Banking on the Promise of Cloud Backup

Backing up enterprise data has never been easy to begin with, and even more so now with the fast growth of multiple data types and sizes, servers, and operating systems that businesses use. Yet, it’s a crucial best practice for businesses intending to survive. 

When something happens and a data failure occurs, an hour of downtime can costs businesses upwards of US$20,000, according to IDC, which also highlights that 70% of organizations still do not have proper levels of data protection, specifically in the critical areas of backup and disaster recovery (DR).

 

A solution that can help businesses alleviate the complexities associated with data backup without them relinquishing control of their most important asset, is cloud backup. Offered and managed by third-party service providers, the benefits users expect to get from it are generally the same as what they would expect to get from cloud. 

For instance, as cloud is highly scalable, it allows users to store as much data they like. Likewise, that’s an advantage in a backup environment because many businesses often fail to plan the capacity of their backup infrastructure when they add new storage, which may result in a lag that could, in turn, trigger data availability issues. For businesses, not having to worry about the scalability of their cloud backup is a great benefit. And as their data backup requirements grow, they don’t need to invest on additional devices, take up more space, and use more power in order to scale up.

For businesses with multiple sites, cloud backup allows them to simply connect to the service provider over the Internet – instead of writing data between multiple sites – giving them not just convenience, but potential cost savings on broadband costs.  

Using a cloud backup service also allows businesses to leverage from vendor-provided additional features, including the latest advances in security, encryption, deduplication, disaster recovery and continuous real-time data protection. 

These are just some of the benefits of cloud backup, but that doesn’t mean businesses must completely abandon their other backup investments. As cloud continues to evolve and new disruptive innovations appear, we can only expect to see more advances in the backup industry. For now, cloud backup should be regarded as a valuable addition to most data protection strategies. 

 

“Mastering the crucial ‘3-2-1 rule’ of keeping three copies of data, on two types of media, with one copy being offsite is more achievable and affordable than ever before,” said Daniel Kwong, Senior Vice President, Information Technology and Security Services at CITIC Telecom CPC. “A multi-tiered backup strategy, which uses the best of all three media is ideal: local disk or flash drives for mission-critical data’s immediate recovery, tape for long-term archives, and cloud for the bulk of backup and recovery.”

Just like many service providers, CITIC Telecom CPC, a provider of network, Internet connectivity, data center services, and managed cloud solutions is also flexing its muscles in the cloud backup space. The company recently extended its cloud backup capabilities from physical-to-cloud (P-C) and Cloud-to-Cloud (C-C)services to Virtual-to-Cloud (V-C) offsite backup and replication service, which integrates Veeam®  Cloud Connect with its already popular SmartCLOUD™ platform. The new service, which is now available in all regions, allows CITIC Telecom CPC to extend its SmartCLOUDTM BRR (backup, replication and recovery) service to businesses running virtualized environments. 

CITIC Telecom CPC first kicked off its partnership with Veeam in 2012, with the launch of its cloud-to-cloud backup and replication solution. “Our customers had to be on the SmartCLOUD™ platform to be able to use CITIC Telecom CPC’s SmartCLOUD™ BRR service,” said Kwong. “The additional integration of Veeam® Cloud Connect to our offerings has expanded our data protection services, including offsite backups, standby replica VMs, and warm disaster recovery sites, and powering a full range of service offerings, including Backup-as-a-Service and Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service through our SmartCLOUD™ BRR solutions.”

One of CITIC Telecom CPC’s SmartCLOUD™ BRR customers from banking and finance industry said, “Our company has been using CITIC Telecom CPC’s SmartCLOUD™ BRR services since 2013 and I am particularly impressed by its fast backup speed. Compared with legacy backup solutions, it greatly shortens the backup time with email reports to ensure each backup job is completed successfully. As a company in the BFSI industry, we demand for stringent backup service requirements, and CITIC Telecom CPC’s SmartCLOUD™ BRR is a solution that we can rely on.”

Cloud backup providers and their respective cloud backup services offerings are not created equal.   Hence, before moving data to the cloud for online backup, businesses need to consider a service provider that can best deliver their specific data protection requirements, including the critical areas of backup and recovery. What is crucial is the amount of time it takes the service provider to recover data when the inevitable happens. 

Factors to consider in choosing the right cloud backup partner include, but not limited to, their being able to deliver performance and versatility, security and compliance, cost efficiency, availability and service level agreements (SLA), as well as exit strategy. 

“Partnering with a cloud backup provider that offers end-to-end solutions – from networking to Internet connectivity, to data center offerings, to managed services, and more – gives you the assurance you get fast data recovery speed and access to archived data,” advised Kwong. “Not only will it save you valuable resources, but also let you gain efficiencies.” 

 

“This article first appeared in www.networksasia.net/ written by By Gene Vallejo-Yeo”