Ask the Experts

Ask the Experts

• Why is a data archive plan important?

  A data archiving plan might not be simply important for your organization -- it could be necessary, given legal and compliance requirements. Make sure you're ahead of the game.  Continue Reading

• What are best practices for cloud repatriation with backups?

  In order to migrate backup data from the cloud back to an on-premises environment, you should follow these steps to ensure your data will be safe and smoothly moved.  Continue Reading

• What are some best practices for planning database backups?

  Adhering to service-level agreements, keeping up with performance demands and planning for future workloads are just a few of the goals you should keep in mind when planning database backups.  Continue Reading

• What are 3 cloud backup security guidelines against cyberattacks?

  Cloud security is a top concern for IT. As a result, keeping cloud backups secure should be a priority. Here are three straightforward guidelines to help.  Continue Reading

• What are best practices for archiving emails?

  Archiving email is crucial to the business continuity and disaster recovery process. For example, consider how cybersecurity and cloud storage can integrate with the archiving.  Continue Reading

• PowerShell backup scripts: What are 3 essential best practices?

  There are some strong PowerShell scripts that can provide backup capabilities. It's important, though, to be mindful of PowerShell's quirks so you get the best data protection.  Continue Reading

• What are Google G Suite backup best practices?

  Is your Google data protected? Make sure you are backing up G Suite files, because Google doesn't provide the comprehensive protection you'll need to be safe.  Continue Reading

• How can I integrate cybersecurity and backup planning?

  Your organization should integrate its cybersecurity and backup processes. It's easy for a cyberattack to affect backups, unfortunately, so be proactive about it.  Continue Reading

• What are some public cloud backup options for better data protection?

  Organizations that need to protect resources in the public cloud have a number of backup possibilities, some with more hazardous negatives than others.  Continue Reading

• How can AI and data protection work together?

  There may be value in including artificial intelligence in backup software. Find out which vendors are already using AI to improve backup and data protection capabilities.  Continue Reading

• Why do you need backup for Salesforce and other SaaS apps?

  Backup for Salesforce is available from several third-party vendors. Why aren't a lot of organizations doing it? Explore some of the many reasons why you need this backup.  Continue Reading

• What are top SMB backup services and platforms?

  Many on-site and cloud-based services are available for small to medium-sized business backup. Pay particular attention to the deciding factors for cloud SMB backups.  Continue Reading

• 3-2-1: Get started with a multi-cloud backup plan

  Multi-cloud data backup is taking off as organizations seek ways to further protect their workloads. With many threats out there, it's important to have data backed up off-site.  Continue Reading

• What is a good backup test frequency?

  You should align your backup testing with the frequency of backups. This way, IT assets will not only be backed up, but also validated as ready for use in an emergency.  Continue Reading

• What are some server and data migration best practices for backup?

  Are you ready for your next data migration project? Take the Myspace migration failure as motivation to implement data source and backup best practices.  Continue Reading

• How will CCPA compliance affect your backup storage?

  The new California privacy act creates more rights for consumers and their data. As a result, organizations holding consumer data will need to modify their backup approach.  Continue Reading

• Which cloud backup type is best: Incremental or differential?

  Backup types vary in size, complexity of restoration, cost and resources consumed. Is incremental or differential the right approach for your cloud backup?  Continue Reading

• How can my backup and recovery plan be part of DR planning?

  Backup and recovery planning is not the same as disaster recovery planning. It's important that they work together, though, for better data protection.  Continue Reading

• What are some data retention policy best practices?

  It's important for your organization to know which data it needs to retain. Some data is required for retention by law, so a written policy is helpful.  Continue Reading

• How do I decide when to deduplicate data and where?

  On its surface, data deduplication is a positive because it deletes redundant data. Use the technology carefully, but at the right moment for the best results.  Continue Reading

• How do I know if multi-cloud backup is the right approach?

  You have a lot of cloud options these days. Using a multi-cloud data backup strategy may be good for your data protection, as long as it's good for your business first.  Continue Reading

• What are 3 best practices for compressed backups?

  Learn important details about the use of hardware and software data compression, as well as redundancy, that could help your organization improve its backup process.  Continue Reading

• What are 3 top data protection trends expected in 2019?

  Top trends in data protection include more comprehensive backup platforms. With data in many different places, including multiple clouds, products must cover a lot of ground.  Continue Reading

• How can you use magnetic tape storage in this big data age?

  Does your organization struggle to store and protect all of its data? Tape storage might be a smart, cost-efficient route, as data volumes continue to increase.  Continue Reading

• GDPR right to be forgotten and backups: What are potential problems?

