B E S T P R A C T I C E S
G U I D E
CONTENTS
Abstract ..................................................................................1
Understanding the Challenges of Remote Data.....................1
Key Considerations for Managing Remote Data ....................1
Additional Requirements for Remote Data Backup ...............2
The Case for Archiving............................................................3
The Central Policy/Consolidated Approach to Managing
Remote Data ..........................................................................3
Disk-to-Disk Consolidated Backup ........................................3
Consolidated Archive..............................................................4
Managing Remote Data with Adaptec Snap EDR..................4
Snap EDR Remote Manager.............................................4
Snap EDR Remote Agents................................................5
Snap EDR Remote Data Solutions ...................................5
A Best Practices Guide to Managing Remote Data ...............5
Summary ................................................................................6
Abstract
The increasing risk from unprotected user files and
remote data (data stored outside the data center) is
causing companies to re-evaluate their current remote
backup processes. Managing remote data poses unique
challenges given the variability of networks, computing
platforms, lack of trained IT staff at remote locations
and other issues. Further, traditional methods of
managing remote data tend to be high cost, unreliable,
manually intensive and often require redundant
equipment and effort.
Advanced remote data management and movement
technology, such as that incorporated into Adaptec
Snap EDR now makes it possible to cost-effectively
solve the challenges of managing data at remote
offices. This paper discusses the issues, requirements,
and approaches to effective remote data management,
with specific emphasis on remote data protection and
backup. Also included is a Best Practices Guide to help
assess your remote data management requirements.
Understanding the Challenges of Remote
Data
Protecting remote data and managing the exchange of
data between corporate locations and remote offices is
neither trivial, nor cheap.
IT administrators in companies with remote offices
often spend significant amounts of their time managing
backup, data management, and data transfer
requirements for those offices. Even so, critical processes
such as backups may not be adequately covered. Often,
central IT staff must rely on non-technical staff in
remote locations to change backup tapes, initiate
processes and take other actions they are neither trained
nor compensated to perform. As a result, companies
report as much as 60% of their remote backup
procedures may fail on a nightly basis. This represents
risk that few companies can afford.
When problems do occur, recovery can be tedious and
takes days to recover, assuming the data was adequately
backed up. Central IT personnel may need to have
tapes shipped from the remote site, catalog the volume
and search for the files needed, and then reship the
files for restore.
Online alternatives such as consolidated backup,
disk-based backup and centralized archive can
increase reliability and overall data protection,
improve speed recovery and have proven to improve
reliability, overall data protection and significantly
lower costs. These methods are discussed further in
this paper, however there are a number of issues that
must be considered as you evaluate these new
approaches and the technologies to implement them.
Key Considerations for Managing Remote
Data
To effectively managing remote data, you must consider
and address a number of specific functional,
environmental, and technology factors that do not
necessarily come into play in the data center. These
factors include:
Central Policy-Based Control: To efficiently control
data at remote sites, enterprises must have the ability
to set up and implement central policies. That means
setting a rule once and having that directive
implemented throughout the enterprise, rather than
managing activities individually at different sites with
multiple separate platform-specific policies and tools.
While many products claim “central control” capability,
they in fact require administrators to establish a unique
connection to each remote node to set policy. This
Remote Data Management & Backup
with Snap EDR
