S3-to-S3 replication, restore, and failover.
I had the opportunity to speak with Michael Jack, V.P. of Global Sales and Carl D’Halluin, CTO of Datadobi about the current and future state of enterprise NAS migration.
Migration is Datadobi’s core business but recently clients have requested data protection. They’ve combined replication and synchronization under their DobiProtect product to protect against ransomware, malware, cyberthreat, accidental or malicious deletion or corruption, hardware, and software failures and hacks by protecting a golden copy of business-critical data.
By listening to customers, Datadobi realized the increasing desire to have extra protection for business-critical data.
Here’s what they learned and what they propose to address the heightened desire for backup and recovery as enterprises become more aware of the need to be resilient, protected, and compliant.
Why is extra protection needed for business-critical data today?
Primary disaster recovery (DR) can also replicate corrupted data.
Backups are vulnerable if the backup catalog is not replicated if backup copies are not isolated from the network, you need to restore to like hardware, and restoring from tape is slow and error-prone.
People and processes pose risks. IT and Ops access all or most backup assets. Security teams are not assigned to assets. Bad actors inside firewalls can delete primary backups.
Business-critical and non-critical data are not segregated.
Backup images and snapshots can be expired without approval.
What do customers need today?
An easy way to identify and select business-critical data that needs to be protected.
Native solutions so users don’t have to unpack and figure out what’s in their simple mirror copy.
An obscure and unidentifiable bunker site in a data center or cloud.
A manual air gap procedure to be in full control.
The ability to restore to anything and a way to failover if required.
What to look for?
Something that’s simple to use, quick to set-up, easy to recover, and allows you to keep a copy of business-critical data anywhere.
Ability to select the most appropriate and cost-effective storage or cloud solutions to keep multiple versions of critical data.
A secure bunker that can be confidential except on a need-to-know basis, where every file is verified, and WORM vaults are supported.
Flexibility with fully controllable synching and recovery.
No vendor lock-in with standard file and object protocols -- SMB, NFS, S3.
Infinitely scalable with regard to the number of systems, TBs, and files.
Works with the business lifecycle to move datasets to new targets or clouds as the business evolves over the long-term.
In the case of one Datadobi client, their data bunker is at a remote site, 20 miles from their headquarters, and can only be accessed in person with biometric scanning. The only two people aware of the bunker’s existence are the client’s CISO and Chief Legal Officer.
I anticipate we will see companies going to greater lengths to ensure the protection of business-critical data as more c-level executives and board members strive to ensure business continuity as times become more uncertain and data becomes more critical to business success and survival.