  Removing personal data from a database is a simple process, but eliminating that information from full backups could undermine the integrity of your data. Proceed with caution.  Continue Reading

• What 3 issues can affect your data backup procedures?

  Do you have challenges with your data backup process, such as a lack of the right security? The three directives here will help with your overall business continuity.  Continue Reading

• What's the difference between secondary and primary storage?

  Having primary storage and secondary storage is a good way to tier your workloads and ensure solid data protection. So, what should you expect from both platforms?  Continue Reading

• What are three recent magnetic tape storage advancements?

  With tape storage still playing a role for such use cases as offline protection from ransomware, what are some key improvements in the media technology?  Continue Reading

• How do I know if cloud-based archiving is the right choice?

  If you don't need to access old data much, cloud archiving could work out well. That's just one consideration, though, for deciding which archival platform to employ.  Continue Reading

• How have disk backups changed in recent years?

  Disk-based backup provides newer features that can speed and ease recovery. IT should take advantage of instant recovery and virtual lab capabilities.  Continue Reading

• What backup security measures protect against data breaches?

  Backup security varies across different storage media. What works for tape-based backup may not work for disk backups, so plan your data protection strategy accordingly.  Continue Reading

• How do I keep my virtualized backup secure?

  A virtual backup is not effective if it's not secure. Encryption, agentless backup and testing can all help. Explore the details of how to secure your backups.  Continue Reading

• What are nine SaaS backup best practices?

  Software-as-a-service backup is an important, but sometimes overlooked, aspect of data protection. It's also complex, so planning, documentation and testing are key.  Continue Reading

• How should the virtualized backup market evolve?

  GDPR looms large over many data protection processes, and virtual backup is no different. Overall management is important as well, as data volume continues to grow.  Continue Reading

• Can integrating data protection and management work?

  While you may want to jump on the data management and protection train, consider first how combining the two in one product will affect your systems and users.  Continue Reading

• What personal data backup practices are best?

  Is your personal data secure? Backup best practices for consumers include regularly backing up data and taking advantage of different types of storage media.  Continue Reading

• Why is a cloud backup strategy necessary?

  When backing up to the cloud, it's important to take precautions against data loss. See how approaches like redundancy can bolster your backup strategy.  Continue Reading

• How can I encrypt backups for better data protection?

  Don't let backup data encryption fall through the cracks. When encrypting backups, key management and compression are just two of the best practices for optimum security.  Continue Reading

• How does using tape for backup compare to the cloud?

  While tape is notably offline and thus protected from cyberattacks, the cloud could comprehensively surpass it for backup if service providers figure out security issues.  Continue Reading

• Which data protection methods are here to stay?

  Despite a changing market, disk-based approaches like continuous backup and snapshots might still have a place in your backup and archiving strategy.  Continue Reading

• What are some SAP HANA backup options and best practices?

  Having a strategy to back up SAP HANA is a must. It's important to decide exactly what you'll be backing up, along with which method best suits your organization.  Continue Reading

• Can you list some data compression technology pain points?

  While data compression can effectively reduce space, be careful with how you use it, because the three issues outlined here could cause problems in your storage environment.  Continue Reading

• What are the top object storage backup benefits?

  While tape and disk backups have their own advantages, object storage for backup has them beat in a couple of areas. Object storage, for example, can scale easier.  Continue Reading

• What lessons can GDPR best practices teach organizations?

  Organizations not directly affected by GDPR can still make improvements based on the regulations. How long has it been since your organization updated its data protection policy?  Continue Reading

• What are some ghost image creation issues?

  A ghost image can be used to copy the contents of one server to another for backup, but the process of creating ghost images may not be as simple as it seems.  Continue Reading

• What are the top three data protection trends for 2017?

  Backup and recovery trends, such as hybrid cloud data protection, are gaining popularity in the IT industry. Are these three major trends part of your data protection strategy?  Continue Reading

• What are some agentless backup benefits?

  Agentless data backups offer some major advantages over agent-based backups. The technology should be used wherever possible, and it can be especially beneficial for VM backups.  Continue Reading

• How important are social media backup methods?

  Social network backup tools are hard to find, but they are out there. Like with file data, your organization should make sure its social media data is protected.  Continue Reading

• What are ghost imaging software benefits and drawbacks?

  Ghost imaging comes in many forms, and it has reached the cloud. It helps avoid much of the manual input of unit setup, but some vendors don't support ghosted units.  Continue Reading

• Does secure cloud backup exist and how can it be safer?

  Despite ransomware and other attacks causing security issues, it is possible to institute safe cloud backup. Access control and testing are among the best practices to follow.  Continue Reading

• How do I get started with Oracle backup scripts for RMAN?

