More than 25 years ago, I was one of the original developers of backup and restore applications, many of which are still in use today. Though visionary at the time, these traditional data protection systems are no longer the right tool for what we deal with today: growing data loads, modern infrastructures including BYOD, new compliance regulations, and new pricing models.
The reason for this is that organizations need long-term data retention, and ironically, that’s not what backup is best at. To put it another way, using backup software for long-term data retention is like printing a document and faxing it to someone – instead of sending it as an email attachment. It works, it gets the doc from point A to point B, and most offices still need fax machines, but there are much more efficient ways now.
When I invented my first backup software, there was no such thing as the cloud or server virtualization. Moving data to tape was blazingly faster than any alternative – ultra-reliable, and ultra-cost effective. Unfortunately, most data protection tools deployed today use the same method of communicating with a backup target destination whether that’s on premise disk, public cloud, remote storage you own in a branch office, or any other possible system or combination of systems – that they did for tape. Tape is a single, large repository where data is written sequentially – where new, changed and old data is copied over and over again, growing more and more unmanageable and unaccountable. This is not a solution for long-term data retention.
Multi-cloud or hybrid cloud environments need better ways. There is simply too much drain on network bandwidth with long recovery and migration times, and vendor and platform lock-in. The as-a-service world that expects to be billed monthly rather than a big up-front investment needs a better way.
Aparavi, from the Latin Word apparare meaning “to prepare,” was formed to introduce a modern data retention tool that functions across clouds, locations, and platforms. It’s not backup as you know it nor disaster recovery but rather a tactical, purpose-built, hosted solution for long-term retention and archive. It is affordable, easy to integrate, and gives you full control no matter where data resides: on premise, off-site, or in one or more cloud. It works based on policies and covers you in case of audit or e-discovery request. It prunes data without fragmentation to keep capacity usage (therefore costs) as low as feasible. It’s able to analyze your storage trends. And of course, it ensures you’re prepared to weather data loss from device failure, ransomware, corruption, or user error.
Copying a set of data from its original location to a target for safekeeping is fine, but it is not data retention, and shouldn’t be forced to work as one. If you’re ready for a long-term data retention tool to protect and recover data, over an extended amount of time, give Aparavi a try. We’ll even provide the first terabyte on us.