Backup infrastructure is somewhat like an expensive insurance policy. Large premiums are expended on backup hardware, software and people resources to collect, store and protect business information in the event a “claim”, or in this instance, a data recovery event needs to take place. What if backup infrastructure could provide value even if no “claims” need to be filed? This article will discuss how to transform backup data into a business asset.
Due to the enhanced performance capabilities of backup hardware infrastructure and the low latency networks they are attached to, the data residing in backup repositories can now be used as an information advantage to support a wide variety of use cases ranging from information governance initiatives and data analytics to remote user data access. Instead for many organizations, backup information is just an idle stockpile of data standing by for a recovery operation.
Value #1: Infused Backup Intelligence
With backup data stores increasingly being stored on disk based backup platforms, knowledge workers and remote users could potentially leverage these assets during the business day to perform various application queries against the data or to merely use it as an alternate data reference facility.
To effectively tap into backup data stores as a source of business intelligence requires a data protection application coupled with an intelligent indexing technology. Doing so enables business applications to seamlessly extract information from backup repositories. The backup software would provide advanced metadata to the indexing system so that the data in the backup repository could be uniquely identified when complex queries were run against it. This data can be used within the backup context by backup administrators to easily find the single file they’re looking to restore or to ensure protection policies are appropriately applied. This data can be used across the organization as well.
Standard enterprise searching tools are increasingly being utilized by organizations to mine the production data within their environments. The challenge is that the scanning activity can often introduce latency on business applications. As a result, extensive searches need to be conducted during non-peak hours or alternative mechanisms need to be put in place, like cloning volumes to secondary disk repositories, which adds cost and complexity. Restricting access to narrow production windows or implementing dedicated storage resources to support enterprise search functions is less than optimal, particularly when the data is already accessible in a recently archived backup copy.
The indexing software ideally would also be capable of tying into primary storage repositories by deploying connectors into key business applications like customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP) and database systems. In this manner, IT organizations could comprehensively apply information governance policies across all data sets regardless of location.
Human Conceptual Searches
Furthermore, by utilizing advanced contextual search technology which is based on the relevancy or “human meaning” of the search terms, rather than just two dimensional, static searches for items like specific file types or individual words, much higher qualitative search results can be generated for applications like regulatory compliance or E-Discovery.
For example, a search conducted on the words “ground zero” would take on two totally separate meanings when performed prior to 9/11/2001 than after the event. Indexing technology that did not employ meaning based searches would not be capable of distinguishing the differences between the two words, “ground” and “zero”, from the modern lexicon of “ground zero”. As a result, generic searches performed against these words might produce an excessive number of documents that bore no relevance to the actual meaning of the event.
The capability of effectively applying meaning based searches is becoming increasingly critical given the exorbitant growth of human data and the need for organizations to rapidly conduct searches across their various information repositories to respond to both regulatory and legal demands and to capitalize on market opportunities. For these reasons, the search capability should also be language agnostic so that searches could be performed across all forms of “human friendly” data types like video and audio data.
Value #2: Dropping Dropbox
In recent years, with the proliferation of end user laptops, smartphones and tablets, IT managers have been struggling to break users away from using security lax cloud applications like Dropbox. User adoption of Dropbox like applications have soared simply because it serves as a low to no cost alternative for accessing personal or corporate data that would not otherwise be accessible through edge devices. This presents a major area of risk for businesses as sensitive data stored in public cloud information repositories could easily be compromised.
Corporate backup data repositories, on the other hand, are much more secure and could provide end users with access to home directories through their edge devices. What’s more, since most organizations conduct backups as part of a nightly process, the information residing in these repositories is never more than 24 hours old. In fact, this would offer users much more convenient access to their information since they would no longer have to store and forward data to a cloud application for later retrieval – instead, their data would be continuously updated with each nightly backup run. This could help wean users off of public cloud storage applications and help secure corporate information assets. Improved worker productivity, better data security and the ability to more easily share information all from an asset that already exists in the organization.
Value #3: Enterprise Wide Compliance (including laptops/desktops)
According to various industry sources, the majority of the costs for conducting E-Discovery goes into the time and labor to produce a comprehensive search of all the data repositories in the environment. By leveraging a common, intelligent index that spans every key business system and their underlying storage repositories (including backup data), organizations may be able to save time and derive greater efficiencies and cost savings.
Backup and archiving suites like HP’s, are layering in advanced, contextual search capabilities to enable organizations to fully leverage all their information assets. By applying a thin layer of indexing and data protection intelligence across all corporate data repositories, whether in data center environments or on edge devices, these types of offerings enable businesses to universally apply corporate governance and record management policies while leveraging data assets that might otherwise remain idle.
For example, compliance officers can utilize this platform to validate that business data, regardless of its physical or logical location, is adhering to archiving policies that conform to financial regulatory statutes. Moreover, as stated previously, backup repositories and archives can now be used to facilitate remote user access to data on edge devices and provide support for legal searches and analytical queries.
Conclusion
As data continues to grow unabated, organizations will want to consider how to effectively leverage all the various data repositories in their environment and keep from having to create duplicate copies for a single purpose. Generally speaking, backup data is typically treated as a copy of last resort; only to be accessed should the data in primary storage systems become unavailable. Since backup data is subject to corporate governance information policies and in some instances, must adhere to regulatory statutes, organizations can apply technologies which are integrated with backup software, to scan, index and catalogue this information for improved productivity, compliance and discovery purposes and to augment their enterprise search capabilities.
Additionally, with the ongoing consumerization of IT, the demand for user data anywhere at anytime on any device is an essential service that internal IT service providers can either embrace or risk forfeiting to nascent cloud competitors.
In all of these areas – data mining, corporate auditing and ubiquitous user data access, IT organizations already have a built-in competitive advantage – ownership of the backup archive. Integrated backup and archive solutions that employ a critically important layer of advanced data indexing along with human conceptual search technology, like those from HP, are providing organizations with the foundation to convert their passive backup repositories into a key information advantage.
HP is a client of Storage Switzerland
As a 22 year IT veteran, Colm has worked in a variety of capacities ranging from technical support of critical OLTP environments to consultative sales and marketing for system integrators and manufacturers. His focus in the enterprise storage, backup and disaster recovery solutions space extends from mainframe and distributed computing environments across a wide range of industries.
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