Five Battle-Tested Practices to Avoid Data Loss Greg Shields,

Five Battle-Tested Practices to Avoid Data Loss Greg Shields, MVP, vExpert

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Five Battle-Tested Practices to Avoid Data Loss Greg Shields, MVP, vExpert

Notes from the Field The data protection activity is one that’s indifferent of company size. Most companies don’t believe this. Some vendors don’t believe it either. At the end of the day, it is ensuring data recoverability that’s the most critical activity. Recognize that today’s evolving technologies no longer mandate that it be the only activity. Seek more out of your backup solution. Stop calling it “backups”.

Battle-Tested Practice #1 Define an RTO and RPO, even if you don’t call it that.

Battle-Tested Practice #1 Define an RTO and RPO, even if you don’t call it that. Recovery Time Objective “How long will you allow services to be unavailable?” Recovery Point Objective “How much data are you willing to lose should something happen?”

Battle-Tested Practice #1 Define an RTO and RPO, even if you don’t call it that. Recovery Time Objective “How long will you allow services to be unavailable?” Recovery Point Objective “How much data are you willing to lose should something happen?” Big companies call these by their formal names. Why? Smart small companies don’t. the answer to these questions drives The failingBecause companies don’t even know what they mean. every other decision in data protection.

Battle-Tested Practice #1 Define an RTO and RPO, even if you don’t call it that. Recovery Time Objective “How long will you allow services to be unavailable?” Recovery Point Objective “How much data are you willing to lose should something happen?” Big companies call these by their formal names. Smart small companies don’t. Failing companies don’t even know what they mean.

Battle-Tested Practice #2 Evolve past tape backups, but perhaps don’t eliminate them.

Battle-Tested Practice #2 Evolve past tape backups, but perhaps don’t eliminate them. Virtual Machines Virtual Host Disk Backup Tape Backup

Battle-Tested Practice #2 Evolve past tape backups, but perhaps don’t eliminate them. Server to disk to tape. Server to disk to cloud. Server to disk to tape-and-cloud.

Battle-Tested Practice #2 Evolve past tape backups, but perhaps don’t eliminate them. Server to disk to tape. Server to disk to cloud. Server to disk to tape-and-cloud. You’ve already invested in your tape infrastructure. There is little reason to eliminate it. Smarter idea: Augment it.

Battle-Tested Practice #3 For goodness’ sake, mind VSS.

Battle-Tested Practice #3 For goodness’ sake, mind VSS. VSS Writer Microsoft Exchange SQL Server Oracle Active Directory Others. VSS Requestor Volume Shadow Copy Service VSS Provider Operating System Storage Array Disk Volume Backup Application

Battle-Tested Practice #3 For goodness’ sake, mind VSS. The role of VSS in backups too often gets forgotten. Failures in VSS’ architecture are often the source of failed backups.

Battle-Tested Practice #3 For goodness’ sake, mind VSS. The role of VSS in backups too often gets forgotten. Failures in VSS’ architecture are often the source of failed backups. Many times, VSS failures are not actually VSS failures. VSS Writer failures or failed registration Poorly coded VSS Writers VMware Tools / Hyper-V Integration Services Your backup software

Battle-Tested Practice #3 For goodness’ sake, mind VSS. The role of VSS in backups too often gets forgotten. Failures in VSS’ architecture are often the source of failed backups. Many times, VSS failures are not actually VSS failures. VSS Writer failures or failed registration Poorly coded VSS Writers VMware Tools / Hyper-V Integration Services Your backup software Virtualization complicates VSS’ role.

Battle-Tested Practice #3 For goodness’ sake, mind VSS. (VMware Edition) Virtual Machine VSS Writer Exchange Server Etc. VSS Requestor Volume Shadow Copy Service VSS Provider Operating System Storage Array Disk Volume ESX Host Disk Volume VMware Tools

Battle-Tested Practice #3 For goodness’ sake, mind VSS. (Hyper-V Edition) Virtual Machine VSS Writer Microsoft Exchange Etc. VSS Writer Hyper-V Writer VSS Requestor Volume Shadow Copy Service VSS Provider Operating System Storage Array Disk Volume Windows Server Backup

Battle-Tested Procedure #4 Shift off tape restores, but also shift off the tape restore mentality.

Battle-Tested Procedure #4 Shift off tape restores, but also shift off the tape restore mentality. Or, in other words: “A disk is a disk is a disk is a disk is a disk.”

Battle-Tested Procedure #4 Shift off tape restores, but also shift off the tape restore mentality. Or, in other words: “A disk is a disk is a disk is a disk is a disk.” VM disk files are just files on disk. When VMs are powered down, their disk files are little different than a Word document or an Excel spreadsheet. Dormant, they’re merely files consuming space. They’re also just “files consuming space” on your backup disks.

Battle-Tested Procedure #4 Shift off tape restores, but also shift off the tape restore mentality.

Battle-Tested Procedure #4 Shift off tape restores, but also shift off the tape restore mentality. Evolve your use case for data recovery. Some data inside a VM needs restoration. That data might be files and folders, or it might be application objects contained within a database. To get it, power on the VM from whatever disk files you’ve backed up. Then, recover the data to wherever it needs to go. Finally, power down the VM. Task complete.

Battle-Tested Procedure #5 Test your backups. No, really.

Battle-Tested Procedure #5 Test your backups. No, really. When was the last time you really, actually, truly, honestly, verifiably tested your backups? This week? This month? This year? Ever?

Battle-Tested Procedure #5 Test your backups. No, really. When was the last time you really, actually, truly, honestly, verifiably tested your backups? This week? This month? This year? Ever? Why aren’t you?

Battle-Tested Procedure #5 Test your backups. No, really. We don’t test the backups, because doing so is dumb. They a manual, time-consuming, soul-eating, non-value-added, mind-numbing, fingernails-across-chalkboard, kill-me-now-type activity. Until they break.

Battle-Tested Procedure #5 Test your backups. No, really. We don’t test the backups, because doing so is dumb. They a manual, time-consuming, soul-eating, non-value-added, mind-numbing, fingernails-across-chalkboard, kill-me-now-type activity. Until they break. What you need is automation. Power on isolated views of backed up server disks. Perform checksum verifications of view data. Verify application functionality through automated jobs. Remove the view in preparation for the next verification.

Five Procedures. One Call to Action. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. define augment monitor evolve verify Demand more out of your backup solution.

Five Battle-Tested Practices to Avoid Data Loss Greg Shields, MVP, vExpert

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