Remote Office Protection
Overview
The amount of data residing in remote offices is growing fast and this can present challenges for the data protection environment. Key issues are lack of IT skills in the remote location and limited bandwidth. Failed backups may pass undetected and disaster recovery process may be weakened.
The management issue can be resolved by centralised management using enterprise backup or
continuous data protection (CDP) software. Disk2disk backup removes the need for tape devices and the management challenges posed by these devices.
The problem of bandwidth between the data centre and the remote office can be resolved in a number of ways:
If the remote office is running a Windows® environment then CDP can provide a cost effective and easy to manage solution. By having a CDP server and disk in both sites, data can be replicated back to a central location. Once an initial full copy of the data has been taken, only changed data is then copied. As CDP can operate at a block level and policy set per server, the amount of data transferred can be dramatically lower compared with full copy backups or disk replication services.
An alternative approach to the bandwidth issue is to install a deduplication device in the remote site running alongside disk2disk backup software. The backup data can then be replicated to the data centre to another dedupe device. Once an initial image has been taken, only changed data is transferred representing a reduction in bandwidth requirement of up to 99%. The whole process can be centrally managed. This type of solution would tend to be used for larger remote locations and for off-site disaster recovery.
A third approach is to use NAS filers in the remote office replicating to the main site. Periodic snapshots of the local data would be replicated to a secondary device. As with the other approaches, only changed data would be replicated resulting in dramatically lower bandwidth utilisation. Again, the whole environment can be managed from a central location.
Key Deliverables
For Windows® environments:
Centralised data protection management for remote offices
Lower bandwidth requirements for moving data between offices
Vendor Alliances
