Top data protection challenges faced by IT administrators

For the past two years, disk as a backup target has been hailed as data protection's 'big fix'

John Webster    

 

January 18, 2007 (Computerworld) -- Backup and recovery is the most well-established and common data management application. Yet, it is arguably now the most complex and difficult to administer. The top data protection challenges faced by IT administrators include:

·                                 Continued growth in data volumes, forcing some percentage of data-center-managed data sets out from under the data projection umbrella

·                                 Proliferation of data "on the edge" (remote offices, mobile workers) that falls outside the data protection umbrella and the corporate security blanket

·                                 Fault-tolerant systems and applications availability requirements

·                                 Varying recovery-time objectives, starting with immediate recoverability

·                                 Continued consolidation and virtualization at the server level

·                                 Increasing demand for more granularity as applied to the recovery process

·                                 Varying protection levels that are commensurate with the degree of data set criticality

·                                 The proliferation of data copies

·                                 More backup target choices

·                                 Increasing need to apply security measures to the backup process

·                                 Inability to integrate point-product backup applications and backup management servers, leading to the maintenance and support of multiple backup applications within larger IT environments

·                                 Inability to accurately assess backup success vs. failure rates, and the overall reliability of the backup process

·                                 Escalating cost to manage and support all of the above

For the past two years, disk as a backup target has been hailed as data protection's "big fix." However, when one examines the complexity of today's backup/restore requirements against the limited capabilities that disk can offer in addressing these challenges, it's clear that a far more comprehensive strategy is required.

During 2007, users should look for a vendor's ability to take a holistic approach to addressing the data protection needs of IT administrators. We don't need more surveys to tell us that comprehensive data protection is today's most critical IT operational challenge. And users don't need more proprietary, point-product fixes that are difficult to blend into a production environment. Should storage vendors unite to address the challenges? I, for one, see no other alternative.