Podcast – Spotlight on NetVault: Backup Featuring First Looks at NetVault: SmartDisk

Dawn renee Campbell

    

6 min 44 sec

 

In this technology spotlight podcast we talk to Senior Product Manager Dawn renee Campbell about NetVault: Backup 8.5 and the newly introduced NetVault: SmartDisk. Dawn discusses the new features in NetVault: Backup, including the new Hyper-V and encryption plugins and dives into the specifics of our new disk-based data protection and deduplication capabilities in NetVault: SmartDisk.

 

 

Video – Shameless Product Plug III – Virtual On-Demand Recovery

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!

RTO versus RPO – Which is More Important?

Andrew Martin

With the constant evolution of data protection technology, combined with the increased use of disk-based technology as the prime media in data protection, the concept of “Recovery Point Objective” is now being factored into data protection plans at even the smallest IT departments.

Recovery Time Objective (RTO) refers to how long it takes to recover your data and applications in the event of a system outage or data loss.

Recovery Point Objective (RPO) refers to how granular your data recovery can be. Can you go back to the very last change or is the most recent recoverable version of a file - hours or even days old – acceptable?

In classic backup and recovery strategies, RTO has been the concept that has preoccupied most people responsible for data protection. If something goes wrong how quickly can I recover? Until very recently this question would underpin the recovery plans of the vast majority of requirements that came up across Asia. This held true from SME-type companies right through to large enterprises.

In the last 18 months, it is becoming increasingly common to see IT managers asking about RPO. Sometimes they do not use this exact terminology, but the requirement is similar. How can I ensure I record every change to all of my data and still have the ability to recover or roll back to any previous version of that has been created? In effect, this is what CDP promises to deliver, however, be careful – not all CDP is created equally. Some so-called “CDP” offerings are really continuous snapshots with a possibility that data changes between snapshots will not be recorded and hence will not be recoverable.

So why is RPO becoming as important as RTO?

Compliance is a big issue and drives some of the demand and interest in granular RPO. However, in smaller companies where compliance is still not a big prerequisite, we are still seeing big interest in technologies that deliver granular RPO. I believe some of the reasons relate to vendor messaging. Many vendors now offer a CDP type technology so the messaging is being pushed wide and far. However, it goes further than that. Implementing a technology that delivers truly granular RPO now costs little more – and sometimes less – than a traditional backup offering. This means that the cost benefits and business benefits really make sense for even the smallest companies.

Imagine a web design company, where for a few thousand dollars the IT manager can implement a solution that allows the designer to roll back to any previous version of a document they are working on. The business benefits in that instance alone are hard to ignore.

Further, if we consider that the vast majoirty of recovery requirements are for individual files, not complete system recoveries, we can also see that RPO-based technologies also assist in the pursuit of better RTO.

In truth, one is not more important than the other; the two concepts complement each other. Vendors will push the technology that suits their aims, but the truth is as cost comes down, all data protection strategies should combine technologies that deal with both of these concepts.

Related links:

Determining RPO and RTO for Remote Office Applications and Data

Video – How to Protect Remote Office Data with FASTRecover

You Don’t Have to Choose Between RTO and RPO

Video – Shameless Product Plug III – Virtual On-Demand Recovery