Nearly every CIO has spent a sleepless night worrying about data loss and what kind of downtime his or her business would experience if the loss were significant. In today’s always-on, 24x7x365 business environment, data has become many companies’ most valuable asset – and that means protecting that data has become a critical component of every IT pro’s job description – probably even yours.
In the past, a combination of on-premise disk-based storage and off-site tape was a typical data protection solution. But when a critical file was lost and needed to be instantly restored, it quickly became apparent that your tape archival solution – while cost effective – did not allow you to provide the efficient response a panicking line-of-business (LOB) colleague needed or expected.
There are now a variety of cloud-based as-a-service storage, backup, and disaster recovery (DR) solutions that offer solid alternatives every CIO should, at the very least, investigate.
Reinventing your backup or DR plan can be much easier than you think. Imagine being able to tap into the power of cloud-based storage, for example, to back up and restore as much, or as little, data as necessary to a fast and secure, enterprise-grade cloud managed by a professional managed services organization. This kind of backup-as-a-service offering not only exists today, but it is something your industry counterparts are becoming increasingly interested in as they search for new ways to expediently and cost-effectively back up their virtualized systems.
One of many as-a-service, cloud-based data protection services, a backup-as-a-service solution allows you to leverage the cloud to integrate compression, de-duplication, encryption and WAN acceleration with highly scalable, reliable, fast and affordable cloud storage to create the type of performance you are accustomed to achieving in your own on-site data center. Because the solution is cloud-based, you can often do this at a lower cost than you are experiencing today with your existing disk- or tape-based systems. Worried about the viability of Internet transmission? Don’t be; data sets can be compressed to speed transmission to the cloud over the wire as well as to reduce storage costs. When managed by a reputable solution provider – ideally one with its own cloud target – you can securely retrieve any amount of data – anytime and from anywhere on the Web.
These kinds of as-a-service offerings can easily be scaled up or down as well. Perhaps you already have a backup solution you’re satisfied with, but you want to replace your tape storage with a cloud-based option. Or maybe you need a more sophisticated, full-service disaster recovery solution that resides in the cloud and is professionally managed and regularly tested on your behalf. The beauty of these as-a-service options is that they can be designed to fit your needs today, and they can be scaled up or down as those needs change. If you’re one of the many IT pros who are looking for better-faster-cheaper alternatives to your existing backup or disaster recovery solutions, take the time to explore what “as-a-service” options delivered via the cloud might mean to your business.
Want to learn more? Explore six steps to better storage, then download a Backup-as-a-Service data sheet. You can also examine Logicalis’ data and storage management solutions and read a white paper, “Advanced Technologies Make Thinking about Disaster Recovery a Lot Less Scary.”