Explore today’s options for moving your current data protection, disaster recovery and archiving initiatives to the cloud.

Future-Focused Data Protection: TO THE CLOUD AND BEYOND

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Disk, tape and cloud are becoming the new norm for

enterprise data protection. In this eBook, we describe

both standard and emerging uses of disk, tape or cloud,

specifically in regards to backup, disaster recovery and

archiving. We also offer some final advice about ways

to incorporate each type of storage media into your own

data protection and archive strategy.

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TO THE CLOUD AND BEYOND

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Enterprise IT teams continue to face the age-old struggle of how to best protect their company’s data and applications while manag-ing shrinking budgets and thin resources.

Data protection technologies have since evolved to address these issues, first with faster tape backups and then with various disk or cloud options. Disk backup offers more automated backups and shorter restore times over tape, while cloud backup promises easier management with cost effective, flexible operating expense (OpEx) payment models. With the various benefits to each method, organizations are faced with deciding between disk and the cloud to manage their backups.

Disk vs. Cloud: When Is Cloud Backup the Right Fit?It should come as no surprise that organi za-tions of various sizes have different needs for data protection. For example, small- to midsize businesses may do fine utilizing one of the many popular cloud backup services available for their file systems or virtual servers.

When it comes to enterprise organizations, however, the prospect of cloud backup may seem a lot more daunting. Beyond their own file shares, many large companies have growing interconnected database systems with data sets that comprise hundreds of terabytes. Backing up or restoring such data sets on a nightly basis with a cloud provider could incur significant bandwidth costs. Then, there is the backup time involved. Beyond the restoration of occasional files, there is also the issue of how long it might take to restore larger data sets, if needed. Finally, large enterprises have a diverse set of backup applications and legacy systems.

Cloud backup services have developed methods to address these potential drawbacks. Where it makes sense, these tactics may include “seeding” initial backup data with a temporary onsite

Where Does Backup Fit Among Disk vs. Cloud Options?

DID YOU KNOW?The average cloud backup provider only plans to store a company’s backup data for one to three years.

FAST FACT:Disk has finally surpassed tape as organizations’ primary backup target, with 54 percent of companies using disk backup methods in 2014.

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1—3 years

54%

100%

TO THE CLOUD AND BEYOND

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appliance; the use of wide-area network opti-mization to boost data transmissions; deduplication to minimize the amount of data transmitted or stored; and the transmission of only changed data since the most recent backup. Depending on the cloud service provider’s service-level agreement, larger cloud restoration needs may even include the provider shipping hardware or tapes containing the customer’s full backup data sets.

Such cloud backup processes have since allowed many mid-range companies to replace their local backups to disk or tape with cloud backup. However, some enterprise organiza-tions are holding out when it comes to cloud backup — transitioning to a cloud backup service poses a “rip and replace” risk and costs for diverse production environments.

Enterprise Backup Favors a Blend of Disk With CloudFaced with a large volume of data to protect, many enterprise organizations are opting against the cloud for backup. Now seeing tape as more suited to a low-cost, long-term retention and archiving solution, enterprises have begun to replace tape as their primary backup medium. They choose, instead, to use local disk backup technologies for fast, local restores. Then, to protect their data offsite, they replicate the backup data to the company’s own secondary remote data center, to a colocation facility, or even to an outside cloud provider.

Leading backup software vendors have started to integrate external cloud-capable functionality within their solutions. This is also true for back up hardware such as the makers of purpose-built backup appliances (PBBAs). PBBAs, which often sit at the edge of a corporate network, are used to centralize backup data from multiple applications and devices while reducing the overall data stored via deduplication. Replicating these appliances allows for a “plug and play” approach which eliminates any “rip and replace” risks that enterprises are concerned about.

Such enterprise storage and backup hard ware vendors have started to let cloud providers host secondary physical or virtual versions of vendor hardware at the provider’s site. Often used for offsite protection for recovery copies or long-term retention needs, this practice speeds up replication to the cloud, especially when sending deduplicated data from the customer’s hardware to the cloud provider’s hardware. Depending on the service model adopted by the provider, such cloud data replication functionality may even be offered in a pay-as-you-go, OpEx cost model.

Disk vs. Cloud for Backup? Why Not Both?Data backup and recovery are still big customer pain points, but new developments in these areas will continue to come from software vendors, hardware vendors and cloud providers. Organizations should keep an eye out for partnerships and joint solutions that combine the best of disk and cloud with offsite data protection, while still offering scalable, pay-as-you-go cloud payment structures. Plus a tape out option to protect a “gold copy” of that data offsite for extended retention or security from cyber threats are key features to consider.

