Technical Consultant » Backup

Business Continuity Plan (BCP) & Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP)

Abdul Saleem — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 06:31:03 +0000

Disaster recovery planning is a subset of a larger process known as business continuity planning and should include applications, data, hardware, communications (such as networking) and other IT infrastructure. A business continuity plan (BCP) includes planning for non-IT related aspects such as key personnel, facilities, crisis communication and reputation protection, and should refer to the disaster recovery plan (DRP) for IT related infrastructure recovery / continuity.

Disaster Recovery

General steps to follow while creating BCP / DRP

Identify the scope and boundaries of business continuity plan. First step enables us to define scope of BCP. It provides an idea for limitations and boundaries of plan. It also includes audit and risk analysis reports for institution’s assets.
Conduct a business impact analysis (BIA). Business impact analysis is study and assessment of financial losses to institution resulting from destructive event as unavailability of important business services.
Sell the concept of BCP to upper management and obtain organizational and financial commitment. Convincing senior management to approve BCP/DRP is key task. It is very important for security professional to get approval for plan from upper management to bring it to effect.
Each department will need to understand its role in plan and support to maintain it. In case of disaster, each department has to be prepared for the action. To recover and to protect the critical systems each department has to understand the plan follows it accordingly. It is also important to maintain and help in creation of plan for each individual department.
The BCP project team must implement the plan. After approval from upper management plan should be maintained and implemented. Implementation team should follow the guidelines procedures in plan.
NIST tool set can be used for doing BCP. National Institute of standards and Technologies has published tools which can help in creating BCP.

Business Continuity

Cloud Client Computing

Abdul Saleem — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 11:13:57 +0000

Client cloud computing offers lot of benefits to the organisation. Energy efficient (Green IT), up to date, more reliable, access anywhere, portable, mobility, cost effective, easy to deploy, easy to re-store, less management and maintenance. Client computing challenges are handled by cloud client computing. To maintain client systems, every organisations spending good amount money. Engineers required all the sites. These challenges handled by cloud. In this category I can recommend a product Wyse.

Cloud Client Computing

Wyse Cloud Client Portfolio

Wyse Cloud Clients
- Wyse Thin Clients – Sophisticated. Secure. Friendly. Performance with flexible functionality.
- Wyse Zero Clients – Simple. Secure. Stingy. Performance with dedicated functionality.
- Cloud PCs – Familiar. Performance. Improved. The PC, only better – with centralized OS, applications, and content.
Handhelds – Complete support for Apple iOS and Google Android smartphones and tablets viaWyse PocketCloud, the leading Mobile Cloud Software for enterprises and consumers.
Wyse Ultra-thin Firmware – Wyse ThinOS, Linux, Windows CE and Windows Embedded Standard– the most comprehensive, secure, scalable and reliable cloud client firmware suite in the industry.

Wyse Cloud Software Portfolio

Wyse Cloud Client Software
- Wyse Zero™ – Cloud-based technology engine powering a new world of cloud-connected dedicated Zero Clients.
- Wyse Mobile Cloud Software – Wyse PocketCloud, the leading cloud-based mobile app suite connecting you to your personal, private or public cloud from any handheld.
- Wyse Cloud PC Software – Cloud-based software to cloudify your PCs, TCs, or VMs by centralizing their OS, apps and content in a private cloud.
Wyse Management Software – Secure. Scalable. Cloud-centric remote device management for the extended enterprise.
Wyse Virtualization Software – Delivering the best user experience and optimized performance for any cloud client deployment.

Riverbed Whitewater™ and Steelhead™, – Cloud Data Protection for Backup, Archive, and Disaster Recovery

Abdul Saleem — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 10:06:34 +0000

Riverbed Cloud Service products, Whitewater™ and Steelhead™, enable organizations to improve their data protection and disaster recovery strategies quickly and easily. The Riverbed Whitewater™ appliance enables organizations to increase their data protection and disaster recovery strategies by moving backup data directly into cloud storage. Organizations looking to leverage cloud storage will be able to deploy Whitewater without any changes to their existing backup processes or products. Moreover, backups moved into the cloud will be de duplicated in-line, reducing overall bandwidth and cloud storage requirements, and the data will be secured at rest, as well as in flight to the cloud, making cloud storage, cloud backup, and cloud archive an integral part of an organization’s data protection strategy.

