Are you looking for a robust VM backup solution? Try Vinchin Backup & Recovery!↘ Download Free Trial The core of the enterprise IT system is the data, how to ensure data security is the key concern of every enterprise. Data security is a relatively large technical scope so this article is only for data backup, and talks about how to achieve reasonable enterprise backup strategies to ensure data integrity and recoverability.
What is the backup?
As an important part of the storage field, data backup has a place and role in storage systems that cannot be ignored. Data backup, as the name suggests, is a process of retaining data in a certain way so that it can be reused when the system is damaged or under other specific circumstances. In our daily life, we often need to match a few more keys to the door of our house, and prepare a backup wheel for our car, all of which are the embodiment of the idea of backup.
The importance of backup
Data backup is not just like a backup key to the door of a house that can come handy when the original key is lost. It is more like the photographs we take to preserve the good times, saving the temporary state permanently for analysis and research.
The purpose of corporate backup strategies and technologies is to preserve the data or state of the entire system. This not only helps in recovering from hardware failures but also reduces losses due to deliberate human actions. With careful data backup techniques, it is possible to restore storage or even the entire network infrastructure to a specific point in the past, thus effectively restoring the system to a specified state of time.
Enterprise backup strategies - backup storage structures
Common data backup systems mainly include Host-Based backup system, LAN-Based backup system, SAN-based (LAN-Free) backup system, Server-Free backup system.
Host-Based: Storage media (e.g., tape libraries) are connected directly to a server and provide data backup services only for that server.
LAN-Based: The transmission of data is network-based. One server is configured as the backup server, which is responsible for the backup operation of the entire system. The tape library is connected to a server, and during data backup, the backup object transfers the data to the tape library through the network to achieve backup.
LAN-Free: Built on the foundation of Storage Area Network (SAN), this approach treats tape libraries and disk arrays as distinct fiber nodes. When multiple hosts share a tape library for backups, data no longer traverses the network; instead, it flows directly from the disk array to the tape library. This solution eliminates the need to consume local area network (LAN) bandwidth.
Server-Free: An extension of LAN-Free, it enables data to be directly transferred between two storage devices within a SAN framework, often between a disk array and a tape library.
Corporate backup strategies - backup types
There are three main types of backups: full backups, incremental backups, differential backups, etc.
Full Backup: It copies and stores all the data completely. Regardless of whether the data has been previously backed up, each full backup operation replicates the entire dataset. This approach can fully restore a system to a previous state. However, it requires more time and storage space.
Incremental Backup: Incremental Backup only backs up the incremental data since the last backup. Each backup captures only the files added or modified since the last backup. This method requires less backup time and storage space. However, during data recovery, a full backup and all related incremental backups are required to restore the system to its previous state.
Differential backup: Differential backup backs up all incremental changes since the last full backup, including new or modified files. Recovery requires using the most recent full backup and the latest differential backup to restore data, which improves recovery efficiency. However, the storage space for backup files is large.
Business backup strategies - backup storage types
The common backup devices and media used in businesses today are disks, tapes and CD-ROMs.
Disks
Disk backup devices are usually HDD (Hard Disk Drive) or SDD (Solid State Drive) media, and the disks used for backups are usually considered to be high-capacity and inexpensive. In backup management software it usually consists of one or more access paths, either to a local disc or to a network file system with remote access paths. Each access path is a directory on the disk. The disk backup device defined in the backup management software usually uses a file system, and the backup data are stored as files on the disk backup device. This facilitates data management and cross-platform migration.
Tape
There are 2 kinds of tape storage:
Physical tape drive: only one tape drive, usually not including any other machine devices. Usually tape drives are built into servers. Because of the physical nature of tape drives, they are more complex to manage.
Physical Tape Libraries: These include AutoLoader and TapeLibrary. They both are characterised by a robotic arm, in addition to the tape drive, to automatically control and load the tapes.
Compact disc
Compact disc is an item that uses optical information as a storage carrier to store data. It is divided into non-rewritable discs, such as CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, etc., and rewritable discs, such as CD-RW, DVD-RAM, etc. Blu-ray Disc (BD) is one of the next-generation disc formats after DVD to store high-quality data. Blu-ray Disc (BD for short) is one of the next-generation optical disc formats after DVD for storing high-quality audio and video files as well as high-capacity data storage.
Virtual Tape Library
Virtual Tape Library (VTL) uses disks as its own storage medium and can emulate a physical tape library. Simply said, virtual tape library is a product that virtualises the disk space as tape space and can achieve the same function as traditional tape library on traditional backup software.
Corporate backup strategies - backup plans
Enterprise users have complex and diverse IT environments, and different systems and applications have their own needs for backup, so different backup plans are often required for different needs.
You can refer to some principles of backup plan design:
Backup Methods | Plan Features | Scope of Use |
Full backup daily | The backup generates a large amount of data, which can be recovered quickly, and the backup data is highly reliable, so it is highly recoverable. | Small, critical data backups (e.g., small database systems, AD, etc.) |
1 merged full backup per week and incremental backups on other weekdays | It is a common backup method, and the amount of data backed up is small, and there is no need to read data from the client when doing a full backup; Therefore, full backups are very efficient; Recoverability is poor because it must rely on weekly full backups; Recovery performance is slow; Data backups must support synthetic full backups. | Backup of mail system (Exchange, Lotus), backup of file system |
1 full backup per week and incremental backups on other weekdays | A conventional backup method that backs up a small amount of data; Poor recoverability because it must rely on weekly full backups; And very slow recovery performance. | Medium to large databases (full backups have more data) |
Make a full backup every day and a log backup every hour or a full backup every week and a log backup every day | There is basically no impact on the business system when logs are backed up; The least amount of data may be lost; And recovery may be the slowest because log rollback is used. | Very large databases, whose incremental backups has too much impact on the applications; users require the least amount of data to be lost. |
Implementing enterprise backup strategies with Vinchin
Corporates need an effective enterprise backup strategy in order to protect data security. In this regard, Vinchin provides an efficient and reliable VM backup solution that can meet the needs of enterprises.
Vinchin backup&Recovery supports multiple platforms for backups, allowing businesses to tailor their needs to their needs. Vinchin supports VMware、Hyper-V、XCP-ng, etc.
At the same time, Vinchin offers flexible options to customise an enterprise backup strategy according to actual needs. Whether you are a small business or a large organization, Vinchin's VM backup solution can provide a reliable safety net for your virtualized environment.Vinchin offers a free 60-day trial for users to experience the functionality in a real-world environment. For more information, please contact Vinchin directly or contact our local partners.
Conclusion
In summary, data backup is critical to ensure the data integrity of an enterprises. There are different business backup strategies available, including a variety of backup structures, types and devices. It is critical to choose a backup plan that suits the specific needs. vinchin offers an efficient VM backup solution that supports multiple platforms and can be customised to meet the backup requirements of businesses of all sizes.
