Investing in backup and recovery software

By Acronis

Analysts state that 66% of companies are planning major redesigns of their backup and recovery systems within the next 12 months. At the time of a global economic meltdown why is investment in backup and recovery software, a technology which was introduced over 60 years ago, still rising?

Information surrounds us. Overflowing inboxes, mountains of presentations, and a hoard of invaluable word documents have become an everyday component of our lives. Engulfed in a digital world, everyone from the receptionist to the CEO demands that IT systems are available to access 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

This information-centric culture shows no sign of changing. The instance an IT system fails, the IT help desk is bombarded by calls from distressed users demanding that they have access to their information. And with the global storage capacity growing by more than 60 per cent annually, this problem is set to get worse. If anything, the demand for backup and recovery software will accelerate as more companies become dependent on the information which they hoard in their IT systems.
 
However, it’s not just user demands which deem the availability of IT systems critical. Failure of systems can be expensive. If services are down, it can result of delays in meeting client requests potentially resulting in missed deadlines, delays in supplies or even lost business. In fact, nearly half of businesses that experience catastrophic data loss close immediately and, more specifically, 93 per cent of those businesses that suffer a data loss of 10 days or more go bankrupt within a year after the incident. These factors all render it vital to recover data, applications and operating systems as quickly as possible in the event of a system failure.

Keeping businesses operational
It can be difficult to find time to prioritise a business continuity strategy, and it can often drop to the bottom of the agenda, particularly as it is often perceived as expensive and time consuming. However, establishing how a business could survive a disruption, whether it is as a result of a natural disaster or a blip in the running of the IT system, is essential to any business. 

Although floods, fires and other forms of natural disasters dominate the news, the most likely disaster to befall a company will probably be of a technical nature – perhaps an overheated server, a power spike or a malicious software attack – or most likely a human error. It is vital that firms are protected against run of the mill threats as well as unplanned natural disasters. 

Crunch time
In the face of the credit crunch, it may be feasible for companies to delay investing in the latest operating system or new servers, however ensuring that they have access to their information remains paramount. The analogy between backup and recovery solutions and the fact that people will always need doctors is perhaps a little far-fetched, but it clearly demonstrates that data forms the heart of every company, and the ability to recover that data in the event of a failure is paramount, regardless of the economic climate.

Having to do more with less is no surprise for CIOs, particularly when it comes to storage management. Effective backup and recovery strategies are not expensive. In fact, the credit crunch presents the perfect opportunity for the IT department to rationalise its costs and ensure long-term cost savings.

While investment in backup and recovery technology shows no sign of slowing, the way in which companies are purchasing it is changing. IT departments are moving away from a model of purchasing products to just meet specific individual technical issues. Instead, they are taking a step back to consider how the investment fits into an overarching strategy. As a result, customers are making fewer product acquisitions throughout the year.

Traditionally when making purchases, companies would consider questions such as, does it solve the technology issue which I am facing? How much will it cost? Now when they are investing many are looking at how many purposes the technology has and whether it fits into a larger IT project as part of a long-term objective.

The advantage of investing in technology with several purposes often means consolidating suppliers, cutting the administrative and training costs of dealing with lots of separate providers.  By seeking solutions which serve more than one purpose, they are able to obtain a lower total cost of ownership.

Rather than searching for a solution which does what it says on the tin, IT managers are starting to look at how backup and recovery solutions slide into their business continuity strategies. The pace of the development of technology has also led IT managers to shift the scope of their backup and recovery strategies. The recent adoption of virtualisation technology, for instance, means that companies are extending their backup and recovery strategies to cover both physical and virtual servers as virtualisation makes the storage environment easier to manage and also allows greater efficiency and utilisation.

One example of how IT managers are using backup and recovery technology as part of their business continuity strategies is when dealing with the increasing threat of ‘zero-day’ attacks (where unpatched or unknown applications are exploited in the window that occurs between the time when a vulnerability is identified and when a vendor releases the appropriate patch). The nature of the attacks means that businesses are rarely protected by security vendor. In our experience, companies are increasingly using backup software to recover from such threats by essentially rolling back to the last viable backup of their systems. A recent survey unveiled that 58% of companies integrate their backup and recovery strategies as part of their security policies. 