Key Whitewater Benefits:

Reduce disaster recover costs with cloud data protection
Meet accelerated recovery SLAs
Simplify off-site data storage for DR
Secure offsite data
Deploy with no change to existing backup infrastructure

Cloud Steelhead™

Cloud Steelhead™ offers the same WAN optimization functionality you’ve come to know and trust, in a form factor that’s much better suited for public cloud environments. It completely interoperates with Steelhead^® appliances, Virtual Steelhead™, and Steelhead Mobile™ clients.

Cloud Steelhead includes tools that allow for instant deployment and easy cloning of instances. It also has a uniquely advanced model for intercepting traffic in the cloud. In addition, a new portal allows for easy management and licensing, and instant upgrades of cloud Steelhead instances.

Key benefits of Cloud Steelhead:

Instant deployment
Simple, portal-based management
Elastic sizing and easy cloning
Advanced cloud interception
Cloud-like pricing model

Cloud Computing World Forum Middle East and Africa in Dubai

Abdul Saleem — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 09:09:26 +0000

I had a chance to attend the conference (09-03-2011). It was rich contented and lot of thought process in different angles. Its benefits, commercials, challenges, security, legal and future. One thing sure the drive is towards cloud, it’s private, public and hybrid. Cloud computing is there the time internet started or the mainframe started. Now the service delivery models changed. Tomorrow this service can call it as different name with some added value or modifications. Discussion of PaaS, IaaS, SaaS was fruitful and given thought of the service model. Cloud model has CAPX and OPX benefits. But it’s depends the maturity of the organization or how the approach is. Couple of challenges related to this region discussed about the connectivity, legal aspects and security. More and more players coming this market with different service design. The concept still to go for more maturity and definitions. Virtualisation, consolidation, thin clients are the couple of components making this journey. Anywhere any time access. Optimization and de-duplication also part in it.

Cloud Computing World Forum Middle East and Africa in Dubai

Cloud Infrastructure

Abdul Saleem — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 08:45:23 +0000

I was reading through the could infrastructure. It’s going to change the way we work with infrastructure. For me as an infrastructure professional it’s change the environment. Very easy to build the systems. Easy access, easy disconnection and lot more change the way we manage.

My end user desk tops are from cloud. My server’s and application’s are from cloud. I will be keeping a big pipe WAN link, dump terminals, telephones, and LAN connections of these. The entire infrastructure is from cloud. Applications are browser based. All the applications are accessed through an integrated area or form a portal. All the infrastructure is managed cloud provider. Locally no server, no data, no application. More and more mobile workers. Good to see more……

Cloud Infrastructure

Desktops and Notebooks Operating System

Abdul Saleem — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 09:13:31 +0000

It’s been quite long period people are tied with windows operating systems in desktops and notebooks. It’s user interface, installation, support of application, integration, drivers, devices, etc. Now the technology changed. People awareness changed requirement and way of access changed. This week I installed Ubuntu 10.10 in my notebook. It’s extremely awesome.

OS appearance changed, using Ubuntu font. E-mail, chat and micro blogging integrated. Installer is simple and faster. The trend shows more organisations and individuals will adapt the new OS.

SonicWALL® Continuous Data Protection (CDP)

Abdul Saleem — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 04:40:36 +0000

Any backup is only as reliable as its ability to restore business data and applications when they are needed most. The SonicWALL® Continuous Data Protection (CDP) Series offers end-to-end backup and recovery solution for SMBs.

CDP delivers automatic, transparent backup that ensures data, applications and systems are reliably protected from common user error, hardware failure, deletion, potential disaster and malicious attack. Integrated scheduling offers administrator controls to perform backups continuously in real time or automatically on a routine basis for both files and database data set. CDP integrated scheduling performs daily, weekly, bi-weekly or monthly backup at a specific desired time for optimize backup operation and network resource utilization.

