Online backup and recovery services: throwing a lifeline to "stranded servers". (Storage Networking).

Backup and recovery are part of a group of linked activities that includes data capture, removal, storage and recovery. All of these activities link together to form a backup-and-recovery value chain. Failure along any part of this chain can result in data loss and crippling downtime for a business. Backup and recovery, however, can be tedious and demanding even for companies with sufficient IT staff. For many small and medium businesses (SMBs) and enterprise remote and branch offices (RBOs) that have limited IT support, it is a challenge to backup and recover properly. In many of these businesses, these servers are not backed up by dedicated IT professionals. Such servers have become what we refer to as "stranded servers." The lack of professional management or attention to these stranded servers leads to infrequent or incorrect backup and recovery of critical data.

Trends in Business Today

High growth in SMB and RBO markets: Small and medium businesses represent the largest growing business sector in the United States, where there were 7.4 million small and medium businesses in 1998.

These companies are investing heavily in computer and Internet-related technology. Over 26% have at least one server In 2003, IDC expects these companies to spend $57 billion for technology, and 79% to have Internet access.

Within larger corporations, remote and branch office sites are now the mainstays of many enterprises. Servers in these locations are growing in number. In a previous study, The Gartner Group estimated that 80% of U.S. enterprise sites (about 1.5 million) could be classified as remote or branch offices--i.e., locations with six to 75 employees.

Windows NT/2000 is fueling growth of stranded servers: The growth in SMB and RBO servers has been accompanied by--even fostered by-- a parallel growth in the use of Windows NT/2000 operating systems. Windows NT is now the predominant business-computing platform for networked servers. In the U.S., there are about 10 million servers, and of those, 6 million are Windows NT servers. According to research from the Strategic Resource Group, over 3 million of those Windows NT servers are stranded servers.

The value of the data at risk continues to increase: Data such as customer, financial and communication (email) databases have become, for many organizations, the single most valuable asset and one that is critical to business survival. This is the data at risk on stranded servers. The possible loss of this data is staggering.

Staffing shortages and constraints: According to Gartner Group, although the supply of Windows skills is growing, the demand is growing faster. The supply of data center professionals with Windows skills is even rarer. This problem is magnified for SMBs where the loss of one professional can have a much more significant impact.

The Internet--affordable bandwidth: With the rapid increase in Internet availability and bandwidth, businesses have gone from being able to connect directly only to their own LANs and WANs, to being able to access a universal network that allows them to connect anywhere simply, easily, safely. The maturing of virtual private network (VPNs) and other Internet security technologies now allows businesses to use this larger, public network in a private manner. As a result, businesses can exchange data with customers, with other businesses, and with their own servers in remote locations worldwide over secure connections. Small businesses are rapidly adopting high-speed Internet access. IDC expects the number of small businesses using high-speed access to expand from 380,000 in 1998 to 3.3 million in 2003.

Gartner expects growth in branch office network traffic will increase the need for and use of more broadband capacity in such locations. This need will be addressed by DSL and other broadband connections such as cable, wireless and, in the future, optical technology.

Backup and Recovery Burden

In the present landscape, businesses are running into a number of problems in trying to deal with the backup and recovery of critical data.

Limited IT support leaves data at risk: Typically SMBs may have a few critical applications--accounting, customer information, email--running on one to three servers that they know have to be backed up. With limited IT support, the task of backing up may be assigned to anyone from a principal to support staff personnel, with a less than perfectly well-defined process. Furthermore, backup is not perceived as a strategic, value-added activity. As a result, backup may not get all of the attention it requires. Sometimes this can even lead to backup being neglected or forgotten, leaving critical data at risk for recovery failure. These problems become multiplied in businesses with several sites or locations--such as a restaurant chain or retail outlet where all of the sites require backup coverage. Larger companies with remote and branch offices have similar problems. While these companies may have full complements of IT staff in a central administrative location or data center, there is often no IT staff to mana ge the backup of data at remote or branch offices. Yet, these remote sites are where critical data increasingly resides such as Exchange servers hosting customer correspondence. In many instances, these companies also rely on an informal backup process assigned to a site manager.

Traditional batch backup is inadequate and labor intensive: Traditional, batchstyle, tape-based backup has been and continues to be a costly, labor-intensive process with frequent manual intervention and great potential for error. Existing backup and recovery software was not designed to work with broadband connections, or to be used by non-technical business professionals. Because of this, backup is often a disruption to daily business operations for SMBs and RBOs. Traditional backup is inadequate to meet today's business needs. Since traditional backup is run at night, the best data a company can recover is last night's data. Even historical data is not easily accessible. This results in lost data and costly downtime.

Traditional offsite tape vaulting is expensive and requires time-consuming physical tape removal and transportation to an offsite facility for disaster recovery protection. Generally, this type of service is cost effective only for the largest corporations.

