Optimising your cloud backup

August 1, 2012

You’re ready to move into the cloud, but before you can get there you actually have to get your data to the cloud. Below are some tips on how you can optimize your first cloud backup deployment.

Backup the Most Important Files First

When you sign up for a cloud backup service, your trusted managed  service provider will have to make an initial backup before they can begin to back up your data incrementally. Depending on the amount of data that is required to be backed up and on the speed of the internet connection, this initial backup can take a long time to complete.

With the first backup taking so long, it is important to prioritize your data. You may want to organize your organization’s operational documents (word processing files, spreadsheets, etc) to be backed up first and have uncommon file types backed up last. Depending on your managed service provider, you may be able to determine which files are used most often in your business and back that up first.

Take Advantage of Bandwidth Throttling

Although your initial backup may take a long time, you don’t want it to affect your network during working hours while people are trying to get their work done via the internet. During the day, you should be able to strike a balance between getting your backups done and having enough bandwidth for the workday. After business hours and on weekends you can increase your bandwidth to focus on your backups.

Deduplication and Compression

It’s best to minimize the data being sent over the wire and to the cloud through deduplication, especially if you’re paying for backups per gigabyte on a monthly basis.

One way to decrease the amount of data being backed up (without sacrificing data protection) is to use de-duplication. When seeking the services of a cloud backup services provider, this feature should be standard. The way de-duplication is performed can often be unique to each managed service provider.

Some providers will only back up each file once and if the same file exists in multiple locations, pointers to the files will be created. Other service providers will provide block-level de-duplication. Rather than skipping duplicated files, the software which powers the cloud backup service will create a checksum for each block that’s being backed up and then uses the checksum value as a way of determining whether a duplicate block has already been backed up.

Keep a Local Copy of Backup Files

It’s important that you continue to store backups on premise – it will always be easier and faster to restore data from a local backup then from the internet. Local backups also allow you to further align the value of data with the cost of protecting it. Using the cloud for backup will allow you to recover in any situation when data loss occurs, but creating a second local backup is best for accidental file deletion or to quickly recover a single server in your network.

For more information or to request a demonstration please visit http://www.c24.co.uk

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Posted by david ricketts

Reading the tea leaves : Transforming for growth

June 20, 2012

Tiffani Bova is a Vice President with Gartner Research, where she covers IT sales and channel strategies. Her area of specialization includes the development of comprehensive indirect channel strategies, including program development and optimization, go-to-market sales coverage models, the impact of cloud on the traditional channel, and trends in wholesale IT distribution. In the last two years, she has conducted new research in the area of cloud services brokerage (CSB) as a new role for the indirect channel to play in its quest to stay relevant with cloud services.

In addition to her responsibilities at Gartner, Tiffani is a regular on the public speaking circuit at major channel events across the world and we’re honored to have her here in Toronto for the 2012 Asigra Cloud Backup™ Partner Summit.

In her keynote presentation this morning “Reading the Tea Leaves: Transforming for Growth,” Tiffani discussed how managed service providers can work to use cloud services effectively on a strategic level to effectively compete in what is seemingly becoming a crowded marketplace.

She began with a look at some of the top channel trends for 2012, which served as an overview as to where the industry is going and how service providers should differentiate themselves in order to outmarket the competition.

The cloud opens up new business dynamics, as purchasers can go indirect and direct cloud. What really stood out is when she noted that cloud purchasers are looking for business outcomes – not technology. It is a completely different sell and as such, the channel needs to adapt to a new way of doing business and utilize services to differentiate in what is a highly competitive and fragmented market. Simply put, a service provider’s success relies entirely on how much the customer cares, and not how great the technology is!

Benoit Lheureux’s recent Talking Technology event, “Does a CSB Make Sense for Your Business?“, explained how Cloud Service Brokerage is an emerging business model where a company acts as an intermediary that helps its customers through navigating their options, while removing complexity through aggregated and value added services.  The model can be a key differentiator for any Cloud Service Provider competing in today’s marketplace.

If Managed Service Providers want to really grow into the cloud, they will have to invest in marketing to create an integrated experience. The transactional model that exists today will change in Cloud Environments and the channel must evolve in order to service

Tiffani also spoke to the key technology trends as identified by Gartner and include mobile tablets, mobile apps, contextual and social experiences and the “Internet of things“. She noted that the Cloud is very much part of these trends, which in turn is driving exponential growth in data centre infrastructure investment.

