Back-up and archiving solutions
When you back your computer up, you usually take it as an opportunity to restore data (back-up) and store valuable photos and documents (archive copy) for a long time. In an installation, it is important to clearly distinguish between a back-up copy and an archive copy, as the application of same requirements on both copies can prove to be too expensive.
A back-up copy is a regular copy of same data at different times, with higher demands on speed both while making the copy (RPO) and restoring data from the copy (RTO).
An archive copy is a one-time copy of data with higher storage and probative value requirements. Higher requirements for proving authenticity are caused by limited opportunities to check the authenticity of data via related documents, which is the case, for example, with active data back-up copy.
The back-up of server systems
Server systems contain business-critical data of an installation, and when this data becomes inaccessible even for a short time, this could cause serious damage. Here, the functioning of back-up and restoration procedure is more important than a specific technical back-up solution. As there is no single back-up solution suitable for the high-quality back-up of all systems, Net Group offers its customers back-up technologies of several producers, integrating them into a complete back-up and restoration procedure. Net Group has the necessary know-how of the following products: EMC Avamar, EMC DataDomain, EMC FastStart, EMC Networker, Symantec NetBackup, Symantec BackupExec, VEEAM Backup & Recovery, and Microsoft Data Protection Manager.
The back-up of virtual environment
The availability of server systems in a virtual environment is considerably higher than in the physical environment. The architecture of a virtual system itself already allows the complete back-up of server systems more easily, and the integrated restoration of a server system is faster and more intuitive. In addition, virtual systems allow the automatisation of recovery tests which is usually not done due to the limitations of physical systems, and process drawbacks are discovered only when people try to restore critical data. In the highly consolidated virtual environment, any error in a process has much more serious consequences. That is why the system used for backing up virtual systems has to understand the interrelations of virtual systems, use integrated interfaces of the virtual environment, and use as little work environment resource as possible. Modern virtual environment back-up solutions also provide media for testing the integrity and functionality of automated back-up copies, and the preventive testing of changes within the system by using a back-up copy.
The back-up of work stations
Despite a large share of business-critical data being in the mailboxes and network catalogues of staff today, quite a lot of actively used data are stored on laptops. The active use of laptops has reduced the functionality of policies of central data storage – while out of office, it is inconvenient to get data from a network catalogue, and store data on it. Net Group provides EMC Avamar which is an excellent product for backing up laptops as it can back up data in an encrypted channel over the Internet, and only changes will be backed up. Users can also be granted access to a web portal where they can restore data themselves.
Archiving electronic post and files
Documents and e-mails are central sources of information supporting the business process, and hence they are usually stored on fast but therefore also expensive parts of a system. It is common for e-mails and documents older than 2 or 3 months to be used very seldom – usually, more than 95% of mail and documents is older than 3 months. So it is wise to move these e-mails and files to a slower part of a system whose cost per unit of volume is many times lower. Net Group offers the kind of media for archiving electronic mail and files which are invisible to the users but spare the expensive resources of a system.
Archive of certification documents
In order for probative value to be ascribed to archived documents, it must be possible to prove their integrity. To this end, Net Group has solutions with documents being essentially digitally signed, described meta-information is assigned to a document and the document is archived in a system with irrefutable criteria for expiry date of a document.