World Backup Day: Smarter Backup for IT

[Amit_Walia]

Backing up data can often be added to a long list of things you should do more often or more effectively, but aren’t.  Things like: flossing your teeth, following a household budget, getting more sleep, etc.  Whether you work for a large business challenged by the explosion of data and tighter service level agreements (SLA's), or a smaller to mid-size business, you are likely struggling with backup (as are most consumers).  That’s not surprising considering that today’s backup technology is comprised of a growing collection of point solutions that have added complexity, costs, and headaches for IT pros.   

We recently surveyed more than 1,400 IT professionals on their backup practices and ability to recover information in the event of a disaster.  The findings revealed that traditional approaches to backup are broken.  In fact, more than a third (36 percent) of respondents would not bet their paychecks that 100 percent of backed-up data could be recovered!  (I actually think this stat is not impressive.  I would not be surprised if 100 percent of folks wouldn’t bet their paychecks that their backed up data could be restored.  Is there something stronger we can add here?)

Organizers of World Backup Day would like to address this problem by raising awareness on Saturday, March 31st among people and organizations about the role of data in our lives and the importance of regular backups.  Their slogan this year is “Don’t be an April fool.  Backup your files.  Check your restores.” 

Of course, that might be easier said than done for many IT pros.  But we believe a few simple steps will make it much easier for them to eliminate backup from the “should be doing” list:    

• Unite Virtual and Physical Backups:Using a single solution for both environments will drive down your operating cost, reduce storage and accelerate recoveries.
  http://www.backupexec.com
• Consolidate backup and recovery tools in a single appliance: Integrating backup, dedupe, and storage in a single solution will drive down operating costs and capital expense while simplifying day-to-day operations in the data center and remote offices.
  http://www.backupexec.com/3600
• Fight infinite data growth:Deduplication technology helps you manage your data growth and effectively reduce rising storage costs.
  http://www.backupexec.com/deduplication
• Eliminate DR complexity:Simplified Disaster Recovery and Physical to Virtual conversions allow for quick and efficient recovery of an entire Windows server to dissimilar hardware, to bare metal, or to the virtual environment
  http://www.betterbackupforall.com/video.php?video=2

Symantec wants to reward all the hard-working backup professionals on World Backup Day with the opportunity to win a new ZBoard.  See our contest page for details: V-Ray Challenge.

On Monday, April 2^nd, we’ll tweet out the winners!  Top 3 scores win!

Happy World Backup Day!