W. Curtis Preston
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W. Curtis Preston
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Data archiving: It doesn’t have to be on tape
Long-term storage—archiving—requires a very different approach than backup and recovery where throughput and deduplication are the main concerns. Archiving calls for storing data for long periods without becoming corrupted, so when it is retrieved, it is exactly what got stored 10 or 20 years ago.For most organizations that reach a certain size, standardized linear tape open (LTO) magnetic tape is the best choice. But for those that cannot justify the cost or believe tape is a thing of the past, there are three viable alternatives: object storage in the cloud, on-premises disk storage, and optical media.To read this article in full, please click here
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Data archiving: It doesn’t have to be on tape
Long-term storage—archiving—requires a very different approach than backup and recovery where throughput and deduplication are the main concerns. Archiving calls for storing data for long periods without becoming corrupted, so when it is retrieved, it is exactly what got stored 10 or 20 years ago.For most organizations that reach a certain size, standardized linear tape open (LTO) magnetic tape is the best choice. But for those that cannot justify the cost or believe tape is a thing of the past, there are three viable alternatives: object storage in the cloud, on-premises disk storage, and optical media.To read this article in full, please click here
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5 reasons restores can take longer than backups
It comes as a big surprise to many people when their restores are slower than their backups, but it should be no surprise at all. In fact, everyone should plan for this disparity and build into their backup design.There are a number of reasons why restore speeds are typically slower than backup, and here is an explanation of five of them. [ Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ] The RAID write penalty Most modern disk arrays are built using parity-based redundant array of independent disks (RAID)—RAID levels 3 to 6. Others are built using erasure coding, which has a similar challenge as parity-based RAID.To read this article in full, please click here
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5 reasons restores can take longer than backups
It comes as a big surprise to many people when their restores are slower than their backups, but it should be no surprise at all. In fact, everyone should plan for this disparity and build into their backup design.There are a number of reasons why restore speeds are typically slower than backup, and here is an explanation of five of them. [ Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ] The RAID write penalty Most modern disk arrays are built using parity-based redundant array of independent disks (RAID)—RAID levels 3 to 6. Others are built using erasure coding, which has a similar challenge as parity-based RAID.To read this article in full, please click here
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Best backup for 7 major databases
There are many options for backing up databases, and what’s best varies from database to database and how it’s delivered. Here are recommendations for seven of them, with a glimpse at how the options were chosen to help inform your decision making.Oracle Oracle has many options for backup, but the official answer for backing Oracle would be Recovery Manager, or RMAN, which is also the name of the actual command that invokes it. Among many options, RMAN supports an image option that can merge older incremental backups into full backups, which would give you multiple recovery points without having to make multiple full backups. That’s an efficient dump and sweep option, but challenge is you need enough disk space to store a full backup and a series of incrementals. If you’re short on disk space, you can also use the SQL command alter database begin backup before you back up and alter database end backup when you’re done. This will allow you to use whatever backup method you choose. Oracle on Windows also integrates with Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS), allowing you to perform hot backups without having to script at all. The RMAN image option with a Continue reading
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Backup for databases: Get familiar with the type you use
In order to back up a database, you need to know how it’s delivered, but you also need to know which of the more than 13 types of database designs it employs. Here we’ll cover four of them—relational, key-value, document, and wide column—that generate a lot of backup questions.Understanding these models will help the backup team create a relationship and trust level with the database admins, and that will help both parties.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] Four database types Relational A relational-database management system (RDBMS) is a series of tables with a defined schema, or layout, with records in rows of one or more attributes, or values. There are relationships between the tables, which is why it is called a relational database, and why backups generally have to back up and restore everything. Examples of RDMBSs include Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, MySQL, and PostgreSQLTo read this article in full, please click here
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Database backup: Get familiar with the database type being used
In order to back up a database, you need to know how it’s delivered, but you also need to know which of the more than 13 types of database designs it employs. Here we’ll cover four of them—relational, key-value, document, and wide column—that generate a lot of backup questions.Understanding these models will help the backup team create a relationship and trust level with the database admins, and that will help both parties.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] Four database types Relational A relational-database management system (RDBMS) is a series of tables with a defined schema, or layout, with records in rows of one or more attributes, or values. There are relationships between the tables, which is why it is called a relational database, and why backups generally have to back up and restore everything. Examples of RDMBSs include Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, MySQL, and PostgreSQLTo read this article in full, please click here
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Database backup: You need to get familiar with the database type being used
In order to back up a database, you need to know how it’s delivered, but you also need to know which of the more than 13 types of database designs it employs. Here we’ll cover four of them—relational, key-value, document, and wide column—that generate a lot of backup questions.Understanding these models will help the backup team create a relationship and trust level with the database admins, and that will help both parties.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] Four database types Relational A relational-database management system (RDBMS) is a series of tables with a defined schema, or layout, with records in rows of one or more attributes, or values. There are relationships between the tables, which is why it is called a relational database, and why backups generally have to back up and restore everything. Examples of RDMBSs include Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, MySQL, and PostgreSQLTo read this article in full, please click here
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Backing up a database depends on how it’s delivered
How you back up your database depends three factors: how the database is delivered to you, the backup logistics of the database, and the recovery time objective (RTO) and the recovery point objective (RPO) you are attempting to meet. This article covers how the database is delivered.There are three ways databases can be delivered: as software on a server you own; as platform-as-a-service (PaaS); and as a serverless service. Let’s take a look at them.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] Traditional database software Until a few years ago the way all databases were delivered was by buying a license for a product and installing it on a server or VM of your choice. You were responsible for everything, including the security and administration of the server, the storage, the application itself, and (of course) the backup of the database. To read this article in full, please click here
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The latest tape storage is faster and holds more, but is it better?