TO THE CLOUD AND BEYOND

Faced with a large volume of data to protect, many enterprise organizations are opting against the cloud for backup.

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Backup and recovery are often seen as two sides of the same coin. After all, the purpose of a data backup is the recovery of information. Yet when enterprises try to decide among disk, tape and cloud in disaster recovery, they usually need more than a simple definition of “recovery.” Disaster recovery includes the processes, habits, plans and best practices that give an organization the best chance of salvaging critical IT systems and data after a disaster.

Choosing the right vehicle — disk, tape and/or cloud backup — comes from careful assess-ment and identification of the company’s

Exploring Disk, Tape and Cloud in Disaster Recovery

unique, tiered disaster recovery requirements. While each organization’s disaster recovery needs are different, the following is a sampling of popular disaster recovery choices for enterprise companies:

Disaster Recovery Words to Live By: Redundant and OffsiteOne disaster recovery truism is that there should always be copies of backup data stored and protected at a secure offsite location. Ideally, this location should be far away from the primary data center, even in a different region, if possible.

This advice syncs with the definition of disaster recovery set by the Storage Networking Industry Association, which states that disaster recovery should be “a comprehensive process of setting up a redundant site (equipment and work space) with recovery of operational data.”

Getting one or more redundant copies of data offsite is a disaster recovery gold standard. However, the ratio of disk, tape and cloud used to achieve this standard is left to the discretion of the organization.

FAST FACT:According to a 2015 ESG report, 88% of companies say the cloud is either important, very important or critical to a data protection appliance strategy.

DID YOU KNOW?Did you know it is common for enterprises to spend 25% of their IT budgets on disaster recovery?

25%

100%

TO THE CLOUD AND BEYOND

Disaster recovery includes the processes, habits, plans and best practices that give an organization the best chance of salvaging critical IT systems and data after a disaster.

DPAs now offer streamlined replication of previously deduplicated data to a secondary appliance hosted at one or more external cloud providers. New cloud pricing models are also available to allow offsite disaster recovery with DPA replication, based on some type of pay-per-consumption rate.

Meeting offsite disaster recovery requirements no longer requires investment in a separate, costly disaster recovery site. Technology innovation and new choices in disk, tape and cloud backup make it easier than ever to afford viable offsite data protection and disaster recovery.

There are many replication nuances and methods to choose from, including cloud providers that offer disaster recovery as a service. Many backup software and hardware vendor solutions at customer sites also offer extensible replication functionality to the cloud.

Replication From DPA to the CloudAccording to a 2015 report from ESG, 67 per cent of backup jobs over the next two years will be performed by some type of backup appliance or data protection appliance (DPA). DPAs, also called purpose-built backup appliances (PBBA), can improve backup times while reducing storage space required via deduplication. Recognizing the need for more affordable offsite disaster recovery, leading

Tape: The Affordable WorkhorseAs a good practice, many enterprise companies have achieved their offsite redundancy goals by routinely backing up their data to tape, and then sending the tapes to a secure third-party for offsite tape vaulting. For many reasons, affordable cost included, many organizations still use this practice today.

However, delays can occur when retrieving and restoring offsite backup tapes. An organization’s disaster recovery assessment might find that mission-critical applications need a shorter recovery time objective than what tape allows. This is where other disk and cloud options become useful.

Increasing Popularity of ReplicationIn the past 10 years, various data replication methods have become popular choices as a natural evolution of enterprise-wide data pro-tection strategies. In the past, replication was a costly proposition that required investing in a second data center before ensuring adequate offsite disaster recovery and replication.

When it comes to disaster recovery options today however, organizations have more affordable options to ensure the secure and rapid replication, transport and digital storage of their data from Point A — typically a primary data center — to Point B, an secondary offsite data center provided by an external cloud or colocation service.

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The need to improve data backup, recovery and archiving operations routinely tops the to-do lists of enterprise IT professionals, since growing data volumes are straining the IT infrastructures tasked with data protection and recovery. There is also the burden of retaining or archiving data to meet strict governance, compliance or eDiscovery requirements, while managing flat to declining budgets.

Many organizations have deployed a mix of disk, tape and cloud solutions to meet their storage needs. However, the question becomes how to ensure long-term retention in a cost effective way. Luckily, new options are increasingly focused on integrating the best of all worlds with tiered storage using disk, tape and cloud in archiving.

