Managed Services
Select the best outsourced backup
Check to see if the provider offers a
simple-to-install and easy-to-use platform.
by David Farajun
The complexity associated with backing up
data in the enterprise often can
significantly outstrip small and midsize
businesses’ (SMBs) backup requirements.
Complex enterprise LAN/WAN environments and
the need to provide around-the-clock support
can force enterprises to consider the
selection of an information-recovery
management provider.
Agentless information-recovery software,
database certifications, encryption,
heterogeneous operating system support,
legal discoveries and multiple recovery
points are key features that enterprises
need to identify in service providers they
are evaluating. Real-time application
failovers, documented disaster-recovery
plans, trained technical staff and scalable
data center infrastructures are factors that
differentiate enterprise-ready backup
outsourcers from the runners-up.
The backup-and-recovery software provided
by the outsourcer is an appropriate place to
establish a base line to determine whether
or not a specific service provider is a fit
for your enterprise. Enterprises should
ensure candidate outsourcers with
information-recovery offerings can deliver a
platform that is simple to install and
configure. In these circumstances, the use
of an agentless information-recovery
management platform may become a simple,
preliminary method that an enterprise can
use to screen competing service providers.
Using an agentless information-recovery
platform can eliminate the need to make
changes on production servers that have no
maintenance windows, which agent-based
backup software products will require.
Enterprise shops may also manage hundreds or
thousands of servers and have inadequate
staff to manage them. An agentless
information-recovery platform can access
these physical or virtual servers over the
network to help avoid the time-consuming
task of installing data-protection agents on
each server. The one prerequisite is an
in-place network directory service such as
Active Directory or LDAP that the agentless
software will use to authenticate and access
the data on corporate servers.
Enterprises that expect to back up and
recover more than just Web server farms or
file servers will need more features in
their backup-and-recovery solution than just
agentless access to servers. In these
circumstances, the candidate service
providers need to provide an
information-recovery management platform
that can account for the mix and different
versions of applications, databases and
operating systems. If the platform offered
by the managed service provider (MSP) only
supports a subset of enterprise applications
or operating systems, enterprises can easily
eliminate that service provider.
Certifications and SLA
Backup software certifications for
specific applications, databases and
operating systems, such as “Certified for
SAP” or “Solaris Ready,” are indicators of
the viability of the platform used by the
provider. They provide further evidence that
the platform is enterprise-ready and that
the provider has verified its offering does
what it claims. This is especially important
where application backups are tied to
service-level agreements (SLAs) that dictate
that applications, databases and/or
operating systems only be protected by
backup software certified with that
application.
The final item to look for in the service
provider’s backup-and-recovery platform is
the options it provides to manage and
recover the data it backs up. Deduplicating
and encrypting backup data should be viewed
as prerequisites for backup software today.
Deduplication keeps the amount of backup
data to a minimum while it is in flight or
at rest at the service provider’s data
center. Encryption ensures that the data is
kept inaccessible to anyone other than the
party authenticated to retrieve it.
Beyond the MSP’s backup software,
enterprises need to conduct a similar
evaluation of the service provider’s data
center. Highly available data centers that
offer redundant power supplies, battery
backups and generators with facilities built
to withstand earthquakes, floods, tornados
and other manmade and natural disasters
should be viewed as prerequisite features,
not differentiators. Due to the rapid
increase in the volumes of data and storage
that most enterprises are experiencing,
service providers need storage
infrastructures that can easily and
cost-effectively scale to adapt to these
data and storage growth rates.
The degree to which a service provider
has virtualized its data center
infrastructure will provide enterprises some
insight into how enterprise-ready a service
provider is. The service provider should
already have its servers, network and
storage virtualized or be in the process of
doing so to provide a means for growth that
is non-disruptive to its enterprise clients.
Of the different virtualization
technologies, enterprises should verify that
a service provider is virtualizing its
storage infrastructure, since it is likely
to experience the largest percentage of
growth in the near term.
That does not mean enterprises should
disregard what plans a backup outsourcer has
for server virtualization. Enterprises who
outsource their backups often find that
outsourced backups create new opportunities
for offsite disaster recoveries that could
entail using the outsourcer to host
information recovery. The service provider’s
adoption and use of server virtualization
technologies indicates it is putting a
foundation in place for enterprises to
recover application servers, or entire data
centers, at their site.
Check staff competence
The outsourcer’s engineers should be
experts in the backup software used by the
provider and should be capable of explaining
and documenting how the service provider’s
storage and WAN infrastructures can support
customer’s current and future data storage
growth.
An enterprise with worldwide operations
also needs to verify how well positioned the
service provider is to take and respond to
calls regardless of the caller’s origin.
Service providers should have provisions in
place to account for language barriers, as
well as a number of mechanisms to recover
data to whichever location the client
requires.
Today, companies are required to place
legal holds on specific data for unspecified
periods of time. Backup-and-recovery service
platforms are not exempt from these legal
requirements. Enterprises should verify that
the backup-and-recovery service platform
used by the service provider supports backup
lifecycle management to retain the data as
long as it needs, as well as disposes of the
data that it is no longer legally obligated
to keep.
Service providers that offer a robust
agentless backup-and-recovery platform and
scalable data center infrastructures,
coupled with documented examples of how they
intend to virtualize their infrastructure
and manage backup data stores, are the ones
to which enterprise companies should give
preference as they start selecting a backup
outsourcer.
David Farajun is CEO of Asigra,
Toronto, Canada
For more information from Asigra,
(click here)