Table 1 Top 10 CIO Business and Technology Priorities in 2012

Top 10 Business Priorities

Ranking

Top 10 Technology Priorities

Ranking
Increasing enterprise growth

1

 Analytics and business intelligence

1

Attracting and retaining new customers

2

Mobile technologies

2
Reducing enterprise costs

3

Cloud computing (SaaS, IaaS, PaaS)

3
Creating new products and services (innovation)

4

Collaboration technologies (workflow)

4

Delivering operational results

5

Virtualization

5

Improving efficiency

6

Legacy Modernization

6

Improving profitability (margins)

7

IT Management

7

Attracting and retaining the workforce

8

CRM

8

Improving marketing and sales effectiveness

9

ERP Applications

9

Expanding into new markets and geographies

10

Security

10

Source: Gartner Executive Programs (January 2012)

Source: Gartner Press Release: http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1897514

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Posted by david ricketts

Getting started with cloud compliance

April 18, 2012

Cloud compliance issues arise as soon as you make use of cloud storage or backup services. By moving data from your internal storage to someone else’s you are forced to examine closely how the data will be kept so that you remain compliant with laws and industry regulations.

It’s a common misunderstanding that regulatory compliance requirements preclude many organizations being able to leverage outsourced, managed cloud services. Depending on the cloud services provider you choose, you may not only be able to meet your existing compliance concerns, but the cloud provider is likely to have controls and processes that improve your compliance program.

The main questions in regard to compliance:

Virtually every regulation requires organizations to adequately protect their physical and informational assets. To do this, there is an implied and assumed ability to control and prove:

  • What information is store on the system?
  • Where is the information stored?
  • Who can access the system?
  • Is the access appropriate?

All of these questions imply some level of ownership of the assets in question, and that is where cloud compliance issues become apparent. In the public cloud environment, you are able to answer the first of those questions with certainty; the other four however, end up posing a compliance problem.

In a typical corporate data center or a co-location center, everyone knows where the disk and physical server reside, and that fact can be proven during an audit. Even a shared service provider can typically tell you which physical systems you are utilizing and identify the data location for audit purposes.

As far as the “who” is accessing your data, you can control that inside your organization, but you also have to take into account that your provider’s staff can access your systems as well. The main people you need to be concerned about in this regard are the administrators, both systems and application. With that being said, regardless of who will have access to your application and storage data offsite, it should be encrypted before it leaves the boundaries of your organization

Finally, the question of “why” they need that access. This is basic as it relates to security – access should be based on job role and a clear description of the level of access needed should be provided.Working with a reputable managed service provider may be an excellent way to leverage expertise and processes you may not otherwise have in-house, and mitigate some risk by assigning responsibility to a 3rd party you can hold accountable to protect your data. The cloud is rapidly becoming the data protection platform of choice for highly regulated industries because more organizations are leveraging the expertise of these pure information-centric service providers.

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Posted by david ricketts

Questions that you need to ask when evaluating a backup and recovery provider

May 25, 2011

Trust that Everything Will Work Well Together

Is a stand-alone backup service provider okay for my business or do I need more integrated services?

Does the service provider offer supplementary services that may help me build an integrated data protection plan e.g. antivirus expertise, data cleaning, hardware life-cycle management, etc?

 •What priority will the service provider give my business if their other customers are hit by a data crisis at the same time e.g. a massive virus attack?

 • Do they demonstrate a high level of discipline when it comes to data protection e.g. do they support and encourage disaster Recovery Drills?

How personal is their service?

  • Too big to care about my company during a crisis?
  • Too small to respond quickly during a crisis?
  • Does the service provider care enough to appraise my existing operations and hardware as part of an overall data protection plan?

Does the vendor consider the bandwidth limitations of my ISP? Does the service provider understand my business?

• The needs of my business and how the solution must address those needs both currently and in the future.

Does the service provider fully understand:

  • The backup and recovery challenges I am now experiencing?
  • My current data volumes and growth?
  • Operating systems I currently run and how this may change in the future?
  • My Recovery Time Objectives?
  • My Recovery Point Objectives?
  • My IT staffing and competence levels?
  • How they can help me lower my operational and management costs?

•Is the vendor transparent about everything?

•Will they provide contacts so I can ask questions of their existing customers?

•Have any of their customers ever com¬plained about hidden fees or surprise charges?

•Will they allow me to see the platform storage facility and its security?

If I have customers that are dependent on my system security, will the vendor also allow them to see the platform storage facility and its security?

•My computer has been stolen. Will they and can they provide a loaner until I can replace mine?

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Posted by david ricketts

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