Back From Holiday

I took a long holiday break this year. Unwrapping presents and playing with a new toy is still one of my favorite parts about the holiday season. My kids and I always get something that we have to put together before we play with it. This year I got to break out some of my hardware skills and put together an LED clock from components.

So what does opening holiday presents have to do with NetBackup? Well the quarter just ended, so as usual there are plenty of you out there who got NetBackup to complete your holiday season. In addition to those of you who are new to NetBackup I understand a number of you are thinking about re-architecting your backup systems this year. In fact, the latest data from TheInfoPro — released in its Wave 11 Storage Study — reports that over 30% of IT decision makers interviewed consider backup redesign a top initiative throughout 2009.

So if you have the opportunity to design or redesign your backup systems where do you start?

When people start posing this question to me, they often visualize it in terms of how NetBackup itself is configured and architected. If you have skimmed the literature on "Business Continuity Planning" you'll recognize this as skipping to the "solution design" or "implementation" phase.

The first step isn't design or implementation rather it is basic analysis of the problem. That analysis includes defining what your organization's goals for RPO and RTO are combined with an assessment of the potential threats to your organization. Sometimes competing requirements or organizational structures can stand in the way of completing a thorough analysis, but in the long run a thoughtful analysis has rewards.

… to be continued.

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Tim Burlowski

Technical Product Manager

Data Protection