Magnetic storage tape has’t been the recommended destination for the initial backup copy of data for quite some time, and the question is whether LTO-9, the latest tape open standard, and other market dynamics will changed that.Here's a look at modern tape drives, discussion of the degree to which ransomware changes the equation, and a closer look at LTO-9.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] Tape drives: Too fast for their own good?In the 80s and early 90s, there was almost a perfect match between the speed of tape drives and the speed of the backup infrastructure. The backup drives were capable of writing at roughly the same speed that the backup system could send.To read this article in full, please click here
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The latest tape storage is faster and holds more, but is it better?
Magnetic storage tape has’t been the recommended destination for the initial backup copy of data for quite some time, and the question is whether LTO-9, the latest tape open standard, and other market dynamics will changed that.Here's a look at modern tape drives, discussion of the degree to which ransomware changes the equation, and a closer look at LTO-9.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] Tape drives: Too fast for their own good?In the 80s and early 90s, there was almost a perfect match between the speed of tape drives and the speed of the backup infrastructure. The backup drives were capable of writing at roughly the same speed that the backup system could send.To read this article in full, please click here
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Why aren’t optical disks the top choice for archive storage?
Optical media is the longest lasting medium currently in production. It can reliably hold onto your data for 50-100 years without power or cooling, and without the worry of magnetic degradation. Using recordable optical media such as DVD-R is perfectly suitable for long-term archiving because it is write-once, read-many, meaning it is physically immutable—cannot be changed—so the data on it is tamper-proof.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] It seems, then, that optical media might dominate archived storage, but it doesn’t. To explore why, first let’s take a look at the technology.To read this article in full, please click here
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Why aren’t optical disks the top choice for archive storage?
Optical media is the longest lasting medium currently in production. It can reliably hold onto your data for 50-100 years without power or cooling, and without the worry of magnetic degradation. Using recordable optical media such as DVD-R is perfectly suitable for long-term archiving because it is write-once, read-many, meaning it is physically immutable—cannot be changed—so the data on it is tamper-proof.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.] It seems, then, that optical media might dominate archived storage, but it doesn’t. To explore why, first let’s take a look at the technology.To read this article in full, please click here
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Tape backup as a defense vs. ransomware
Tape is definitely not the best choice for primary recovery, but it does have features that make it a credible option for restoring systems and data that have fallen victim to ransomware without having to pay the ransom.The cloud has many more upsides than tape as a recovery tool in general, but there are circumstances where tape should be seriously considerd, and ransomware recovery is one of them.How to choose the best NVMe storage array When cloud’s not good enough Using the cloud for ransomware recovery—or not—has become somewhat of a religious discussion in many circles. Choosing the cloud offers many positive things, including cost, speed, and immediate availability—all great advantages when responding to a ransomware attack.To read this article in full, please click here
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Tape backup as a defense vs. ransomware
Tape is definitely not the best choice for primary recovery, but it does have features that make it a credible option for restoring systems and data that have fallen victim to ransomware without having to pay the ransom.The cloud has many more upsides than tape as a recovery tool in general, but there are circumstances where tape should be seriously considerd, and ransomware recovery is one of them.How to choose the best NVMe storage array When cloud’s not good enough Using the cloud for ransomware recovery—or not—has become somewhat of a religious discussion in many circles. Choosing the cloud offers many positive things, including cost, speed, and immediate availability—all great advantages when responding to a ransomware attack.To read this article in full, please click here
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Tape backup as a defense vs. ransomware
Tape is definitely not the best choice for primary recovery, but it does have features that make it a credible option for restoring systems and data that have fallen victim to ransomware without having to pay the ransom.The cloud has many more upsides than tape as a recovery tool in general, but there are circumstances where tape should be seriously considerd, and ransomware recovery is one of them.How to choose the best NVMe storage array When cloud’s not good enough Using the cloud for ransomware recovery—or not—has become somewhat of a religious discussion in many circles. Choosing the cloud offers many positive things, including cost, speed, and immediate availability—all great advantages when responding to a ransomware attack.To read this article in full, please click here