  Using Oracle Recovery Manager for database backup and restore? Explore the Oracle backup script and command process, with options for specific scripts.  Continue Reading

• What cybersecurity challenges do backup admins face besides ransomware?

  While ransomware remains a top threat, it is not the only cybersecurity problem data backup admins need to keep on their radar. Here are three more challenges for which to prepare.  Continue Reading

• Can you provide some ransomware backup dos and don'ts?

  A layered protection strategy works best against ransomware. Organizations must be diligent about backing up data, monitoring suspicious activity and testing restores.  Continue Reading

• How does deduplication in cloud computing work and is it beneficial?

  The deduplication process reduces the amount of data in a storage system, but dedupe in the cloud may be more valuable to the cloud provider than the customer.  Continue Reading

• Has Windows container data protection for businesses improved?

  Data protection for container storage is out there, but you might have to go looking for it. Explore the options on the market today, including Windows server container protection.  Continue Reading

• Flash backups: What are the best use cases, and why?

  Flash storage arrays consume less power than traditional disks, and could be used to significantly decrease an organization's backup window and appliances.  Continue Reading

• How easy is a Veritas Backup Exec 16 upgrade from another version?

  With the right planning, transitioning to Backup Exec 16 from an earlier version can be smooth sailing, preserving data directories and retaining most settings.  Continue Reading

• What are the downsides of copy data storage management?

  Copy data management can help an organization lower its costs by cutting back on extraneous copies of data, but the technology can cause performance bottlenecks.  Continue Reading

• How can cloud computing data protection be achieved?

  When it comes to deciding on a data protection method, the public cloud is a popular choice. Here are three ways it can be incorporated into your data protection strategy.  Continue Reading

• What should users of Dell EMC data protection products do post-merger?

  Dell EMC backup and recovery products may be in flux, but there are best practices that customers can follow to ensure a proper data protection strategy.  Continue Reading

• What are some new data deduplication techniques?

  Copy data management is just one technology utilizing recent innovations in the backup deduplication space, combatting sprawl and managing snapshots.  Continue Reading

• How can I ensure that my tape backup technology is secure?

  With the portability of tapes and the ability to store terabytes of data on a single cartridge, appropriate security of tape backup storage is imperative.  Continue Reading

• How is the backup software market evolving?

  Backup software vendors are beginning to bolster their products with cloud backups and hypervisor integration. See what other backup trends are catching on.  Continue Reading

• How are backup and recovery plans impacted by large SSDs?

  Backup and recovery planning can stand to benefit from the decrease in price of high-capacity SSDs. Explore how to shorten your backup window with this technology.  Continue Reading

• How can I guarantee secure cloud backup between clouds?

  Cloud-based backups can be secured via a variety of methods. Backup software and erasure coding may be just what is needed to improve your cloud-to-cloud backup security.  Continue Reading

• How can I improve my SaaS backup strategy?

  Migrating to software as a service can benefit an organization, but there are some questions administrators need to ask when considering a cloud-to-cloud backup.  Continue Reading

• What are continuous data protection software pros and cons?

  Through disk-based backup, continuous data protection enables backups to take place more often. Discover how to repair the technology's cost and capacity problem.  Continue Reading

• How can a Docker container backup be more reliable and consistent?

  Docker containers can be used to back up and restore data efficiently, but they come with some requirements that should be taken into account before implementing containerization.  Continue Reading

• Backup of mobile data: What is a good testing strategy?

  Working remotely can cause a backup and recovery issue for your organization. For improved security of mobile data, test its backup and restore capabilities.  Continue Reading

• How does flape benefit backup and where is the technology headed?

  With a flash and tape collaboration, users can see improvements in several key areas, including cost, capacity and write efficiency. But can this positive momentum be sustained?  Continue Reading

• How can a CDP system benefit my organization's backup plan?

  If you're looking to get away from nightly tape backups, and want to replicate data to various types of storage media, a continuous data protection system could be the way to go.  Continue Reading

• In a tape archive system, how can LTFS and LTO products help?

  Linear Tape File System and Linear Tape-Open technology can improve user access and durability in your tape archive system. Explore specific products that do the job.  Continue Reading

• How can copy management systems be more effective?

  Thanks to server virtualization, image copies can be created quicker and more often. So it's important to have a proper copy management system in place.  Continue Reading

• What are three ways to improve mobile data security during backups?

  Enterprise mobility is becoming more common, which can help employees stay on top of work when traveling or working from home. But infrequent backups could cause insecure data.  Continue Reading

• How can software for backup use cloud resources and VMs for recovery?

  The latest development in the backup software market emphasizes bringing virtual machines up in the public cloud. Explore the reasons why and important details for implementation.  Continue Reading

• Can you recover from ransomware with frequent data backups?

