Recovery is something for which all businesses must prepare. Most acknowledge the need for comprehensive business continuity plans, but the expense and complexity of fully implementing these plans leads many enterprises to only partially implement them. Business continuity plans generally cover information technology (IT) infrastructure (applications and data), communications, people, and process recovery. This white paper discusses a cost-effective approach to providing IT infrastructure recovery solutions to meet remote (disaster recovery) and local (backup) requirements.

When choosing a server virtualization application, such as backup and recovery, it's important to understand the advantages -- and limitations – of the various options. For data protection of virtual servers, IT managers and storage administrators need a software-based solution that supports transparent backup, disaster recovery (DR) from catastrophic failures within minutes, and automated application failover/failback for faster, more reliable restoration of application services – all from a single recovery platform, with a centralized management GUI, that covers physical and virtual machine environments (including VMware, Citrix, and Microsoft), heterogeneous servers (Windows, Linux, and Unix), and all storage platforms and applications.
Download this white paper to learn more about data protection and recovery for virtual servers.

Traditional methods of protecting data often don't work in today's demanding IT environments, so users are looking for new methods for backup and recovery, disaster recovery and business continuity. This InfoStor editorial guide provides information to help you safely embark on new data protection strategies.

With file capacity projected to grow 55% (CAGR) from 2008 to 2012, file data growth and economic pressures are driving rapid adoption of data reduction technologies. Read this joint Storwize and IBM Technical Validation Report for the results of tests that validate the performance of Storwize’s real-time data compression solution. Included are details of how it delivers the key requirements for primary storage data reduction, including:
· increased data compression and throughput,
· improved storage utilization and reclamation, and
· transparent NAS application integration and high availability.

Server virtualization has become one of the most vital technologies in IT departments today because it reduces operational and capital expenditure through consolidation, rapid server deployment and cost-effective disaster recovery. However, for many organizations server migration takes too long, is too difficult, and backup impact limits virtual machine density. Read this paper to learn what a survey of users showed about the true impact of virtualization migrations on their organizations, and how automating backup can simplify and shorten the migration process. Benefits such as reduced system downtime and greater staff efficiency are outlined.

Server virtualization has become a tremendously valuable IT technology. But as it becomes more widely adopted and moves into production environments, organizations are facing new obstacles to managing enterprise storage that limit the flexibility and scalability of the enterprise and can have significant impact upon Total Cost of Ownership. In this paper, The Taneja Group examines the ramifications of server virtualization for storage management. More specifically, we take an in-depth look at how evolving server virtualization approaches either integrate with or attempt to encapsulate the enterprise storage infrastructure.  Depending on the approach, server virtualization solutions can either limit access to or profitably leverage existing networked storage tools, expertise, and processes. Finally we offer an overview of Citrix StorageLink, a solution that leverages and multiplies the value of server virtualization with existing investment in networked storage.

As data center resource consolidation gains traction, many organizations are missing the big picture. For reducing primary storage footprints, they are looking at virtualization solutions in isolation; and for reducing secondary backup storage, they are focusing on deduplication solutions in isolation. To consolidate optimally, they must consider the full landscape. The convergence of the two consolidation trends, virtualization and deduplication, points to an ironic concurrence: inefficiencies in the traditional data protection model. Inefficient backup both underlies the need for deduplication and imposes debilitating constraints on virtualization. If data protection were inherently efficient, today’s rigorous demand for data reduction on the secondary side, and the backup contention menace that unbalances so many virtualization experiences on the primary side, could both be reined in - while at the same time enhancing backup and recovery performance, reducing hardware purchases, improving protection, easing administrative strain, and successfully positioning you for future growth.

As a leader in storage technologies, LSI is pleased to offer SafeStore™ encryption services, which combine local key management with self-encrypting drives (SEDs). This represents a significant step forward in securing a drive’s data from the enterprise to the small-to-medium business (SMB). A key feature of the LSI 6Gb/s SATA+SAS MegaRAID adapters, SafeStore local key management maintains and controls the key linkage and communications with the SEDs, secures user-selected volume groups, and authorizes the drives to encrypt and decrypt data with pass phrase and security key management. SafeStore local key management uses simple and intuitive configuration menus to effectively protect data from any unauthorized access or modification resulting from theft, loss, or repurposing of drives.

As organizations struggle with storing the ever-growing volumes of data, they have additional pressure to address high performance service level agreements while securing and protecting data to maintain business continuity.  In this white paper, Sylvatica Consulting discusses best practices to balance the evolving roles of disk and tape as part of a comprehensive tiered strategy to address these complex needs for backup and long term retention.

Tape storage systems, valued for their reliability and portability, are a large and growing investment for companies, especially as the volume of data increases and performance requirements become more numerous and complex. One serious outcome of increased volume and complexity is the loss of system "visibility," that is, the ability of the site administrator to anticipate and prevent damage to and loss of data. Until now there was no service available to automatically monitor tape library and drive and media performance, as well as alert and report on potential problems and growing risks. As a result, organizations have been forced to wait and react, a costly and inferior approach to problem-solving.  

Fujifilm Tape Environment Analysis provides the missing link--a comprehensive assessment service that enables proactive management of data storage systems.

Demystifying Virtual Server Data Protection -- Best Practices and Technologies, by Greg Schulz, Founder and Senior Analyst, StorageIO. Server virtualization continues to be a popular industry focus. This Industry Trends and Technology Perspectives white paper from the StorageIO Group provides the answers you need to protect your data in a virtualized environment.

ESG Lab believes the combination of policy-based deduplication, enterprise-class performance and scalability, along with comprehensive management and services provides a unique approach for optimizing data protection and recovery strategy in the enterprise.  ESG Lab confirms Quantum’s move into the enterprise space with the DXi7500.

The advent of data de-duplication, combined with disk-based backup systems, continues to change the landscape of backup and recovery environments. Conventional disk systems are well suited for short retention with frequent access, and tape is well suited for long-term retention with infrequent access. For many, data duplication technology fills the gap between the two, providing comparable performance to conventional disk but providing more cost-effective medium-term retention.

Disaster recovery is a key component of any business continuity plan. Unfortunately, complexity and high implementation costs prevent many organizations from adequately protecting themselves in the event of a site failure. Discover how data protection solutions, tailored to meet the recovery time objectives and recovery point objectives of your data centers and remote sites, can save your company time and money.