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By Michele Hope

It seems everyone's getting into cloud backup these days. With all the choices available, how do you avoid missteps? Here's some advice that may help.

For many organizations, cloud backup has become one of the most popular ways to use external cloud services. But if you're still trying to get your head around the seemingly endless variations of cloud backup architecture, the choices can be overwhelming.

Do you go with a "pure" cloud backup option that uses local agents on your servers and then sends backup copies directly to a cloud provider's data center? Do you use your current enterprise backup software with its own cloud connectors? For larger backup environments, you might even be looking at a cloud backup architecture that uses a backup appliance or cloud gateway to reduce the overall amount of data replicated to (and stored in) the cloud.

All of the above scenarios have their place and may be the right cloud backup choice for a given organization. You may even decide to use a mixed architecture that combines several flavors of cloud backup. Given all these options, how do you avoid missteps when it comes to cloud backup? Here are a few issues to keep in mind.

        
did you know?
            Did you know that 64% of organizations already use backup appliances to aid their backup efforts?

        
fast fact:
            The purpose-built backup market is growing more than 11% every year, according to the International Data Corporation.

Plan for the Big "B"

Yes, B is for backup. However, when it comes to cloud backup, B also means bandwidth. Onsite backup environments already know the importance of planning for adequate network bandwidth to sustain a local backup architecture. This is especially true for environments that make several backups a day of large, growing systems. Here, the need to minimize backup traffic across a corporate network can mean the difference between happy users with fast network responsiveness to their own application needs and unhappy users with interminable network wait times.

But with cloud backup architecture, planning ahead for bandwidth can add even more wrinkles. These include unexpected costs and lag times to get backup data into or out of the cloud. It's wise to check how the cloud provider might charge for such transmissions – particularly egress fees. Organizations may also need to upgrade their WAN links to allow for faster data transfer to the cloud.

For the initial transfer of large backup data sets, many cloud services offer to ship physical hardware to the customer site. Often known as "cloud seeding," this process allows initial backup data to be stored on a local device before the device is shipped back to the cloud provider. After that, smaller backups of only changed data can be transmitted to the cloud.

Increasingly, many cloud backup options use various methods to improve efficiency regarding how and when data is transmitted or stored in the cloud. These can include some form of compression, source-side deduplication, transmission of only changed data blocks and even bandwidth throttling that can place less-critical backup transmissions below more important network traffic.

Here are a few rules of thumb for cloud backup in regards to bandwith and potential cloud storage costs: Organizations should consider how much overall backup data they plan to store, how much it changes from day-to-day or week-to-week, and how much the data is likely to grow over time. The answers to these questions may help rule out certain types of cloud backup architecture.

Future-Focused Data Protection: To The Cloud And Beyond

Disk, tape and cloud are becoming the new norm for enterprise data protection. In this eBook, we describe both standard and emerging uses of disk, tape and cloud, specifically in regards to backup, disaster recovery and archiving. We also offer some final advice about ways to incorporate each type of storage media into your own data protection and archive strategy.

Backup Strategy First, Technology Second

Wanting to jump on the cloud backup bandwagon, some organizations might choose to leapfrog the internal vetting process IT teams typically undertake before embarking on a new architecture project. But this is shortsighted.

Enterprises face growing governance, compliance and security risks. Cloud backup service providers entrusted with potentially sensitive company data must be vetted not only for their technical know-how but also for other things like processes surrounding chain-of-custody and their enterprise experience. Enterprises must also consider a service provider's compliance with the latest global, national and local regulations. Encryption of backup data sets is a good start, but it may not be nearly enough in today's highly regulated climate.

Beyond compliance and governance, deeper questions emerge about cloud backup. Organizations must also consider how their backup goals should differ from goals surrounding disaster recovery (DR) or archiving. Granted, the lines often blur between backup, DR and archiving. In fact, many cloud backup solutions try to be all things to all people as they build out more DR or archive functionality into what may have begun as a pure backup play.

But the goals of backup, DR and archiving are different. Learning about and implementing data management best practices, including policies surrounding good data tiering and data lifecycle management, can help to cull a large amount of data from needing protection via backup.

Seek Breadth and Depth in a Cloud Provider

There is a technology continuum within cloud backup, DR and archiving. However, there is an equally important continuum of knowledge and expertise regarding best practices for cloud services, governance, compliance and data management. As organizations look for the right fit for cloud backup, they should investigate how well a service provider can fulfill technology, strategy and practice needs.

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