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Ready, fire, aim. It's an understandable approach for many of us whose days are filled with managing the crisis at hand, without the luxury of carefully framing a project's overarching goals. This is particularly true for data protection and disaster recovery projects, where it is common to decide on and implement solutions before the actual objectives are considered or the requirements are fully understood.
In the absence of a catastrophic event that put backup systems to the test, there is no executive recognition or appreciation of potential risks in terms of outages or data loss. These worries are left to the CIO and IT managers, who find that funding for data protection initiatives is hard to come by. The problem with the ready, fire, aim approach is that it tends to give a false sense of security until a catastrophic event happens. A recent Info-Tech Advisor In-Depth Report titled Options in Enterprise Backup states: "Backup technologies and practices are often overlooked or poorly understood. The result is that enterprises are often taking on more risk than they realize." Proper planning for disaster recovery requires a sound methodology for addressing the primary objectives, potential threats, and potential changes that are specific to the organization and the careful consideration of a broad range of products and services from which to architect a solution. Full Spectrum Data Protection (FSDP) from Xiotech is a comprehensive program that is designed to help organizations sufficiently plan for and implement data protection and disaster recovery in a manner that is customized to meet the organization's specific needs. FSDP has two major components: Methodology and Solutions. Methodology Figure 1: The AP Matrix maps data protection requirements for specific applications in terms of data availability and data protection. Users can separately map physical (triangle) and logical (circle) protection requirements for more specificity.
 Figure 2: Mapping proposed solutions and needs in the AP Matrix identifies disconnects and provides for an intelligent comparison of options.
Additionally, the AP Matrix presents needs and solutions in a manner that facilitates thoughtful discussions with nontechnical business managers regarding solution shortfalls and business risks. This improved communication helps set appropriate expectations for disaster recovery and makes funding for necessary projects easier to approve. Available solutions can also be mapped on the AP Matrix along with needs to demonstrate the appropriateness of a solution (e.g., tape, replication, CDP) for a given need (Figure 2). With this step completed, any disconnects between solutions and needs become apparent, and the business risks of these disconnects can be discussed, which leads to a cost-benefit discussion for proposed solutions. This results in more appropriate expectations between IT and other business managers, more accurate assessments of business risks, and a more intelligent appropriation of funds toward disaster recovery. The end product of using the Full Spectrum Data Protection methodology is a clear identification and prioritization of data availability and protection requirements, a mapping of proposed solutions to those requirements, all in a format that facilitates thoughtful discussion with business managers on business risks, cost justification, and the propriety of proposed solutions. A Complete Solution SetAs part of Full Spectrum Data Protection, Xiotech offers a full line of data replication and recovery solutions to effectively address the specific data protection, data availability, and budget requirements of organizations. Along with the Emprise™ and Magnitude® product family, our TimeScale®, and tape offerings deliver flexible disaster recovery options across the full spectrum of protection requirements.
Full Spectrum Data Protection provides precision and clarity for the evaluation and solution design process and creates a framework from which disaster recovery strategies can be discussed between IT and general business managers. Additionally, it employs a suite of data protection solutions that address specific needs across the organization. The result is a solution designed to meet specific needs across the organization in a cost-effective manner. |