Options Abound for Disk, Tape and Cloud in Archiving

The Difference Between Backup and ArchiveBackup vendors and industry pundits explain the difference between backup and archive in various ways. Knowing the difference can help companies evaluate various options for disk, tape and cloud in their archiving strategy.

In an Enterprise Strategy Group white paper on archival software and platforms, senior analyst Jason Buffington defined digital archiving as “the long-term retention and management of electronic information that has been purpose-fully retained to satisfy records management, data management, regulatory compliance or litigation support requirements.” He further distinguished backup data from archives, noting that “backup data is typically a temporary copy of a data set that is ultimately overwritten.”

The discussion of backup versus archiving is not new. As early as 2006, Computerworld asked experts to differentiate between backup and archive. Michael Osterman, president of Osterman Research, said, “Backup is really used to restore data in the event of a server crash. Archiving is intended to restore information in support of corporate goals.”

Backup expert and author W. Curtis Preston noted that the distinction was one of retrieving data, as an archive would do, versus recovering data, as backup or recovery would.

Sorting Archives From Backup via Storage TieringWithout a good policy to separate true archive data from the backup stream, two problems can arise. First, backup copies become used as a costly, ineffective archive. Second, long-term retention volumes keep growing exponentially, thereby needing more expensive storage, along with the equipment and resources to manage it.

TO THE CLOUD AND BEYOND

“ Backup is really used to restore data in the event of a server crash. Archiving is intended to restore information in support of corporate goals.”— Michael Osterman, President, Osterman Research

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To avoid these issues, companies have started to implement storage tiering solutions with built-in policy automation. Such solutions help move archive data outside of the backup data stream. They send it, instead, to another storage tier with low-access, low-cost character-istics more appropriate for long-term retention.

For regulatory or business retrieval requests, tape and cloud are increasingly seen as the ideal, low-cost, secure, off-site retention tier for a company’s “gold copy” archives. For faster operational restores from backup data, however, on-site, highly available disk is often the chosen tier.

Tape and Cloud as a Powerful Offsite Storage TierIncreasingly, enterprise companies have started to favor local disk-based backup that is streamlined with data protection appliances (DPAs) using inline deduplication. Mission-critical backup data is then replicated for offsite disaster recovery to a cloud or coloca-tion provider.

Using preset options for policy-based data movement, DPAs offer the management and storage of both backup and archive data sets on the local appliance, where each type of data can be managed under different retention rules. Appliance integration occurs between both leading backup application and leading archival applications. Special compliance, governance

and long-term retention features ensure data integrity for data that is stored on the local appliance or replicated to a remote appliance in the cloud.

Given the emergence of more affordable OpEx-based, pay-per-consumption cloud services, many enterprises have started to look to secure cloud providers that host the same secondary data protection appliances. Having a secondary appliance in the cloud is an option for faster, more affordable WAN replication of already deduplicated, local data sets.

Once archival data is stored securely offsite in a secondary appliance, some appliances can even offer a “tape-out” functionality that allows tape to be used as another storage tier for archival or long-term retention.

Many organizations see the economic benefits of tape for long-term retention and archiving, but don’t want the headache of daily tape management. Here, tape and cloud providers are emerging with options to fit an organiza-tion’s multiple needs for backup and archiving. Look for providers who let you “have your cake and eat it, too,” by combining the automation of DPAs and offsite replication with managed tape-out and data restoration services.

TO THE CLOUD AND BEYOND

Many organizations see the economic benefits of tape for long-term retention and archiving, but don’t want the headache of daily tape management.

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Routine data backups are nothing new for today’s enterprise organization. What has changed in recent years, however, is the increasing software intelligence and choice surrounding what can and should be done with backup data.

Enterprise organizations with explosive data growth have started to view backup more on a wider data protection continuum that encompasses backup, disaster recovery and archive. Backup targets have since expanded to include various price and performance storage tiers on either disk, tape or cloud. With this choice, how does an organization decide what is best for its backup, disaster recovery and archive needs?

Combining Backup, Disaster Recovery and Archive: 4 Ways to Do Data Protection Right

1. Keep More Than One Copy in More Than One Place

This may seem like Backup 101, but it is surprising how many organizations still fail at this one premise. With more disk, tape and cloud offerings available for data protection, enterprises have started to favor both local backup and recovery to and from high-performance local disk storage and offsite disaster recovery.

