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Quantum Corporation’s International Product Marketing Manager, Mark Galpin, discusses data backup, recovery and protection
 Integrated storage solutions that require less power and cooling and increase cost efficiencies, whilst retaining manageability, have come as a welcome relief. However, the volume of data businesses need to store is continuing to grow at an exponential rate and many are still backing-up, and in many cases duplicating, vast quantities of data both on and off-site to avert potential data disasters. To understand this more clearly, we will explore how achieving storage backup and recovery efficiencies in the data centre through integrated disk and tape technologies works in practice.
In order to obtain the appropriate backup and recovery architecture a mixture of disk and tape is more often than not the appropriate choice. And with an integrated management process in place, a number of efficiencies can be achieved. Storage infrastructure planning is of course individual to each and every business, but with the appropriate disk and tape appliances at the correct tiers of the architecture, management processes can be implemented to allow organisations to be sure that their valuable data remains safe, secure and easily accessible should the unthinkable happen.
Business continuity
One size does not fit all, so it is important to find a solution that suits your organisation. Data volumes, levels of access, retention periods and data security are all factors that differ, and as such, Quantum takes a consultative approach to selecting the right infrastructure, tailoring to each and every business.
We all understand the importance of data backup. However, less is understood about business continuity. To achieve this, the use of a remote disaster recovery site is a valuable solution. Data can be replicated automatically to provide restoration from the remote location in the event of a disaster. This gives all businesses a far better chance of achieving business continuity.
One factor to take into account is how much data needs to be sent between the two locations. As already mentioned, data capacities and storage needs are increasing year on year. As such, sufficient bandwidth needs to be allocated to allow timely replication of all changed data to the disaster recovery site. In the case of backup, this is something that has been difficult to achieve. A full backup will typically result in a completely new tape image of data being created – even though the same data may already have been backed up many times before.
Data deduplication
By leveraging data deduplication technology, storage requirements for backup can be significantly reduced and simplified. Remote replication, usually extremely expensive due to the excessive bandwidth requirements, now becomes affordable due to the reduction in data. Now being offered by many different manufacturers, deduplication has a major role to play in the ability to replicate large amounts of data to a remote site over a relatively small Internet Protocol (IP) connection.
By extending the benefits of data deduplication, Quantum’s DXi family of disk based products dramatically increases the power of disk to support backup, data retention and disaster recovery. Allowing end users to reduce the disk space needed for backup and restore by 90 per cent or more, performance and reliability are increased, while demands for rack space, power, and cooling are reduced. Bandwidth requirements are also reduced for data transfer by 90 per cent or more, making replication a practical disaster recovery protection tool, reducing the need for removable media, and enabling secure, centralised tape operations.
DXi2500-D
The Quantum DXi2500-D is a deduplication and remote replication system that provides secure, low cost backup and fast, reliable restores across distributed sites. DXi2500-D solutions provide local disk backup and restore for remote offices, using deduplication to reduce capacity needs. For off-site protection, encrypted backups replicate to a central site where disaster recovery management and tape operations are centralised on DXi7500 systems. The end result is better protection, reduced management and lower costs.
DXi7500
The DXi7500 is a disk backup solution for data centre environments that allows users to add policy-based deduplication, remote replication and direct tape creation to their backup strategy to increase performance, enhance data protection and reduce costs. Scalable to 220TB usable capacity, the DXi7500 is designed for corporate data centres and consolidated storage in distributed environments.
It is important to remember that each organisation’s requirements are invariably different and it is therefore vital to optimise the ratio of disk and tape used. Quantum is uniquely positioned to provide combinations of disk and tape, or if appropriate, just disk or just tape. Both types of storage play a vital role in the integrated storage architecture.
For more information
Web: www.quantum.com
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