Don’t get forced into either cloud or on-premises backup systems by vendors, you need to decide first what is right for your requirements, says Jeff Hart at Acronis
Why is it that so many data protection vendors want to force you to choose between an on-premises solution and a software-as-a-service solution? These vendors want to dictate the backup infrastructure that you should use. Some claim that on-premises software is the right answer. Others want to force you into a backup-as-a-service alternative.
The reality is, the choice shouldn’t be a complicated one and it also shouldn’t be a simple either/or decision – both cloud and on-premises backup should have a place in your company’s recovery strategy.
Here’s a simple real-life example that will help you understand why you shouldn’t be pushed into buying either one or the other.
Let’s say you want to buy a car. You would think about its use first, right? On weekdays, you need to commute to work. On weekends, you like to venture further, and “get a little mud on your tyres” by going off-road.
Would you get yourself a low-riding, road-scratching cruiser? No. It won’t get more than few hundred feet off-road. What about a rugged, pumped-up off-road ATV-like machine? No again. You’ll lose more than your patience as it would be very uncomfortable driving back and forth to work. So, buy two vehicles? Well, apart from the costs, you would need double the parking, double the maintenance, essentially double everything.
So, you make the most logical decision and get something that can do both – on-road and off-road.
What works for you?
Now ask yourself: Why should my backup solution be any different, can I do both cloud and on-premises to protect data in a way that works for me?
Your IT infrastructure should be under your control at all times – and this includes how you protect your data and who can access it. It should be up to you to decide whether the workload is physical, virtual or in the cloud.
It should be up to you to decide, whether your storage is disk, NAS, SAN, cloud or even tape – or any combination in between. It should be up to you to decide where you want to be able to recover your systems and data if you need to at a moment’s notice – same hardware, dissimilar hardware, P2V or even P2C.
And in the end, you should be able to back it all up easily and reliably – both on-premises and in the cloud.
It’s not about the product it’s about the solution
The key is that when you think about backing up your data, you shouldn’t think about the features of a particular product. Instead, you should think about the problem you are trying to solve and the right solution to do the job.
For example, today most companies need to have a second location for their backups so they know that if anything happens, they can go to an off-site location to recover their data. Effectively giving them a ‘Plan B’ to eliminate a single point of failure. Without investing money in a new physical server, the cloud offers the perfect solution.
However, if you don’t need to have any local availability of data, or if recovery times are not your issue, then a cloud-only strategy might be the best option. But if you think about it, cloud-only would work for a particular workstation or a small business without a lot of local systems/applications. For any business with at least two to three servers a hybrid cloud backup strategy will be essential.
We all buy insurance: Why risk data loss for your organisation? Hybrid backup will automatically copy your primary backup to the cloud with little-to-no intervention, basically solving the problem you would have if you used tape. An integrated hybrid backup application gives you the freedom to eliminate legacy technology, like tape, and simplifies the logistics of storing data off-site.
The reality is that if you’re looking to provide recovery of every piece of data, system and application, in the face of each possible disaster scenario from which you wish to protect your business, then you’re going to need a hybrid mix of on-premises and cloud-based storage and recovery options.
Today’s hybrid cloud backup solutions can protect your entire IT infrastructure – in the cloud, on-premises or a mix of both. You can store backups, and recover anywhere you want in any combination, whether your system are based on previous systems and configurations or migrating to completely new hardware and infrastructure.
Jeff Hart is Senior Sales Director for Northern Europe at Acronis
Originally posted Insight 8 November 2016