Left unmanaged, data sprawl creates chaos that weakens operational control and increases risk. Risk can come in all shapes and forms: accommodating for increased expenses associated with data growth, keeping that data safe from threats while maintaining compliance, or even recovering that data without violating your RPO or RTO. While hypervisors and cloud platforms are often the first that come to mind, unstructured data frequently holds years of organizational knowledge that must not be overlooked.
File shares, NAS, and more recently, object storage, have become a staple in businesses across the globe. Cloud solutions such as Azure Data Lake or Amazon S3 have increased in popularity as knowledge workers often need a readily accessible spot to keep their data, and these systems and concepts have proven their worth. However, all of the simplicity these systems provide for end users often translates into complexity for your data resilience strategies. Identifying, protecting, and recovering this data at scale presents its own unique challenge.
When Scale Becomes Strain
Data can grow rapidly and irregularly. There are plenty of stats out there that speak to this, and unfortunately, this is something that many of us have seen firsthand. When it comes to finding a solution to protect that data, you need confidence that what you put in place today will continue to scale for tomorrow’s needs.
Common challenges include having to support a large number of files and doing so efficiently. Incremental Robocopy batch files are no longer a sustainable or justifiable means of storage when it comes to data resilience. Storage arrays and filers unlock fantastic capabilities like snapshots, which can be replicated to a secondary location. However, this doesn’t comfortably follow the 3-2-1 Rule, and ultimately, your recovery is still locked into a specific hardware platform. Then, of course, there is that last group: Those organizations out there who are not protecting this data at all. These are the organizations most at risk. A single incident, whether accidental human error or a cyberattack, can permanently close these businesses.
Downtime Isn’t an Option
Although data growth can be an indication of healthy business growth, it does present its own challenges. Knowledge workers, business leaders, and customers alike all grow to depend on that data, which means that any downtime can result in significant financial losses. Ultimately, recovery is your currency.
Backing up NAS and file shares has traditionally been a slow process, typically due to the large amount of data, both from a file and folder count perspective, as well as from a storage perspective. Veeam can tackle this challenge with our unique, industry-leading, NAS backup engine. By creating thumbprints of files and folders in a share, we can quickly identify file changes and drastically decrease the time it takes to identify and back up new data.
That said, the true value of a backup lies in your ability to recover from it. Veeam has long been known for its Instant Recovery capabilities. What first started with recovering VMware virtual machines (VMs) in seconds has expanded o include other hypervisors, physical agent backups, databases, and the ability to instantly recover file shares. But did you know that this functionality also exists for unstructured data recovery?
Say, for example, your file server is taken offline, whether due to a security incident, hardware failure, or user error. Ultimately, the reason doesn’t matter. What does matter is that, throughout all that downtime, users are unable to access their data. Instant File Share Recovery unlocks the ability to mount copies of backed-up file shares from the restore point of your choice. There’s no need to perform any traditional offline recoveries that will leave your users in the dark.
Preserve, Protect, and Prove your Data’s Integrity
Depending on your industry and business, data can have an extremely long shelf life. In some cases, regulatory compliance dictates this, while in others it could be a matter of ensuring that historical trends and other details are retained. However, when it comes to keeping that data safe, and more importantly, knowing that you can trust its integrity, the first thought that should come to mind is immutability.
Backups are so much more than just a copy of your data; they are proven records of what your business has achieved. You need to be able to trust your data, and safeguarding your precious NAS and object storage data should be a top priority. Veeam Data Platform helps you achieve this by leveraging immutable repositories, such as storage appliances or object storage, and offering optional health checks for these backups. Not only will this keep your data safe from attackers or accidental deletions, but it also provides you with the confidence of knowing that when you restore your data, it will be exactly the same as when it was first backed up.
Backups Without Breaking the Bank
The Veeam Universal License (VUL) is the backbone that unlocks functionality within Veeam Data Platform. Many customers are familiar with its simplicity when it comes to protecting workloads (typically, 1 VUL = 1 protected workload), but they may not be as familiar with VUL for NAS and object storage backup.
In its simplest form, 1 VUL = 500 GB of protected data. This provides an easy way for customers who are starting with NAS protection to get started. However, for situations where larger amounts of data need to be protected, Veeam Data Platform Capacity Pack can offer significant savings. With Capacity Pack, the functionality remains the same, but 1 VUL equates to 1 TB of protected data instead of just 500 GB. Be sure to talk to your Veeam Team about Veeam Data Platform Capacity Pack licensing if it sounds like the right fit for you.
What This Means for You
Digital transformations are often an ongoing process in many enterprises, and it drives new strategies and initiatives like cloud adoption. That said, it’s important to remember that cloud-first doesn’t mean cloud-only. A resilient strategy supports the enterprise wherever its data resides, whether that’s cloud, on-premises infrastructure, or anything in between. Veeam closes the unstructured data protection gap with a solution that’s scalable, secure, and built for rapid recovery. From ransomware resilience to petabyte-scale file systems, Veeam Data Platform ensures every file is seen, secured, and recoverable wherever it lives.
The post The Data Protection Blind Spot: What You’re Missing Below the Surface appeared first on Veeam Software Official Blog.
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