  Ransomware is becoming a serious security threat. A proper backup strategy lets administrators recover data from ransomware attacks without major disruption to the organization.  Continue Reading

• What role does data redundancy play in copy data management?

  Copy data management and backup can work together, but organizations need to be careful with redundant data. Having only one copy of data could be a problem.  Continue Reading

• How do I evaluate cloud data backup services for my company?

  Before your organization settles on a potential cloud backup provider, you must ensure it can handle your backups and restores, as well as seeding and data accumulation needs.  Continue Reading

• When does storage snapshot technology work best?

  Snapshots do not replace backup, but they can be used to enhance a data protection strategy if you use them at the right time and for the right tasks.  Continue Reading

• Will instant VM recovery ever be truly instant?

  The need for human interaction currently prevents the virtual machine recovery process from being more instantaneous. But that could change in the future.  Continue Reading

• Cloud-based backups: What is the biggest misconception?

  Cloud backup has its advantages, but the technology may not always be the right fit for your organization. On-premises backup still has a place in certain cases.  Continue Reading

• What are some important enterprise remote backup factors?

  ROBO data backup can be a challenge. The answers to the following three questions will help your organization best back up its remote office/branch office data.  Continue Reading

• Should the data dedupe process ever be disabled by admins?

  While it may seem that you should never switch off the deduplication process, there are two instances where that may be the best solution for your organization.  Continue Reading

• Can your deduplication process be improved with semantic dedupe?

  While semantic deduplication is a legacy technology, the global deduplication process can perform a similar job. Expert Brien Posey compares the two offerings.  Continue Reading

• What mobile data backup features are most important?

  When implementing a mobile data backup product in your organization, it's all about design and control. Explore the three areas that will keep administrators and users in sync.  Continue Reading

• What is NetBackup Instant Recovery for VMware?

  Symantec's NetBackup Instant Recovery for VMware feature can provide organizations with instant recovery capabilities, but backup server power issues can be a concern.  Continue Reading

• Is deduplication ratio an important backup consideration?

  The deduplication ratio was once a point of vendor competition, but now this figure doesn’t carry the weight it used to. Learn why in this Expert Answer.  Continue Reading

• Is Microsoft ReFS a replacement for data backup?

  While Microsoft ReFS can improve data integrity, it is not an alternative to data backup. Expert Brien Posey explains some of the key features of the file system.  Continue Reading

• When is a flat backup appropriate for my workload?

  Protecting data with a flat backup may be the right choice for a workload, but there are several factors an organization must consider when making that decision.  Continue Reading

• What are some Office 365 disaster recovery best practices?

  Microsoft's guidelines for Office 365 disaster recovery and backup can be vague at times. Expert Brien Posey discusses the vendor's policies and what users need to be aware of.  Continue Reading

• What are some flat backup misconceptions?

  Flat backup, which is based around storage snapshots, is gaining popularity. But the technology can't protect every resource in an organization. We debunk the top fallacies.  Continue Reading

• How does Office 365 Clutter affect data retention?

  The Microsoft Office 365 Clutter feature is designed to clean up email inboxes, but the feature is not perfect. Learn how to overcome data retention issues that may arise.  Continue Reading

• Would you ever perform Oracle backups without RMAN?

  While RMAN is typically used for Oracle backups, it is possible and sometimes necessary to use a different backup method.  Continue Reading

• When should you use PowerShell backup?

  Windows PowerShell can be used in conjunction with your backup software for specific data protection tasks. Find out how and when to use PowerShell backup.  Continue Reading

• How does a storage snapshot work with flat backup?

  A flat backup may be cheaper than a traditional backup. It's based around use of a storage snapshot, which can provide nearly instantaneous recovery.  Continue Reading

• Will Cohesity converged data protection management catch on?

  Startup Cohesity is taking a converged approach to data protection management that cuts down on the number of products required to keep data safe. But will other vendors follow?  Continue Reading

• Which vendors support Oracle RMAN backup and recovery?

  It's important to carefully analyze if a given backup software platform supports Oracle RMAN backup and recovery, as the level of support varies from vendor to vendor.  Continue Reading

• How does Rubrik's cloud time machine work?

  While Rubrik's cloud time machine may not offer new capabilities, the company's distributed file system provides a new way to handle versioned data.  Continue Reading

• Can I use backed-up data for analytics?

  While analytics and software for backed-up data appear to serve different purposes, there are a few ways the two can work together.  Continue Reading

• Are WAN optimization techniques in backup products reliable?

  Many backup software products now include WAN optimization techniques, but will users be quick to give up hardware-based WAN optimization?  Continue Reading