The method that IT uses to protect applications is changing. Gone are the days of three or four mission critical applications. Today the backup team at most data centers needs to concern itself with protecting dozens if not hundreds of applications, making the concept of creating service levels for each application seem outdated.
Many IT teams now promise “best efforts” when it comes to data protection, treating all applications the same which drives data protection costs to new heights while setting user expectations unrealistically high. In order to solve this problem, IT needs to address it in two ways.
First, IT needs to recalibrate service level objectives and set expectations for groups of applications instead of each individual application. Storage Switzerland’s white paper “Designing a Service Level Data Protection Strategy” provides a roadmap for IT professionals looking to maintain a service level driven strategy in the face of unprecedented application growth.
Second, IT needs to look for data protection software that adheres to service levels set by the organization. The time of job-driven data protection software needs to come to an end. IT no longer has the time to map jobs to service levels and then constantly monitor them to make sure everything is in balance. Storage Switzerland’s webinar, now available on demand, discusses how a service level driven backup solution works and gives a demonstration of how it works.