can not only be tiered storage, but also can save data for a long time and improve recovery capability. Data de-duplication maximizes the user's storage investment by increasing disk utilization.

Remote sites: Remote sites can use disk to centralize backup and reduce tapes from network boundaries. Backup to disk is easier for administrators and does not need to be staffed at remote sites.

Virtual Environment: disk-based Backup can reduce the impact on the host server as the virtual machine continues to expand.

Center for Recovery

In the past, most data protection schemes have been centered on backup, and for all businesses today, recovery is the focus. The challenges currently facing recovery include system recovery, disaster recovery, and critical application recovery.

Improve recovery speed: as one of the key points of backup and recovery refactoring, recovery is measured in terms of speed and granularity. Only automatic and fast data recovery enables users to make easy local access.

Application and Database granular recovery: to meet the needs of user disaster recovery, data protection solutions must be flexible and deep enough to recover any data at any time, whether it is a single document or an entire datacenter.

Comprehensive System Recovery: the impact of disaster on any enterprise is universal. As a result, disaster recovery is critical. Users need a comprehensive disaster recovery solution, and simple operations can quickly recover after a disaster occurs.

Data replication: Although Tape-based solutions still occupy a niche in the user environment, disk-based Backup and recovery has become a mainstream application. Not only do users deploy disk-based solutions in the data center, they also leverage disk replication data from the network to the disaster recovery site and then transfer to tape to reduce risk and cost overall.

Online Data protection: Although many users are very much in recognition of the next generation of data protection, but because of the lack of resources, space and money to make it a reality, so online data protection came into being. Online data protection helps users overcome many obstacles, and users can choose a secure offline backup location as an offline data protection option or an alternative to existing tape storage to further enhance the centralized use of resources.

Summary

Faced with an unprecedented complex IT environment, organizations need to reassess their current backup solutions and be able to easily recover data securely and efficiently. Can you meet the characteristics of business development and change? Is it possible to address emerging challenges such as the transformation of virtual and physical environments, heterogeneous technology platforms, and increasingly stringent compliance requirements? The time has come to refactor data protection.