| When the late president Reagan said, "Information
is the oxygen of the modern age," he could have been referring to
today's small and midsize businesses. Without effective backup and data
protection, a catastrophe or even a corrupted database could choke off
that oxygen and put the business in jeopardy.
When left on their own, however, many SMBs aren't able to devise effective
solutions. That's a problem, because the amount of data needing to be
backed up never stops growing. Experts estimate that it doubles every
six to 18 months, with SMB installations now routinely measured in terabytes.
"The biggest challenges that SMBs face in data protection is data
growth outrunning their backup capabilities, and the problem of managing
a backup window," says Linda Gladden, vice president of sales at
Yosemite Technologies, a provider of backup software. "We see many
users who have never backed up, or who don't know how much data they have."
Daunting Issues for SMBs
Compliance, too, creates challenges in data backup and recovery. SMBs
are discovering they're not exempt from government regulations adopted
after the Enron and WorldCom scandals. Small businesses in the financial
services and healthcare fields are especially affected by new laws that
promote confidentiality and availability of records, files, digital X-rays,
CAT scans and more.
SMBs are also tempting targets for litigation. One legal firm suggests
that 90 percent of all businesses are involved in litigation of one kind
or another. During the discovery phase of a lawsuit, the availability
of electronic records and files becomes essential.
Beyond such heavy issues, SMBs need to answer these real-world questions:
- What to do when a disk drive fails somewhere in the system? Taking
days or weeks to reconstitute records could cripple a business.
- How to respond to the dreaded "Out of Disk Space" prompt?
Just buying more hard disks only postpones the need for a solution.
The need for business continuity calls loudly for good backup technology
and processes.
- Where to turn for technical support, guidance and expertise to pump
air into the backup and recovery vacuum?
VARs can come to the rescue of SMBs lacking in-house expertise. "Users
are looking for good advice and recommendations," notes Kelly Beavers,
vice president of product marketing at Exabyte (recently acquired by Tandberg
Data). "Users have said, 'Kelly, I don't want to be an expert on
backup.'"
"With all the tools available, VARs can effectively craft an affordable
backup solution that addresses the appropriate recovery requirements for
SMBs," says Don Hoppock, category manager, systems and storage, at
Ingram Micro. Backup also means opportunities for service-related revenues
such as consulting, integration and helping customers set up backup and
recovery procedures. Managed storage services is another option that helps
build profitable service revenue (see below).
| The Lure of Managed Storage Services |
Any discussion of creative backup demands a side trip to managed
services. SMB customers can benefit from outsourcing storage tasks
to managed services providers (MSPs). Using remote monitoring and
management technology, MSPs can take on all or part of a company’s
backup and recovery, often sending the data to a remote site.
Time and headcount are critical considerations for the overburdened
IT manager, and managed storage services offer several advantages.
Using managed services does not require an increase in technical
staff headcount. The time saved in system and application maintenance
is another plus. For the VAR-turned-MSP, managed services offer
a recurring stream of profitable revenue and a close, ongoing customer
relationship.
ISG Technology, a regional VAR with operations in Kansas, Missouri
and Oklahoma, offers managed storage services to several clients.
"The technology for replication is now affordable," says
John Gunn, president. Gunn passes on this affordability to his SMB
clientele.
ISG has nine locations for network operations. By housing off-site
servers in underground secure facilities connected to the internet
via T3 data lines, SMB client data is replicated in real time over
the internet to create an exact copy of the client server. If a
main server crashes, this backup server can be accessed immediately
via the internet for instant access to company information. Once
the original equipment is repaired, the server can replicate back
to the main server, essentially eliminating downtime for company
employees.
Another managed services option comes from Joe Oster, president
of Structured Technologies. The company equips the client with hot-swappable
hard drives and backup software for an on-site backup-to-disk solution.
"It's vastly better than tape," Oster notes. His team
reaches in over external lines to handle backup, saving the SMB
from having to deal with backup chores. And the hot-swappable drives
can be removed to a vault, the IT manager's home or any other sensible
venue.
"We've stopped trying to educate customers on backup,"
Oster says. "Now we can do it for them as a monthly service." |
Creative Solutions
Which technologies can help ease the SMB backup burden? Dianne McAdam,
storage industry analyst at the Clipper Group, identifies virtual tape
libraries (VTL) and continuous data protection (CDP) as highly promising.
"I see a lot of folks integrating a VTL with a tape autoloader and
software," McAdam says. VTLs, which work with existing tape backup
software but use low-cost disks rather than tape, allow VARs to fashion
a backup and recovery solution, as well as an archival capability that
meets some compliance needs. Manufacturers large and small offer a variety
of VTL solutions, based on arrays of cost-efficient Serial ATA disks.
