Data Backups

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Data backups are a security copy of production data made to removable media, typically according to a regular schedule.

• Different backup types (full, incremental, or differential) balance
  • media capacity, time required to backup, and time required to restore
• Critical capabilities for enterprise backup solutions:
  • Support for various environments (virtual, physical, and cloud)
  • Data deduplication and compression to optimize storage space
  • Instant recovery and replication for quick failover
  • Ransomware protection and encryption for data security
  • Granular restore options for individual files, folders, or applications
  • Reporting, monitoring, and alerting tools for effective management
  • Integration with popular virtualization platforms, cloud providers, and storage systems

Data deduplication describes a data compression technique that optimizes storage space by identifying and eliminating redundant data.

• works by analyzing data blocks within a dataset and comparing them to find identical blocks
• deduplication stores a single copy and creates references or pointers to that copy for all other instances
• can be performed at different levels:
  • file-level
  • block-level
  • byte-level
• minimizes storage requirements and improves data transfer efficiency

Full recovery test involves restoring an entire system from a backup to a separate environment and verifying the fully functional recovered system.

• helps ensure that all critical components can be restored and will function as expected

Partial recovery test is where selected files, folders, or databases are restored to validate the integrity and consistency of specific data subsets.