Part I of a Two-Part Series
As I continue to research data protection “best practices” and speak to multiple storage analysts and industry experts, it has become more and more apparent that, beyond RAID, the most fundamental and widely used method of data protection is snapshot.
Yes, another word for your growing Business Continuity (BC) plan’s glossary. Surprisingly (and mercifully), there is no industry-wide acronym for snapshot (yet).
Snapshot, an “image” or pointer-based copy of a volume, is the most fundamental and widely used tool in the data protection toolbox. When developing a Business Continuity plan or evaluating a current plan, IT managers must clearly understand how vital snapshot technology is for BC, regardless of the size of the implementation.
Before I go into the “how,” let’s cover the “why.”
Snapshot is the most frequently employed technology to backup data at a specific point-in-time, letting IT managers reliably protect data with minimal to no impact on production environments.
As I continue to investigate data protection “best practices,” it’s becoming more and more obvious that the primary use for snapshot is to optimize backup and protect data stored on a disk array without impacting production applications. Beyond this fundamental use, there exists six other key benefits to using snapshots for data management and data protection:
1. Eliminate backup windows with point-in-time backups
Snapshots provide instantaneous point-in-time copies of a logical volume in a storage array. The snapshot preserves the logical volume's image as it appeared at the instant the snapshot was taken.
2. Fast recovery and rollback
Backup exists to enable restore. Since snapshots are slices of the current disk data, storage managers can recover instantly to specific points in time. This is an ideal process for dealing with new regularity requirements, recovering from human error, application development and other IT functions.
3. Improve operations with low impact backup
Snapshots enable backups to occur without taking production servers and applications offline. Once the snapshot is taken, it can be used for a variety of uses (e.g., staging other backups, application testing and other data management applications).
4. Regulatory compliance
Across the globe, government regulatory requirements are changing and these changes lead generally to greater demand for data to be online and rapidly accessible. The data specified in a wide range of U.S. and international regulations must be tracked, protected and secured with accessibility requirements defined as well.
5. Business Continuance
Many events are simply beyond our control. Ensuring that business continues without interruption is a leading priority for IT organizations worldwide. The requirements of Business Continuity have led to an increased use of disk-based and remote data replication as well as a groundswell in the use of disk instead of tape for backup and instantaneous recovery.
6. Accelerate new application development and deployment
One of the significant risks in developing, testing and deploying new IT solutions is the risk to production data. Snapshots are an ideal way to protect against mishaps. IT managers can now take a snapshot that can be mounted as a new volume to support these tasks. If something goes wrong, the snapshot can be discarded and no harm is done. Snapshots gained great popularity when Y2K testing was a top priority.
Now that you know the “why,” next week, in part II, I’ll share with you the “how”—at least how Overland Storage has implemented a fast and efficient snapshot functionality into ULTAMUS RAIDTM.
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Kevin Wise
Product Manager