Another hot technology is CDP, a cross between disk-based backup and
replication. CDP continually captures all changes made to a file and tags
(versions) objects so that they can be rolled back to a point in time.
The business value of CDP lies in its ability to restore data objects
to a point where a data corruption or interruption event took place. If
a client experiences a data loss at 12:34:14 a.m., it can be restored
to that time or very close.
Another special advantage of CDP is that it can eliminate the need for
a backup window because the system constantly logs and stores changes.
Recovery is also faster and more reliable than with tape, which means
less downtime after an outage.
Traditional Options
Of course, traditional backup solutions still appeal to some SMB customers.
In the midrange tape market, the odds-on leader is Linear Tape Open (LTO)
technology, currently in its third generation in a full-height configuration.
LTO 3 has been shipping for six quarters and makes up about 30 percent
of tape shipments thus far. Many are looking forward to the fourth generation
with its greater capacity and security features. This solution makes sense
where rapid recovery is less essential than budgetary considerations,
and where a backup window will not hinder business operations.
| Research Shows Backup Potential |
Industry research suggests the potential of data protection solutions
to boost VAR revenue. A recent study from the Yankee Group reports
that U.S. SMBs spent about $13.5 billion on storage in 2005, and
should increase spending 14 percent in 2006. According to IDC, the
top priorities for storage spending by all customer segments are
data protection and disaster recovery.
|
Disk-to-disk backup, either a mirror configuration or a RAID array, is
growing in popularity for SMBs. With costs coming down on Serial ATA disks,
diskto- disk backup makes sense where rapid recovery is essential, and
where backup windows forced by slower tape speeds are unacceptable. Disk-to-disk
is also preferred for backup of applications that must remain operational,
such as 24 x 7 online ordering systems.
The disk-to-disk option is popular with clients of Joe Oster, president
of Structured Technologies, a storage VAR. "We are out of the tape
business altogether, although some customers still have tape equipment
on their sites," he says. In many cases, Oster's clients protect
their data through backup to an array or network-attached storage (NAS),
with hot-swappable drives that can be removed from the premises at the
IT manager's discretion.
Navigating the Waters
Which backup solution is best? The answer, maddeningly enough, is that
it depends on the variables discussed here and on the customer's level
of expertise.
To help clients scope out the right solution, storage-aware experts like
John Gunn, president of ISG Technology, suggest careful study of client
environments, drilling down into issues like bandwidth and whether the
environment is secure. Yosemite's Gladden provides a short outline of
what elements should be assessed:
- How many machines are to be protected?
- How much data is to be protected?
- What kind of data is being protected?
- How many users will be affected by an outage?
- Which applications will be affected?
The number of machines to be protected includes not only the current
inventory, but planned acquisitions as data growth takes place. Deciding
on this number means considering both bandwidth and scalability. It also
involves the client's needs in terms of data retention and archival policies.
The amount of data to be protected is basically a capacity planning issue
that must take into account original data and copies. Does the client
have remote offices connected by a WAN? Protecting this data should be
integral to the planning.
Arguably the knottiest issue is what kind of data to protect. If the
total amount is small enough, it's probably safe to back up everything.
In larger environments, it pays to prioritize the files to be backed up.
Files can be categorized as missioncritical, the loss of which would put
a company out of business; business-critical, which would only slow an
operation down; and non-business records, such as MPEGs of a user's children.
SMBs might need guidance in deciding which files they can live without
in case of catastrophe. disk-based.
Protecting applications such as accounting packages, CRM software, inventory
control, pension data and management software carries a high priority.
And don't forget the backup of IT’s priority programs: operating systems,
backup and recovery software and the like.
Setting Up Processes
The specifics of backup and recovery procedures go beyond the scope of
this article, but simple plans entail a regular rotation system with a
combination of weekly and daily backup that includes off-site storage
of removable media.
The most popular system is the Grandfather-Father-Son system: You make
a complete backup weekly, then add incremental backups daily. At the end
of the week, make another full backup, but save the old one. At the end
of the second week, create a new full backup. At this point the client
has three full copies. The oldest backup is now retired, the second-oldest
becomes the oldest and may go off-site, and you continue making daily
incremental backups.
This is a bare-bones approach, and many clients have more sophisticated
backup and recovery needs. But one thing remains constant: SMBs need help
working through backup solutions. With a little study and vendor training,
and perhaps some trial and error, VARs can help customers perfect their
backup and recovery strategy. In this role of technical counselor, there
is both opportunity and profit.
Want to delve deeper into backup and recovery? Ingram Micro's customers
can call the High-End Storage Help Desk at (800) 445-5066, ext. 76429,
and the Storage Sales Desk at (800) 456-8000, ext. 76360. For details
on disaster recovery and business continuity solutions training, contact
your sales representative. |
