LiveVault Corporation White Paper 2001
Executive Overview
Backing up business data is vital to a company's survival. Backup and recovery, however, are tasks perceived as tedious and demanding even for companies with sufficient information technology (IT) staff. For many small and medium businesses (SMBs) and enterprise remote and branch offices (ROBOs) that have limited IT support, it is a challenge to back up and recover properly.
In many of these businesses, these servers are not backed up by dedicated IT professionals. Such servers have become what we refer to as "stranded servers." The lack of professional management or attention to these stranded servers leads to infrequent or incorrect backup and recovery of critical data.
Backup and recovery are part of a group of activities linked together. This group actually includes data capture, removal, storage and recovery. All these activities link together to form a Backup and Recovery Value Chain. Failure along any part of this chain can result in data loss and crippling downtime for a business.
LiveVault Corporation is the first company to successfully address the entire Backup and Recovery Value Chain with its LiveVault Online Backup Service. Now, as a managed service, LiveVault Online Backup Service provides businesses with a convenient, secure, and cost effective solution for backup and recovery of their critical business data.
Backup & Recovery Dilemma
Trends in Business Today
High Growth in SMB and ROBO Markets
Small and medium businesses represent the largest growing business sector in the United States, where there were 7.4 million small and medium businesses in 1998. These companies are investing heavily in computer and Internet-related technology. Over 26% have at least one server. In 2003, IDC expects these companies to spend $57 billion for technology, and 79% to have Internet access. (International Data Corporation, Small Business Market, 2003)
Within larger corporations, remote and branch office sites are now the mainstays of many enterprises. Servers in these locations are growing in number. In a previous study, GartnerGroup estimated that 80% of U.S. enterprise sites (about 1.5 million) could be classified as remote or branch offices i.e., locations with 6 to 75 employees.
Windows® NT® /2000 is Fueling Growth of "Stranded Servers"
The growth in SMB and ROBO servers has been accompanied byeven fostered by a parallel growth in the use of Windows NT/2000 operating systems. Windows NT is now the predominant business-computing platform for networked servers. In the U.S., there are about 10 million servers, and of those, 6 million are Windows NT servers. According to research from the Strategic Resource Group, over 3 million of those Windows NT servers are "stranded servers."
The Value of the Data at Risk Continues to Increase
Data such as customer, financial and communication (e-mail) databases have become, for many organizations, the single most valuable asset and one that is critical to business survival. This is the data at risk on "stranded servers."
Companies like Contingency Planning Research & Strategic Research Corporation have compiled information on how busi-nesses value their data and the impact of its loss. For example:
- Many companies value 100 megabytes of data at more than 1 million dollars
- 43% of lost or stolen data is valued at $5 million dollars
Staffing Shortages and Constraints
Today there is a huge unfilled need for Information Technology professionals. According to Michael Moe, an analyst for Merrill Lynch, one-fifth of all IT jobs remain open, signaling a real shortage that companies must find ways to compensate. The problem is compounded for Windows NT/2000 environments.
According to GartnerGroup, although the supply of Windows skills is growing, the demand is growing faster. The supply of data center professionals with Windows skills is even rarer. This problem is magnified for SMBs where the loss of one professional can have a much more significant impact.
The Internet - Affordable Bandwidth
With the rapid increase in Internet availabili-ty and bandwidth, businesses have gone from being able to connect directly only to their own LANs and WANs, to being able to access a universal network that allows them to con-nect anywhere simply, easily, safely. The maturing of Virtual Private Network (VPNs) and other Internet security technologies now allows businesses to use this larger, public network in a private manner. As a result, businesses can exchange data with cus-tomers, with other businesses, and with their own servers in remote locations worldwide over secure connections.
Small businesses are rapidly adopting high-speed Internet access. IDC expects the number of small businesses using high-speed access to expand from 380,000 in 1998 to 3.3 million in 2003. (International Data Corporation, Small Business Market Forecast, 2003)
Furthermore, GartnerGroup expects growth in branch-office network traffic will increase the need for and use of more broadband capacity in such locations. This need will be addressed by DSL and other broadband connections such as cable, wireless, and in the future, optical technology. (GartnerGroup, Remote Network Access Technologies: Addressing the Need for Higher Speeds)
Backup and Recovery Burden
In the present landscape, businesses are running into a number of problems in trying to deal with the backup and recovery of critical data.
Limited IT Support Leaves Data at Risk
Typically SMBs may have a few critical applicationsaccounting, customer informa-tion, e-mailrunning on one to three servers that they know have to be backed up. With limited IT support, the task of backing up may be assigned to anyone from a principal to support staff personnel, with a less than perfectly well-defined process.
Furthermore, backup is not perceived as a strategic, value-added activity. As a result, backup may not get all of the attention it requires. Sometimes this can even lead to backup being neglected or forgotten, leaving critical data at risk for recovery failure. These problems become multiplied in busi-nesses with several sites or locationssuch as a restaurant chain or retail outlet where all of the sites require backup coverage.
Larger companies with remote and branch offices have similar problems. While these companies may have full complements of IT staff in a central administrative location or data center, there is often no IT staff to man-age the backup of data at remote or branch offices. Yet, these remote sites are where critical data increasingly resides such as Exchange servers hosting customer correspondence. In many instances, these companies also rely on an informal backup process assigned to a site manager.