Risks, Problems, Costs Across the Backup-and-Recovery Value Chain

Historically the risks and problems of backup were associated with the capture of data and recovery of data after a failure. However, the accuracy and safety of critical business data is at risk across the entire backup-and-recovery value chain--which includes data capture, removal, storage, and recovery. Remember, failure in any one of these links could undermine a backup/restore and disaster-recovery program, which could be fatal to a data-driven business. Such failures can result from uncaptured data in an open database, an employee leaving a tape in the machine, or a disgruntled employee maliciously destroying or walking away with critical tapes. Let's take a closer look at each link and its specific risks and problems. Then we'll take a look at the costs of maintaining a traditional, tape-based backup operation across this chain.

Capture: Data capture refers to the tools, methods, facilities, and procedures required to replicate data onto another device, for example tape drive. Risks and problems associated with traditional backup methods during data capture include:

Lost or inconsistent data--File-based backup can't capture data from open databases or multi-file applications.

Process failures--Software failure, tape error, or human error (e.g., reliance on non- IT staff to rotate tapes and monitor backup jobs) may cause errors which are not detected until the recovery attempt.

Management burden--Managing software and large numbers of tapes is burdensome and highly error prone.

Removal: Removal refers to the tools, methods, facilities and procedures required to remove replicated data to an offsite location. Risks and problems associated with traditional backup methods during data removal include:

No offsite protection--Backup media, usually tape, not removed immediately.

Tape handling-Improper labeling, misplacement, damage from liquids, magnetic fields, or sun exposure poses risks before or during removal.

Transportation--Cost and reliability of transportation to storage site.

Storage: Data storage refers to the tools, methods, facilities and procedures required to store replicated data in an offsite location. Risks and problems associated with traditional backup methods during data storage include:

Security--How secure are storage locations or facilities (home, bank, vault, tape room) with respect to fire, theft, power, or natural disaster.

Accessibility--Where the backup media resides and how easily it can be recovered when needed.

Offsite--Cost and convenience of storing multiple tapes offsite.

Recovery: Data recovery refers to the tools, methods, facilities, and procedures required to recover replicated data from a storage site. Risks and problems associated with traditional backup methods during data recovery include:

Accuracy of data--Restore data that is not current or is incomplete; offsite backups at best are 24 to 48 hours old and current data is lost.

Reliability--Undiscovered or unreported failure in previous links of chain means data is not backed up and business data is lost.

Speed--Data is slow to be recovered when needed.

Costs Across the Backup-and-Recovery Value Chain

When thinking about backup costs, most people focus on data capture only--and specifically on the costs of the tapes, tape drive and software--ignoring other costs across the rest of the backup-and-recovery value chain. To assess the true cost of running a backup and recovery operation, it is necessary to analyze your costs across the entire chain (capture, removal, storage, and recovery). These are just some of the costs to consider as you build your full cost model.

When calculating the costs associated with data capture, you should include the costs of the tape drive, software, tapes, upgrades, plug-ins and associated training costs. Be sure to factor in all the plug-ins for databases, as well as open file managers. Make sure you have estimated a sufficient number of tapes for offsite rotations. Finally, consider any monthly maintenance fees for hardware.

As you think about the costs of removal and storage, consider the cost of tape pickup and vaulting service. You need to estimate the internal costs including transportation and employee time for swapping out and labeling tapes. Factor in the actual cost of the storage facility such as a bank vault.

Costs associated with the recovery process include the cost of service calls for repairs, restores, tape jams and other software problems. You also need to factor in the cost of the employee's time to perform or monitor recoveries. Other costs are of a preventive nature, including employee's time to be trained for backup, and to check backups.

Managed Service Providers Online Vaulting: A Solution for Today's Backup and Recovery Needs

Insufficient staff resources and increasing exposure to risk of data loss are prompting business operators and IT managers to consider using online vaulting managed service providers. By allowing them to offload backup, managed service providers help companies to refocus their critical resources on improving business.

As the value of their data increases, companies look to managed services as a better way to ensure secure backup and successful recovery of their data. The convenience of having a managed service that automates capture, removal, storage and recovery, without the customer ever having to handle a tape, is invaluable.

The growing interest in managed storage services is part of a general trend toward outsourcing non-strategic IT functions. According to IDC, the overall market for outsourcing services (such as SANs and electronic vaulting) is estimated to grow to $34 billion in 2002.

The Cahners InStat Group predicts that the managed storage market will grow from $2 billion in 2000 to $10 billion in 2004. A recent Gartner report shows the percentage of global 200 companies using external service providers will approximately double between 1998 and 2003 in seven categories of IT.

