Part II Until the focus expands to data protection – What to do about it

Part II – Until the focus expands to data protection – What to do about it

This is the second of a three-part series (read part I here) about how vendors are keeping backup alive, however what they can and should do to shift and expand the conversation to data protection and related themes.

Modernizing data protection and what to do about it

Building off of what was mentioned in the first post, lets take a look at what can be done including expanding the conversation around data protection in support of business continuance (BC), disaster recovery (DR), high availability (HA), business resiliency (BR) not to mention helping backup to actually retire (someday). Now when I backup retire, I’m not necessarily talking about a technology such as hardware, software or a service including clouds, rather when, where, why and how data gets protected. What I mean by this is to step back from looking at the tools and technologies to how they are used and can be used in new and different ways moving forward.

Converged people and technology teams

All to often I see where new technologies or tools get used in old ways which while providing some near-term relief, the full capabilities of what is being used may not be fully realized. This also ties into the theme of people not technologies can be a barrier to convergence and transformation that you can read more about here and here.

Whats your data protection strategy, business or technology focused?

Data protection strategy evolving beyond tools looking for a problem to solve

Part of modernizing data protection is getting back to the roots or fundamentals including revisiting business needs, requirements along with applicable threat risks to then align application tools, technologies and techniques. This means expanding focus from just the technology, however also more importantly how to use different tools for various scenarios. In other words having a tool-box and know how to use it vs. everything looking like a nail as all you have is a hammer. Check out various webinars, Google+ hangouts and other live events that I’m involved with on the StorageIO.com events page on data protection and related data infrastructure themes including BackupU (getting back to the basics and fundamentals).

Everything is not the same, leverage different data protection approaches to different situations

Wrap up (for now)

Continue reading part three of this series here to see what can be done (taking action) about shifting the conversation about modernizing data protection. Also check out conversations about trends, themes, technologies, techniques perspectives in my ongoing data protection diaries discussions (e.g. www.storageioblog.com/data-protection-diaries-main/).

Ok, nuff said

Cheers
Gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
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