In this podcast, BakBone customer Derek Kruger discusses the challenges he faced with his old backup solution and why he switched to NetVault: FASTRecover. He shares with us how FASTRecover helps keep the city’s financial databases up and running, how it has eliminated backup windows and how the product works quietly behind the scenes to keep Exchange and SQL data available for the employees and citizens of Safford. “No one cares if you back anything up, all they care is if you can get it back to them when they ask for it,” Derek says.
We’ve all read numerous press and analyst takes on RTOs (recovery time objectives) and RPOs (recovery point objectives) and front page news articles about high profile (and embarrassing) downtime and data loss incidents. RTOs are not as forgiving as they once were. Advances in data protection technologies have led to greater user expectations and demands. It’s the old, “give ‘em an inch, they’ll take a mile” adage.
In an increasingly competitive, fast-paced and connected society, organizations must have a thorough understanding of the consequences that bubble to the surface as a direct result of downtime. Think about it. What bad things happen as a result of a prolonged email outage? For instance, if you are faced with recovery of a 1TB Exchange database, how will the 8+ hours (on a good day…providing it’s a hiccup-free, clean recovery) of downtime impact you organization? What are the hard and soft costs incurred while waiting for Exchange to be put back in the hands of your users? How happy will your executives be when they find out that there will be no email access for the majority of the day? Even better, how much happier will they become when you inform them that the first recovery attempt was a wasted effort and you need to start from scratch? Word to the wise: at this point, it would behoove you to quickly update your LinkedIn profile and release the networking hounds. But this doesn’t have to be the case.
What bad things happen as a result of a prolonged email outage? For instance, if you are faced with recovery of a 1TB Exchange database, how will the 8+ hours (on a good day…providing it’s a hiccup-free, clean recovery) of downtime impact you organization? What are the hard and soft costs incurred while waiting for Exchange to be put back in the hands of your users?
With Virtual On-Demand Recovery from NetVault: FASTRecover you can make very large data objects available for use almost immediately after recovery has been initiated. Users can access the recovered data as soon as a brief recovery setup phase has been completed, in as little as 30 seconds, and to any point in time – without waiting for the full recovery to complete. For example, that 1TB Exchange database we talked about earlier can be mounted before the recovery is complete, allowing users to send and receive email.
If a call is made for data that has not yet been recovered from NetVault: FASTRecover’s Online Storage, Virtual On-Demand Recovery will grab that data and move it to the front of the queue. It’s that easy.
So let’s quickly review here. If you carry the weight of Exchange, SQL Server or Windows File Server applications and data availability squarely upon your shoulders, you don’t have to choose between RTOs and RPOs. You can fight the good fight with Virtual On-Demand Recovery.
With huge business impacts and negative publicity looming behind any type of e-mail outage, the impact becomes more significant. Exchange downtime and data loss can occur on many different levels with greatly varying degrees of probability. The fact of the matter is that e-mail interruptions are inherently unavoidable. Also, more often that not the “most manageable – quick fix” of interruptions snowball into much bigger issues that require days and sometimes weeks to fully resolve. No matter the size of the outage, it is important to realize the impact of the event, what it involved and, most importantly, how to handle the situation the next time it happens. This requires IT organizations to look closely at whether or not their current Exchange data protection technologies and processes are sufficient to meet the fast and often granular recovery needs of their organization.
The first step to any adequate protection for e-mail systems is identifying what is best for a particular environment. Most companies rely on Microsoft Exchange Server, which leads to a particular data protection approach with specific criteria. Data protection for Microsoft Exchange is driven by two user requirements: recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs) ― the speed by which you are able to recover and resume minute-to-minute operations, as well as the age of the Exchange data recovered.
When weighing Exchange data protection options, such as traditional backups to tape or disk, snapshots, replication or real-time continuous protection, IT managers must first have a crystal clear understanding as to the expectations of their organization surrounding Exchange recoverability – as well as the availability. Is Exchange truly business critical in that it’s closely tied to their organization’s ability to generate revenue and provide high levels of customer service? What do their users expect in terms of RPOs and RTOs? What are the demands of regulatory agencies and the associated compliance requirements?
Once you have answered these questions and implement a reliable data protection strategy for your e-mail system, you will be armed with the ability to bring your business back on the grid when an unexpected event occurs. It is difficult to know just how stranded you would feel without having experienced a failure, but it is not difficult to look ahead, be prepared and empower your business.
For those of you who tuned in for the original Shameless Product Plug and came back for the sequel, Shameless Product Plug II, we bring you the third cinematic debut in this ongoing series. In Shameless Product Plug III, I lend my voice talent to a demo of NetVault: FASTRecover’s Virtual On-Demand Recovery (VODR) technology.
VODR is really starting to grab the attention of those responsible for the protection and availability of Exchange, SQL Server and critical Windows File Servers. NetVault: FASTRecover is the only product available today that offers VODR – allowing very large data objects to be made available for use almost immediately after recovery has been initiated. For example, as you’ll see in this short clip, Exchange databases can be mounted BEFORE the recovery has been completed, allowing users to send and receive emails. Grab some popcorn and check it out!
Great opportunity to learn from one of the best in the business when it comes to the protection and recovery of Exchange – Devin Ganger, Exchange MVP, Microsoft Certified Master Exchange 2007 and author of multiple books and Microsoft white papers will be hosting a webcast called “Overcoming Exchange Failures – Insights from an Industry Expert” this Wednesday, 9/23 at 11am Pacific.
If Exchange is closely tied to your organization’s ability to generate revenue or provide high levels of customer service, this is a great session for you to join! Devin will share guidelines for Exchange protection and recovery to address issues including:
over-running Exchange backup windows
media failures
database corruption
and loss of an entire Exchange Server
I’ll be joining Devin during this webcast to run NetVault: FASTRecover through its paces, which includes Virtual On-Demand Recovery (VODR). With VODR, you are able to make very large data objects available for use almost immediately after recovery has been initiated. Access to recovered data is made available as soon as a brief recovery setup phase has been completed – without waiting for the full recovery to complete. Tune in and watch.
