Using Storage Snapshots for Backups
By: Hani El-Qasem, Senior System Engineer, Veeam Software
Introduction
Effective data protection is a mandatory element in the modern IT environment. Historically, backup strategies were confined to the last few chapters in an administrator’s manual and treated like an afterthought. Now they sit firmly at the forefront of every CIO’s mind. The ability to continue business operations after a system failure and the need to fulfil stringent compliance requirements have made backup a necessity—not only for business continuity, but also for business survival. The question organizations need to ask about data protection is not whether to backup their data, but how to backup their data.
IT systems are prone to rapid evolution and present a constantly shifting landscape and the techniques used to protect those systems need to evolve as well. Perhaps one of the most significant changes in recent years has been the advent of virtualization. In the virtual world, legacy backup systems have become unfit for their purpose, causing backup windows to increase beyond a manageable scope. While this paradigm presents new challenges, new opportunities to improve efficiency, cut costs and reduce risks are also created.
This paper will examine the use of storage snapshots as backups for virtual environments. We will evaluate the relative benefits and limitations while also considering where they fit into a holistic backup strategy when compared to a virtual disk-to-disk backup solution such as Veeam® Backup & Replication™.