Traditional Batch Backup is Inadequate and Labor Intensive
Traditional, batch-style, tape-based backup has been and continues to be a costly, labor-intensive process with frequent manual intervention and great potential for error. Existing backup and recovery software was not designed to work with broadband connec-tions, or to be used by non-technical business professionals. Because of this, backup is often a disruption to daily business operations for SMBs and ROBOs.
Traditional backup is inadequate to meet today's business needs. Since traditional backup is run at night, the best data a com-pany can recover is last night's data. Even historical data is not easily accessible. This results in lost data and costly downtime.
Traditional Offsite Tape Vaulting is Too Expensive
Traditional offsite tape vaulting is expensive and requires time-consuming physical tape removal and transportation to an offsite facility for disaster recovery protection. Generally, this type of service is cost-effective only for the largest corporations.
Risks, Problems & Costs Across the Backup and Recovery Value Chain
Historically the risks and problems of backup were associated with the capture of data and recovery of data after a failure. However, the accuracy and safety of critical business data is at risk across the entire Backup and Recovery Value Chain -- which includes data capture, removal, storage, and recovery. Remember, failure in any one of these links could undermine a backup/restore and disaster recovery program which could be fatal to a data-driven business. Such failures can result from uncaptured data in an open database, an employee leaving a tape in the machine, or a disgruntled employee maliciously destroying or walking away with critical tapes. Let's take a closer look at each link and its specific risks and problems. Then we'll take a look at the costs of maintaining a traditional, tape-based backup operation across this chain.
Capture. Data capture refers to the tools, methods, facilities, and procedures required to replicate data onto another device for example tape drive. Risks and problems associated with traditional backup methods during data capture include:
Removal. Removal refers to the tools, methods, facilities, and procedures required to remove replicated data to an offsite location. Risks and problems associated with traditional backup methods during data removal include:
Storage. Data storage refers to the tools, methods, facilities, and procedures required to store replicated data to an offsite location. Risks and problems associated with traditional backup methods during data storage include:
Recovery. Data recovery refers to the tools, methods, facilities, and procedures required to recover replicated data from a storage site. Risks and problems associated with traditional backup methods during data recovery include:
When thinking about backup costs, most people focus on data capture onlyand specifically on the costs of the tapes, tape drive and softwareignoring other costs across the rest of the Backup and Recovery Value Chain. To assess the true cost of run-ning a backup and recovery operation, it is necessary to analyze your costs across the entire chain (capture, removal, storage, and recovery). These are just some of the costs to consider as you build your full cost model.
When calculating the costs associated with data capture, you should include the costs of the tape drive, software, tapes, upgrades, plug-ins and associated training costs. Be sure to factor in all the plug-ins for data-bases, as well as open file managers. Make sure you have estimated a sufficient number of tapes for offsite rotations. Finally, con-sider any monthly maintenance fees for hardware.
As you think about the cost of removal, consider the cost of tape pickup and vaulting service. You need to estimate the internal costs including transportation and employee time for swapping out and label-ing tapes. Factor in the actual cost of the storage facility such as a bank vault.
Costs associated with the recovery process include the cost of service calls for repairs, restores, tape jams and other software problems. You also need to factor in the cost of the employee's time to perform or monitor recoveries. Other costs are of a preventive nature, including employee's time to be trained for backup, and to check backups.
Managed Service Providers: A Solution for Today's Backup and Recovery Needs
Insufficient staff resources and increasing exposure to risk of data loss are prompting business operators and IT managers to consider using managed service providers. By allowing them to offload backup, managed service providers help companies to refocus their critical resources on improving business.
As the value of their data increases, companies look to managed services as a better way to ensure secure backup and successful recovery of their data. The convenience of having a managed service that automates capture, removal, storage and recovery, without the customer ever having to handle a tape, is invaluable.
The growing interest in managed storage services is part of a general trend toward outsourcing non-strategic IT functions.
- According to IDC, the overall market for outsourcing services (such as SANs and electronic vaulting) is estimated to grow to $34 billion in 2002.
- The Cahners InStat Group predicts that the managed storage market will grow from $2 billion in 2000 to $10 billion in 2004.
- A recent GartnerGroup report shows the percentage of global 200 companies using external service providers will approximately double between 1998 and 2003 in seven categories of IT.
Advances in data replication and security technologies, combined with reduced bandwidth costs allow managed service providers to offer online backup, recovery and electronic vaulting services to businesses who have limited IT support for backup. SMBs and ROBOs can offload backup tasks that are perceived as burdensome and non-strategic yet still retain control. With managed services, business operators and data center managers still retain front-end control of their backup and restore operations while handing off such burdensome back-end tasks as server backup and device maintenance, tape management, and offsite removal and storage.
Businesses can be confident in leaving backup to managed service providers whose only focus is backup and recovery and therefore often do it better and at a lower price than companies can do it themselves. Managed storage services will be increasingly available as distribution channels proliferate. Network carriers, bandwidth providers, and offsite data vaulting services such as Iron Mountain are recognizing the convergence of current trends in Internet availability, decreasing bandwidth costs, data replication technologies, and IT outsourcing. These trends represent an opportunity to provide online backup, recovery and electronic vaulting services as a value-add service that can be easily sold and delivered through existing channels to their current client base. As a result, such services will be increasingly available to the growing numbers of small and medium-sized organizations for whom the Internet is becoming a principal way of doing business.
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