This approach is also extending to patch management and migration. Before businesses roll out a new operating system or application, they can test the upgrades in a virtual environment to ensure that when the system goes live it happens without any hiccups. If anything does go wrong, they can revert back to their backup.

Backup and recovery is now about much more than running an end of day copy of your data. As IT systems evolve, business continuity strategies need to evolve with it. It’s interesting to see how a technology which has such high market saturation is fairing in the current economic client.

Don’t forget to recover
Many companies place too much importance on data backup and too little emphasis on their data retrieval and recovery strategies. As a result, they are exposing themselves to long periods of downtime in the event of an IT failure, downtime that might otherwise be avoided. What many firms don’t consider fully when developing their data backup strategy is how quickly they could retrieve data and restore operations in the event of a failure or disaster. Because this part of the process often only gets tested after a problem occurs many firms are unaware just how slow and unwieldy their recovery strategy could be. You wouldn’t take out insurance, without checking the claims policy, so don’t install backup and recovery solutions without working out the process for getting your systems backup and running again. 

As traditional backup and restore techniques struggle to meet the recovery speed necessary for minimising downtime, companies need to devise a strategy to outline how quickly a business function can be up and running, or operating at a level which is acceptable to the business, after a disaster has occurred.

The first step is to ensure that the risk of data loss is limited.  For example, if a system fails towards the end of a working day, it can mean all the data created that day is lost. A company needs to work out how it would recover the data created that day. It also needs to work out how long it would take to regain access to the system or application as quickly as possible to maintain continuous business operations. 

In addition to this, the point at which recovery can be made and the time taken to recover is vital.  Ideally, recovery should be made at the point immediately before the failure – meaning the end user does not lose any data. When this is not possible, it is necessary to establish a policy which states an acceptable recovery point, for example an hour before the event. 

Last but not least, backup and recovery processes must address all of the applications and data held across the organisation, on both servers and workstations.  Indeed, according to industry estimates, 60% of a company’s data is stored on workstations and laptops. And with
laptop sales in Europe growing by an impressive 36% in 2007 according to some analyst estimates, companies cannot forget information stored on these mobile devices.

The more laptops an organisation has, the greater the risk corporate data will be lost, corrupted or even stolen.  Bad news for overburdened IT departments struggling to keep applications running and data available onsite – let alone for an entire mobile workforce. 

Worryingly for IT teams, their resources have remained flat while laptop numbers (and therefore the number of remote, mobile machines they need to support) are increasing. IT teams are in need of a solution that can help laptop users manage their own machines and act as their own first line of defence. As the number of laptops grows, the importance of empowering the user to self-manage, protect and recover their system becomes even more prevalent. 

Another increasing challenge for IT is email management. Microsoft Exchange is one of the most used “filing cabinets” in today’s office, where meetings are scheduled, documents are shared and business is conducted. Over 170 billion emails are sent worldwide every single day and since its birth in 1971, email has become an everyday part of all of our lives.

But how much would you lose in productivity and revenue if even one of your Exchange servers went down? Recent estimates indicate that more than three quarters of a businesses’ critical data is stored on emails. And while email is a mission-critical application for all businesses, it is one which is subject to failure, often turning a company’s operations upside down. In fact most businesses suffer email downtime for a significant duration at least once a year. And many suffer it more frequently.

In order to mitigate the threat of email downtime, companies need to set out a defined strategy addressing what to do in event of email downtime. This should include advice for users, SLAs of the IT department, recommended approach for communication to clients and a clear delegation of who is responsible for each step of the recovery process, ensuring that emails are back up and running again as soon as possible. Essentially your strategy for recovering your emails and your mobile devices needs to be closely matched with your overarching backup and recovery strategy.

Conclusion
Data backup has a purpose.  It is not a method of archiving data that you never expect to use again. It is a means of protecting data that you may have to retrieve at a second’s notice and when you least expect it.  With the proper tools and planning in place, companies can eliminate the fear, cost and reputation damage associated with data loss and have the confidence to keep their businesses running in a smooth and profitable manner.

Contact details:
Emmanuel Poinas, Partner Account Manager Middle East and Africa
T: +44 203 1760 356, E: Emmanuel.Poinas@acronis.com
www.acronis.eu/promo/busmagme