SMBs? Are you big enough to have a serious backup strategy?

What kind of stuff am I backing up?

You can backup systems up in many ways, depending on how they're built. So at the basic level you can run an agent-based backup package that hoovers flat files down to a centralised store, and at the higher end you can snapshot and back up entire virtual servers in (say) an ESXi environment. There are four basic backup approaches to consider for each item: (a) taking entire server snapshots; (b) backing up flat-file data items; (c) backing up files that are always open, such as databases or email files; and (d) real-time replication that keeps the copy super-current for really important files.

Disk-to-disk backups

Disk storage seems to get cheaper and cheaper, and as time goes by disk-to-disk backup technology becomes more and more popular. It's not hard to see why. First off, restores from disk-to-disk backup systems are very fast because the seek time is negligible – with a tape drive you have to wait for it to spool through to the data item you want. Secondly, de-duplication is the order of the day: if you're backing up a dozen Windows Server 2012 machines, either the backup software or (more likely) the storage subsystem will de-dupe the data and store just one copy of each data element with a bunch of pointers into it.

Both of the above allow modern backup software to keep a seemingly infinite number of point-in-time snapshots of your data. So for the first backup it'll copy the entire data set, but all subsequent backups will be incremental, just storing the delta (the changes in the data since the previous backup). It's an approach that wouldn't work with tapes because you'd forever be spooling through the media, but it works great with disk-based storage.

So what kit do I buy?

There's nothing to stop you buying a traditional server and loading it with disk, either internally or (more likely) in external enclosures as the latter allows expansion by bolting more on as demand grows. For the average SME this isn't the easiest option, though. You need a server with an operating system and will need to load the backup software on top. You'll need to procure and configure the hardware which, although not rocket science is also not trivial if you're going to make it scale well and be sufficiently resilient (on more than one occasion I've had calls from bemused clients who are baffled as to how to set up their new external storage arrays). In my opinion appliances are the way forward – not just in the field of backups but in IT in general.

Over the years I've used loads of appliances, both virtual and physical, in various fields – network load balancers, Web servers, firewalls, you name it. They've shared the same general features: dead easy to get started with (particularly virtual appliances – loving the right-click-and-create-virtual-appliance-from-image approach) and minimal knowledge required to use them as you only need to know how to run the actual appliance software, not any underlying hardware kit or operating system fun.

Storage appliances are no exception. They're generally very easy to get running, they scale well, the RAID setup is generally available with hot-standby disks (so in a failure you're never a disk down as it swaps a spare in and populates it) and the field is so competitive that the vendors are striving to ensure they give you as many useful features as possible. And talking of vendors, there are plenty out there offering appliance-based flavours of their offerings – Dell's DR series, Fujitsu's Eternus, Symantec's NetBackup appliances, WD Arkeia, the list goes on (and indeed extends into the enterprise and service provider markets if you look to vendors such as Asigra).

For an SME the place I'd look initially is to a disk-to-disk appliance – it gives speed of restore and ease of use and management for the average small or medium business.

Disposal

In the old days when you took (say) a monthly tape backup for archive purposes you could simply throw the ancient tapes on the fire (I'm a great believer in physical destruction – it ensures confidentiality). There's one drawback with the infinitely-incremental backup approach: it's non-trivial to throw away old data, because all but the first backup have to refer to that first data dump in order to work. It's not rocket science, though, to amalgamate the initial backup with a bunch of incrementals and make a fresh “first” backup that takes account of deleted items over a certain age. So that's what the vendors do.

Frequent snapshots

Got an audit requirement that needs you to do a weekly or monthly full data dump and lodge it in an archive? No problem, because what you're effectively saying you want to do is to do a full restore to a point in time. Personally I like to do offsite snapshots on those funky external SSD disks that encrypt data based on a PIN code, and which have hardware keypads for you to enter the code. They're very cool, if a bit pricey.

In short

So, then, SMBs: are you big enough to have a serious backup strategy? Yes, of course you are, because any organisation of more than zero people needs one.

So if you don't have one, it's time to get your finger out: as you've seen it's really not that hard. And as a quick reminder, there are five simple ingredients:

• You need to decide how recent you need the backup copy to be – i.e. how much lost data you can tolerate.
• You need to think hard about how you want the restoration process to be, because this will dictate how you back stuff up.
• If you're an SME you'll probably go for a disk-to-disk solution, and probably an all-in-one appliance – they're cheap and very easy to get running.
• You need a policy for disposing of data, which will contribute to your choice of backup appliance.
• By all means do monthly offsite dumps, but think carefully about how you secure the data and make sure these copies are dealt with by your retention/disposal policy.

* Three Letter Abbreviations ®