Advances in data replication and security technologies, combined with reduced bandwidth costs allow managed service providers to offer online backup, recovery and electronic vaulting services to businesses who have limited IT support for backup. SMBs and RBOs can offload backup tasks that are perceived as burdensome and non-strategic yet still retain control. With a managed services, business operators and data center managers still retain front-end control of their backup and restore operations while handing off such burdensome back-end tasks as server backup and device maintenance, tape management, and offsite removal and storage.

Businesses can be confident in leaving backup to managed service providers whose only focus is backup and recovery and therefore often do it better and at a lower price than companies can do it themselves. Managed storage services will be increasingly available as distribution channels proliferate. Network carriers, bandwidth providers, and offsite data-vaulting services such as Iron Mountain are recognizing the convergence of current trends in Internet availability, decreasing bandwidth costs, data replication technologies, and IT outsourcing. These trends represent an opportunity to provide online backup, recovery and electronic vaulting services as a value-add service that can be easily sold and delivered through existing channels to their current client base. As a result, such services will be increasingly available to the growing numbers of small and medium-sized organizations for whom the Internet is becoming a principal way of doing business.

Live Vault Corporation is the first company to successfully address the entire backup-and-recovery value chain with its LiveVault Online Backup and Recovery Service. As a managed service, LiveVault Online Backup Service provides businesses with a convenient, secure, and cost effective solution for backup and recovery of their critical business data.

RELATED ARTICLE

Advanced Encryption Standard (AES): AES is the state-of-the-art encryption standard developed by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) with industry experts and the cryptographic community. The overall goal of AES was to develop a federal standard that specifies an encryption algorithm(s) capable of protecting sensitive government information well into the next century.

Backup-and-Recovery Value Chain: Process of data capture, removal, storage, and recovery. Each link has its own associated risks, costs and value. Failure in any one link could undermine a backup/restore and disaster recovery program and be fatal to a data-driven business.

Bandwidth Provider: The provider of Internet connections that are the pipes over which the data flows across the network to the user's computer.

Byte-Level Replication: Continuous real-time backup of only the bytes that are changing.

Digital Subscriber Line (DSL): A proven technology that takes advantage of standard copper telephone lines to provide secure, reliable, high-speed Internet access. This is a general term for any local network loop that is digital in nature.

Disaster Recovery: A disaster recovery is a response to a declared disaster or a regional disaster. In a disaster recovery, protected data is moved from its backup storage site. It is delivered to the client at their normal site of operations or a designated alternate site. A disaster recovery is not just restoration of a file; it is the restoration of a server or multiple servers. If the client has a disaster recovery plan, this plan will be used in the disaster recovery process.

Electronic Vaulting: The generic term for all forms of Internet connected, automatic archiving, or backup services.

Enterprise Network: A term for a widely dispersed, multifaceted telecommunications network for a particular purpose or organization.

Last Mile: The last connection from the central office to the customer's home or business over which data or voice flows.

Network-Attached Storage (NAS): A specialized file server that connects to a network. LiveVault uses a shoebox-size NAS for restoring large amounts of data in your network. It is a stand-alone unit that plugs into an Ethernet port and includes the file sharing protocols necessary to have the device recognized as a share on the network. A Snap Server is a type of NAS device.

Network Operations Center (NOC): Generic term for the control center located at Internet Data Centers.

Remote and Branch Office (RBO): A category for large companies with many remote servers.

Restore: When protected data is moved from its backup storage site to the client's normal site of operations or their designated alternate site. A restore can range from recovering a single file up through restoring the entire server.

Restore Media: LiveVault uses CD-ROM or network-attached storage device that contains data to be moved to the client's computer. The data is in encrypted and compressed format. It also has a security password. The password is required in order to move the data onto the client's computer. Traditional backups use tapes, which are not very reliable and often come in many incompatible formats.

Secure Socket Layer (SSL): A protocol that supplies secure data communication through data encryption and decryption. SSL uses RSA public-key encryption for specific TCP/IP ports. It is intended for handling commerce payments. An alternative method is Secure-HTTP (S-WITP), which is used to encrypt specific Web documents rather than the entire session. SSL is a general-purpose encryption standard. SSL can also be used for web applications requiring a secure link, such as ecommerce applications, or for controlling access to Web-based subscription services.

Stranded Server: Servers in facilities where there is limited or no dedicated IT support.

Time-Slice Restore: By specifying a date, time-slice restore presents you with a list of all the files existing as of that time, allowing you to select the right one. Files can be simply and efficiently restored from any point in time, eliminating any need to load and search multiple backup tapes to find older files.

Wide-Area Network (WAN): Any Internet or network that covers an area larger than a single building, usually offered by telephone companies but, also available from alternate providers.

David Ryter is vice president of marketing at Live Vault (Marlborough, Mass.)

www.livevault.com