4 May

“Policy based automated tiered cloud storage solutions” address a number of challenges thrown up by data storage in the cloud. The process improves capacity utilization and institutes cost control systems by categorizing and eliminating repeated backup of data that has little or no value to the organization. The policy based file identification rules ensure that only mission-critical files are transferred to primary storage, non-mission critical files to secondary storage, and historical data to cheaper storage systems without compromising on the security and integrity of the data.(more…)

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12 Mar

Innovation is the human response to challenge. Snapshot technology is one innovative response to data management challenges presented by growing volumes of data.

Snapshot technology gained popularity in the 1990′s. This technology was and is used to capture or snap the state of the system at a point in time. The process freezes the state in time and stores the data set as a unified whole for future recovery. Any subsequent changes in the state of the data may be re-snapped or incremental changes may be identified and stored with referential pointers to initial state of the data set. Read-write snapshots used in virtualization, sandboxing and virtual hosting —also known as branching snapshots— may create versions of a data set by maintaining referential integrity with the original data set.(more…)

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20 Feb

“Globalization of business” is clichéd. It is fait accompli that small and medium businesses can confidently aspire to a global presence powered by cloud based services such as Asigra. Local brands can now be sold in wider markets with minimal efforts or costs! It is now a reality that the Internet and the Cloud have revolutionalized thinking. Managers are enthusiastically “thinking global” and strategizing accordingly.(more…)

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15 Jan

Uncertainties surround the adoption of new technologies. The cloud is no exception. There is a persistent fear of loss of control. There is paranoia about security. But, maintaining control of the cloud and ensuring security in the cloud is simple–if you know how.

Fears of losing control over the cloud are very real. The genesis of this fear can be traced back to the nature of cloud computing. First, enterprise data is sent over the Internet to a remote server that is not in the control of the organization. Second, the Internet is a public transmission system. Third virtualization makes it impossible to state with certainty the location of the data in the cloud.(more…)

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8 Jan

The Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI) is a standard that is being developed by The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA). The SNIA explored the different management interfaces (Control interfaces) that are integrated into cloud offerings and have created a model that can be mapped to various offerings. The emergent model—Cloud Storage Reference Model–is a standardized functional container interface for supporting legacy and new applications. Metadata can be set on containers and the data elements contained therein for effective management of data stores. The containers, accounts, security protocols and monitoring/billing information underlying storage services can be exposed to IT Administrators who are vendors/consumers of cloud services.(more…)

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21 Dec

IT administrators commenting on the stink view environmental control as a constant battle. They aver that the more security you build in, the more sophisticated security threats become and there is no denying this fact. But, no one would really like to throw up their arms and compromise with the situation! The instinct for survival is strong in us and we would battle on against all odds.(more…)

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10 Dec

Risk, Recovery and Resilience are the three R’s of disaster recovery. Are you ready to face a disaster? Have you evaluated the risks? Have you documented and provisioned for the risks? What do you think should be your time to recover? What will be the estimated loss if you are unable to recover business operations quickly? How resilient is your business? If you have answers for some of the above questions—you have began the process of putting together a disaster recovery plan. If you have answers to all the above, you have a disaster recovery plan in place!(more…)

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30 Nov

Digital business correspondence is mission-critical. No enterprise can afford to lose information stored in thousands of email accounts and pertain to official electronic communication with customers, suppliers, contractors or between employees. Online backup service providers understand this customer need and provision for email solutions that protect mission-critical email archives in their backup repositories.

(more…)

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20 Nov

Weeding out of data and data files is an important part of data maintenance. Over a period of time, some files lose their importance and relevance and may have to be deleted from the system. So, what happens when all data is stored in a cloud? How does one delete such files and folders?

Experts insist that creating a data deletion process is as important as choosing a storage strategy. A data deletion strategy involves selecting or deploying the right data deletion software, securely deleting the data, and verifying whether the data is actually deleted from the online repository. Most enterprises remain unaware of this need. Those who are conscious of it do not adopt a robust strategy for want of resources or perceived costs.(more…)

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10 Nov

Have you stopped to examine the kind of compression technology that is being used by your online backup vendor? Most of us take it for granted that our backup vendor knows just what needs to be done and would use technology that will safeguard our data. While faith is essential, it is necessary to repose trust only when you know fully well what you are letting yourself in for!(more…)

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29 Oct

Obsolescence is the technological equivalent of quicksand. Evolving technology makes data created on obsolete systems unreadable. Experts say that timeframe for preservation of digitized data is reducing daily and the current timeframe is between two to five years! So, it is wholly possible that your enterprise data may vanish into cyberspace without a trace, just because your backup systems have become obsolete and the data is no longer readable using the newer technologies available in the market.(more…)

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15 Oct

Technology enablement is no longer a distant dream. Even small and medium enterprises with almost no established networks can achieve unprecedented levels of automation with an Internet connection and sufficient bandwidth. Enterprises with well established LAN/WAN can now hitch their networks to the Internet and empower themselves in a variety of new ways.(more…)

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1 Oct

If you believe that online backup service providers allow you to retain data of only the last thirty days, you are mistaken. Most online backup service providers facilitate versioning of data and allow you retain historical versions of every file. This is considered to be a very important safety feature in the backup application. In fact, these service providers sometimes make it difficult to delete a backed up version of the file; automatically create new versions of a file, unless the authorized administrator of the back up gives express consent to the deletion and non-maintenance of versions of the file!(more…)

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20 Sep

Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) are design and test time implementations of a data protection infrastructure. These two measures are disaster recovery metrics that define the expectations of the organization around the recovery of data.

The recovery point objective (RPO) can be described as the maximum acceptable level of data loss following a disaster or a technical disruption of computing systems. The point in time could be a point of recovery that immediately precedes the crash or an appropriate time when the system was healthy. Recovery Time objective (RTO) defines the time frame for recovery of computing systems to ensure continuity of the business. Both these objectives, of course can be achieved only if the equipment and applications remain undamaged or accessible.(more…)

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2 Sep

If you look at the history of encryption, you will begin to appreciate that encryption methodologies have been around for centuries with varying rates of success. Coded communications were sent out by Kings, Statesmen and people who did not want their messages read by all and sundry. An encryption decoding key was often sent separately to the recipient to enable him to decode the message. However, history shows that there was a thriving parallel coterie of men who specialized in decoding coded messages. Codes were often broken and newer methods of encoding had to be found. Coders/decoders had to remain one step ahead of each other. Even today, the situation is no different.(more…)

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