In today's dynamic business environment, where data plays a key role, reliable backup strategies are essential to ensure business continuity. Below is a general overview of modern strategies and tools used for data backup.
Automation and Variety of Backup Levels:
Modern backup tools enable process automation, eliminating the risk of human error. They create backup copies themselves periodically, and can send reports on backup success. These tools offer various levels of backup, such as full, incremental, and differential. This allows for effective data management, minimizing the amount of information stored and restored.
Cloud Backup:
The use of cloud services for storing backups has become widespread. Cloud services provide scalability, flexibility, and secure storage of data on external servers, which becomes crucial in the event of local system failures.
Testing and Emergency Recovery:
Effective backup strategies include regular testing of disaster recovery processes. Disaster simulations verify that data can be successfully restored in the event of a disaster. This is a key part of ensuring disaster recovery readiness.
Cryptography and Security:
Data security is a priority. Modern backup tools offer advanced cryptography features, protecting data from unauthorized access both during storage and transmission.
Monitoring and Management:
Effective backup tools enable monitoring of processes. Intuitive management panels facilitate administration and access to key information about backups.
Review of Selected Backup Tools:
Veeam
Veeam is a comprehensive backup and recovery tool designed primarily for virtual environments such as VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V. The program offers all types of backups, as well as real-time virtual machine replication. It allows you to create backups on local servers or on a remote cloud. It is distinguished by mechanisms such as Change Block Tracking, which minimize the amount of data to be copied during subsequent incremental backups.
- Licensing: Veeam uses licensing based on the number of virtual machines (VMs) or physical servers that you want to back up. The pricing model is flexible, allowing you to adjust the license to the actual needs of the enterprise.
UrBackup (Open Source)
UrBackup is an open-source software that allows data backup in both virtual environments and on physical machines. It also offers all levels of backup. It is free software, which unfortunately requires more commitment in terms of implementation and daily maintenance.
- Licensing: The program is available for free.
Acronis
Acronis Cyber Protect (Acronis Backup) is a comprehensive tool that not only enables data backup, but also provides protection against ransomware, system recovery and data availability monitoring. It allows you to make backup copies of devices with the most popular operating systems, including: Windows, Linux, MacOS. You can save your backup copies in the secure Acronis cloud or on local media.
- Licensing: : Acronis uses a pricing model based on the amount of data you want to protect. This means that you pay based on the amount of data you store.
Summary
Modern backup strategies include automation, multiple backup levels, cloud computing, recovery testing, data security, and monitoring and management. The choice of backup tools depends on the individual needs of the enterprise, taking into account both general strategies and specific features of available solutions. It is worth considering both the benefits and possible limitations of each tool when making a decision.