Offsite recovery is typically achieved by replicating mission-critical backup data to a secure, remote site. In the new age of the cloud, the remote site may be owned by a colocation provider or an external cloud provider.

Enterprises are also using the cloud and/or offsite tape vaulting services for more cost-effective, long-term backup retention and archiving. This move often aligns with the organization’s unique regulatory or compliance requirements.

2. Become More EfficientMany of today’s data protection tech nologies can significantly reduce backup time, cost and bandwidth. They can also reduce the size

DID YOU KNOW?90% of IT profes sionals use multiple backup and recovery tools in their data protection and disaster recovery processes?

TO THE CLOUD AND BEYOND

FAST FACT: Only 13% of companies are ahead of the game when it comes to data protection, and just 2% are leaders in the space.

90%

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of backup storage and the time needed to search archives or migrate primary data to an archive. All of which makes the whole process more efficient and thus less burdensome on IT resources.

A small sample of efficient technologies include disk-based snapshots, inline deduplication and policy-based data management that can automatically retain and move backup data to different storage tiers. In one example from ESG Global, organizations use archiving or backup software and data protection appliances (DPAs), which compress and deduplicate back-up data so only a small fraction of the latest changed data is added to existing backup data.

3. Separate Backup From ArchivingThe goals behind backup, disaster recovery and archive are different. Separating backup from archiving may require specific archiving software features outside of traditional backup. It also requires identifying which subsets of primary data need archiving and for how long.

Certain industries, such as healthcare and financial services, must archive data for set periods to meet regulatory and compliance requirements. In other industries, organizations must archive sensitive data they believe could be subject to legal eDiscovery. Other data may need to be archived for later analysis or data mining. Separating active archives from deep archives, as well as the best storage tier, will be among the factors to consider.

4. Replicate to the CloudGiven the more affordable usage-based subscription model of the cloud, many organizations are exploring the replication of backup data to the cloud. For example, a local DPA could be used for fast local backup and recovery and a second DPA could be available from the cloud provider. This allows an organization’s already-deduplicated data to be efficiently and securely replicated to the cloud provider’s secondary appliance.

Archived data sets can also be replicated this way or be separated on another storage tier of the local DPA. Either backup or archive data replicated in this manner can also be cut to tape for extended retention in a secure offsite vault.

Many organizations are eager to embrace change as they move to modernize their backup, recovery and archive processes. Here, it pays to work with third-party experts who can help identify innovative yet cost-effective new options to help a specific organization move forward.

TO THE CLOUD AND BEYOND

. . .disk-based snapshots, inline deduplication and policy-based data management. . . can automatically retain and move backup data to different storage tiers.

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Iron Mountain® Cloud Data Replication for EMC Data Domain or EMC Avamar hosts a fully managed Data Domain or Avamar replication target in an Iron Mountain data center and provisions secure, high-speed, reliable network connectivity to make replication efficient over the wide area network (WAN). The solution provides everything you need to securely back up your critical data offsite. As a result you can:

• Fully protect your data offsite:Replicate your critical data to a fully managed DataDomain or Avamar target hosted in a secure,compliant Iron Mountain data center.

• Modernize your DR process:Eliminate legacy tape and backup infrastructures,simplify recovery, and protect your data for the longterm.

• Leverage cloud scalability and efficiency:Pay only for what you use with the help of capacity-based subscription pricing that is driven byoptimized secure multi-tenancy.

• Use tape for optional extended retention:Ability to cut to tape from the Data Domain orAvamar, eliminating the need to write to on-premisestape for recovery purposes.

Iron Mountain Cloud Data Replication for EMC Data Domain® or EMC Avamar

Iron Mountain Cloud Data Replication for EMC Data Domain or EMC Avamar Offers:

• Comprehensive Offsite Data Protection

• Offsite Tape Management

• A Secure Dedicated orMulti-Tenant Cloud Environment

For more information download the Iron Mountain Cloud Data Replication Data Sheet.

TO THE CLOUD AND BEYOND

For more informaton download

the Elevate Data Backup eBook.

US-DM-EXT-EBOOK-112315-001

ABOUT IRON MOUNTAIN. Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE: IRM) provides information management services that help organizations lower the costs, risks and inefficiencies of managing their physical and digital data. Founded in 1951, Iron Mountain manages billions of information assets, including backup and archival data, electronic records, document imaging, business records, secure shredding, and more, for organizations around the world. Visit the company Web site at www.ironmountain.com for more information.

©2015 Iron Mountain Incorporated. All rights reserved. Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the U.S. and other countries. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.