Read More:-
Continuous Data Protection
CDP Demo

Zenith ARCA – Adanced Recovery and Continuity Appliance

Abdul Saleem — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 10:20:55 +0000

When you can get all the required software for Backup and Disaster Recovery through single appliance which is affordable, simple, reliable and flexible solution to keep your business running at full pace without additional cost.

The Zenith Advanced Recovery and Continuity Appliance (ARCA) is a network-attached storage device for Windows Servers that comes preloaded with all backup, recovery and virtualization software it needs to protect your business. It’s a perfect complement or replacement to existing tape backups because of its ability to provide near-term, near-line recovery from a single file, database or mail message, up to a full production server, in minutes.

Zenith ARCA offers a unique set of features:-
• Block Level Transfer for More Efficient, Reliable Backups
• 15 Minute Incremental Snapshots for More Frequent Recovery Point Objectives
• Total Windows Server Backup Preserves OS and Applications, not just Data
• Restore systems in a fraction of the time of conventional backups
• Automatic and Non-Disruptive with No Backup Windows Needed
• Exchange Granular Recovery, restore down to the message level
• Rapid Failover Server Virtualization, right on the ARCA
• Bare Metal Restore, even to dissimilar hardware
• Industry Standard Encryption to keep your backups safe
• Multiple Replication Schemes
• Integrated Management and Reporting

Ref: – Zenith ARCA

Acronis® Backup & Recovery™

Abdul Saleem — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 09:44:07 +0000

Acronis^® Backup & Recovery^™ 10 is the next generation disaster recovery product family, succeeding the Acronis® True Image product line. It is designed to provide centralized management of all workstation and server backup and disaster recovery activities in Windows and Linux environments to help organizations of all sizes meet challenging Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs).

In addition, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 delivers an affordable deduplication option that helps IT departments to make a better use of their storage and network infrastructure, saving time and expense.

Benefits

Minimize downtime and meet challenging RTOs

The entire hard drive contents can be fully recovered in minutes, instead of hours or days— including the operating system, applications and data.

Centralized management improves IT productivity

The backup and recovery processes of all workstations and servers are carried out from a single location on the network — includes a centralized dashboard to provide an overview of the configured and running operations on all systems, enhancing control and decision making.

Storage and network savings through data deduplication

The Acronis^® Backup & Recovery^™ 10 Deduplication option provides affordable file- and block- level software deduplication functionality, helping organizations of all sizes to make a better use of their storage infrastructure and save costs.

Automate recovery with a simple, guided process

An intuitive interface makes it easy to install, quick to configure and deploy, and simple to use for both IT personnel and novices.

Free IT personnel from repetitive tasks

Grouping procedures enable policies and procedures to be implemented across a known range of systems, making it possible to carry out a mass recovery of many machines in minutes, rather than hours or days.

Fast and easy recovery

OS, applications and all data can be fully recovered in minutes, instead of hours or days.

Recover an entire system, single file or folder

Acronis image-based recoveries give you the granularity you need for any kind of recovery, putting you back in business in a hurry.

Acronis^® Advantage^SM support and maintenance program

The Acronis^® Advantage^SM program is an enhanced, multi-level subscription-based support and maintenance program. The first year of Acronis Advantage is included in the license price.

Key Features

Centralized management

Policy-based management of all backup and recovery operations from a single console.

Enhanced support for virtual environments

Backup and recovery of VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer and Parallels virtual environments via a traditional agent-based approach. For a more comprehensive approach of backing up virtual machines and environments, Acronis also offers Acronis^® Backup & Recovery^™ 10 Advanced Server Virtual Edition .

Data deduplication

File-and block-level deduplication eliminates backup copies of the same data and delivers substantial storage cost savings.

Scalability

Support as many as thousands of machines, backing up to multiple storage nodes.

Monitoring

Dashboard provides an overview of all configured and running operations, highlighting any processes that require attention.

Advanced scheduling capabilities

Backups can be triggered based on preset events and conditions.

Advanced encryption technology ensures data security

Provides extra layers of security to ensure that the backup data is protected.

Ref:- Acronis