Is your data in the cloud getting backed up?
Roaming the aisles of Dreamforce 2014 taught me one thing: backups are here to stay. You can move everything you can into the cloud, but your data still has to be protected against natural and...
View ArticleRunning CrashPlan on a headless CentOS/cpanel server
I was helping someone figure out how to back up their CentOS/Cpanel-based web server using CrashPlan. He was already backing it up via rsync, but he wanted to back it up with a cloud backup product....
View ArticleSpectra takes aim at Amazon Glacier
I recently attended the Spectralogic Deep Storage Summit in Boulder Colorado. (They paid for all travel and meals during the trip, but no other remuneration was offered.) Their big announcement was...
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Not possible to export Quickbooks Online Data to Quickbooks Desktop
Intuit has created a catch 22 that can only be resolved with professional help. The good news is they’ll help you. The bad news is you might have to pay for it. Suppose you’ve been using Quickbooks...
View ArticleMy head’s in the clouds: I just joined Druva
After almost 25 years of specializing in backup and data protection as an end user, consultant, and analyst, I’ve decided to work for my first vendor. I started today at Druva. Why a vendor? Why Now?...
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Where does data come from: Laptops & desktops
The datacenter is no longer the center of data. Data that needs to be protected comes from a variety of sources, most of which are not the datacenter. The first one I’m going to talk about is laptops...
View ArticleIs a portable hard drive the best way to backup a laptop?
Short answer: no, it’s the worst way Alright, the worst way would be to not back it up at all. Sadly that’s the most common way. Other than that, the worst way would be to back it up to a portable...
View ArticleIs AWS Ready for Production Workloads?
Yes, I know they’re already there. The question is whether or not Amazon’s infrastructure is ready for them. And when I mean “ready for them,” I mean “ready for them to be backed up.” Of course...
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Why tape drives are bad for backups
Specifically, this article is about why modern tape drives are a really bad choice to store the initial copy of your backups. It’s been this way for a long time, and I’ve been saying so for at least 10...
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First Impressions of AWS Re:Invent
We’ve come a long way, baby. I worked at Amazon when they were just an Internet bookseller. I put in the first enterprise-wide backup system back in 1998. I was there on the day they came out with...
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Bandwidth: Backup Design Problem #2
Getting enough bandwidth is the second challenge of designing and maintaining a traditional backup system. Tape is the first challenge, which is solved by not using it for operational backups. The...
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No such thing as a “Pay as you go” appliance
I’ve never seen an appliance solution that I would call “pay as you go.” I might call it “pay as you grow,” but never “pay as you go.” There is a distinct difference between the two. What is “pay as...
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Why good dedupe is important — and hard to do
Good dedupe creates real savings in disk and bandwidth requirements. It also makes the impossible possible by replicating even full backups offsite. Dedupe is behind many advancements in backup and...
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Dedupe done right speeds up backups
On my LinkedIn profile, I posted a link to my last article, Why good dedupe is important — and hard to do. I got some pretty good feedback on it, but one comment from my buddy Chris M. Evens...
View ArticleYour onsite backup server is a security risk
Did you know there have been 7870 public data breaches since 2005? Your company’s data is under attack. Like terrorism, the attackers only have to be successful once. You have to be successful 100% of...
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Addressing Spectre/Meltdown in your Backup System
Your backup server might be the biggest vulnerability in your datacenter, as I already discussed in my previous blog post. Which means that you should have patched it first, but I’m betting that you...
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Do not pay ransomware ransom!
You don’t negotiate with terrorists, and you don’t pay ransom unless you have no other choice. Even then, you should try every available avenue before you decide to pay money to the company holding...
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Instant recovery & dedupe are not friends
Instant recovery is the modern-day equivalent of what we used to call a hot site, as it allows you to recover immediately after some type of incident. I have personally advocated for this concept, as I...
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The Perils of Hardware
No one likes hardware; they only like what they can do with it. And I say this as a geek who has built plenty of PCs in my house, including a Hackintosh. What kind of sick weirdo builds their own...
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Time to fire the man in the van
The man in the van can lose your tapes. Any questions? It’s the man, not the mountain Yes, Iron Mountain has had many very public incidents of losing tapes. You can do a google search for Iron...
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