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Ransomware recovery: Cloud is the way to go
If you’ve been attacked by ransomware, a fully automated, high-speed disaster recovery is the way to successfully avoid paying the ransom. Recovery is the second step in the two-step process after getting rid of the malware as described here.There are three ways to affect a disaster recovery after a ransomware attack: a traditional recovery, an image-based recovery, or a cloud-based recovery. But the only way for most environments to afford automating a large-scale recovery is to recover in the cloud.How to protect backups from ransomware Traditional disaster recovery A traditional disaster recovery is one where you begin a traditional restore after you have suffered a loss—in this case, after you receive a ransom demand. It is still a traditional restore if you are restoring virtual machine images to a hypervisor platform such as VMware, Hyper-V, or KVM, or a hyperscaler such as AWS, Azure, or GCP. What makes it traditional is that you are waiting until the event happens to begin the restore. (As you will see later in this article, there are ways to restore the data before you need it.)To read this article in full, please click here
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Ransomware recovery: Plan for it now
If your computing environment is subject to a large ransomware attack, you will most certainly be enacting your disaster recovery (DR) plan. But before you begin restoring systems, you must first ensure you have stopped the infection, identified it, and removed it. Jumping too quickly to the restore phase could actually make things worse. To understand why this is the case, it’s important to understand how ransomware works.How ransomware spreads in your environment There are many articles such as this one that describe what ransomware does, but it’s important to emphasize that the goal of ransomware is rarely to infect just one system. Modern ransomware variants will immediately attempt to identify and execute various operating system vulnerabilities to gain administrative access and spread to the rest of your LAN. The attack will be coordinated via command-and-control (C&C) servers, and contacting these servers for instructions is the first thing that every ransomware variant does. They key in responding to an active ransomware attack is stopping further communications with C&C servers, as well as further communications between infected systems and the rest of your network.To read this article in full, please click here
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Ransomware recovery: Plan for it now
If your computing environment is subject to a large ransomware attack, you will most certainly be enacting your disaster recovery (DR) plan. But before you begin restoring systems, you must first ensure you have stopped the infection, identified it, and removed it. Jumping too quickly to the restore phase could actually make things worse. To understand why this is the case, it’s important to understand how ransomware works.How ransomware spreads in your environment There are many articles such as this one that describe what ransomware does, but it’s important to emphasize that the goal of ransomware is rarely to infect just one system. Modern ransomware variants will immediately attempt to identify and execute various operating system vulnerabilities to gain administrative access and spread to the rest of your LAN. The attack will be coordinated via command-and-control (C&C) servers, and contacting these servers for instructions is the first thing that every ransomware variant does. They key in responding to an active ransomware attack is stopping further communications with C&C servers, as well as further communications between infected systems and the rest of your network.To read this article in full, please click here
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Ransomware recovery: Plan for it now
If your computing environment is subject to a large ransomware attack, you will most certainly be enacting your disaster recovery (DR) plan. But before you begin restoring systems, you must first ensure you have stopped the infection, identified it, and removed it. Jumping too quickly to the restore phase could actually make things worse. To understand why this is the case, it’s important to understand how ransomware works.How ransomware spreads in your environment There are many articles such as this one that describe what ransomware does, but it’s important to emphasize that the goal of ransomware is rarely to infect just one system. Modern ransomware variants will immediately attempt to identify and execute various operating system vulnerabilities to gain administrative access and spread to the rest of your LAN. The attack will be coordinated via command-and-control (C&C) servers, and contacting these servers for instructions is the first thing that every ransomware variant does. They key in responding to an active ransomware attack is stopping further communications with C&C servers, as well as further communications between infected systems and the rest of your network.To read this article in full, please click here