Have you considered all the ways backup software can help your business? Backup today isn’t just about making copies of files. It’s about providing comprehensive protection against data loss from outages and malware. It’s about making it possible to easily reuse data in multiple environments and platforms.
To get the most benefit from backup software, look for a solution that offers the following:
1. Comprehensive platform coverage.
You need protection for all your environments, whether they’re virtual machines, bare metal, or cloud. If you’re running virtual machines, look for a product that works with all your hypervisors.
2. Comprehensive application coverage.
Applications can’t afford significant downtime. Backup solutions that are application-aware can generate consistent backups while requiring minimal downtime from critical database and other enterprise products.
3. Flexible backup targets.
Look for the option to back up to tape, disk, or cloud. Search for solutions that integrate with storage vendors’ snapshot features, or consider dedicated backup appliances.
4. Performance and scalability.
Big data volumes continue to grow. Backup solutions need to backup data rapidly without overwhelming the network. Look for solutions that use deduplication and compression to minimize the demand backups place on network and storage.
5. Compliance with industry standards.
Backups in sensitive industries need to conform to regulatory requirements.
6. Rapid, flexible recovery options.
Opt for backup software that makes images instantly available to reduce the time needed to search for the appropriate data. Also look for a solution that offers granular recovery options, letting you match the scale of your recovery to the scale of your data loss. Solutions that allow you to load backups in any data center or cloud environment, wherever the backup was created, offer increased flexibility.
7. Self-service backup and recovery.
Allowing DBAs to manage database backups reduces the load on data center teams.
8. Protection against malware.
Because backups are your recovery strategy against malware, particularly ransomware, look for backup software with malware protection built-in. Immutable backups can’t be encrypted by ransomware.
9. Auto-discovery.
The scale of data centers, combined with constantly changing cloud environments, mean that manually maintaining a list of systems needing protection is impossible. Backup solutions with auto-discovery help make sure that no system is missed.
10. Reporting and planning.
Backup tools can report on your current backup storage utilization and spending, as well as project trends to guide your planning for the future.
One more feature to look for? Substantial support services to ensure your critical backup procedures run smoothly and provide the protection your data needs. VAST IT Services provides support for Veritas NetBackup and Veeam Availability Suite. Contact us to learn more about why NetBackup or Veeam provides the key backup features business needs.
