Data is more than gold: Comprehensive solutions protect it

Modern organizations, regardless of their field of activity, now recognize that data is one of their most valuable assets. At the same time, data security is also an increasingly common issue in the era of significant growth in cyber attacks and the ever-increasing dependence of company processes on access to data.

More sophisticated approaches

Today, companies operate IT services in different modes. Either on your own infrastructure in your own server room or in a data center. If the company decides on its own solution, it provides procurement, management and maintenance from its own resources. Subsequent operation is then carried out by internal IT experts or an external partner.

In the case of public cloud storage, the company uses the capacities of an external service provider. The location of the data takes place outside the company’s premises, and the data center operator takes care of the administration, hardware and security. From a financial point of view, this form is therefore often more advantageous for companies.

Finding the most suitable solution is much more difficult today than it used to be. With the proliferation of modern cloud solutions, more sophisticated approaches are needed to meet the ever-evolving data and platform needs of the modern organization. It is for these reasons that one of the most popular solutions is the so-called hybrid cloud, which combines the advantages of both forms and is used by thousands of organizations.

In this way, a certain part of the company’s infrastructure runs on its own cloud and hardware, and the rest in the public cloud. However, both parts are integrated in a single system, thanks to which a flexible environment is achieved. Thus, the organization can scale either traditional or cloud storage as needed.

Deposit as insurance

According to eGroup Solutions, hybrid cloud is a path for businesses to cloud adaptation, agility, efficiency and security. It provides many of the advantages of the modern cloud – flexibility, managed services, but also savings, as well as the advantages of local IT infrastructure components, which are often closely related to the organization’s most sensitive data, or to data that is created even before it is processed.

The integration of a well-designed backup system is a key element to ensure data protection in the new cloud architecture. Companies that have started using cloud architecture should consider the advantages of hybrid cloud and invest in a reliable backup solution for their important data in the cloud.

In addition to regular backups, a very important part of data security is resistance to data loss and outages or fast data recovery after any crash. Ensuring reliable and effective backup procedures in the hybrid cloud is not only a security policy, but becomes a strategic step for maintaining business continuity. The best way to manage and protect data in the hybrid cloud is to choose and use a unique data backup solution.

At a time when cyber threats are on the rise, ransomware attacks are a serious threat. Fast and efficient backup allows the company to bypass the demands of cybercriminals in the form of a ransom and restore data from a secure backup storage.

Most cloud providers provide different solutions for these purposes. The most common is a certain form of so-called replication, i.e. mirroring of data within the data center to an independent infrastructure, from local storage to the cloud or to completely different geographical areas. This offers greater protection against a single-site disaster in which data storage becomes unavailable or data is completely lost. Addressing data resilience only by replication is not a sufficient solution for its complete protection, however.

Automation and orchestration

Data loss resilience attempts to ensure that data is up-to-date and not deleted or lost. It is also necessary that they can be restored in a very short time without the user even noticing.

Some causes, such as the accidental cutting of cables when digging infrastructure, cannot be completely eliminated, but they can be designed so that the IT service continues to run in a backup manner. Also, planned shutdowns cannot be ruled out, for example when updating systems. In all other cases, according to the company eGroup Solutions, if an outage occurs, it is possible to quickly remove the consequences, as they are under control, and to achieve the required continuity together with rapid data recovery.

Approaching zero system outages is made possible by a concept called Zero Downtime from eGroup Solutions, which is a platinum partner of IBM Slovakia. The company claims that the IT environments it operates, and not only those in the cloud, are always under the control of the Zero Downtime Center – a tool with modules to support IT management.

A single solution for everything

Experts advise companies to choose solutions for all scenarios. One product means one supplier, one set of configuration problems or one set of training. It is also ideal if the solution can work on several platforms – local, cloud or in different variants.

It’s ideal to choose a provider-neutral strategy from the start and build your backup strategy from the start to match multiple cloud providers. It will then not be necessary to modify it.

Data that starts in AWS should be able to flow to Microsoft Azure or Google or IBM Cloud without change, and the backup solution should easily adapt to the location of the data without the company having to worry about changing its format. When backing up, the company should also be able to back up all its data without special steps for each storage variation.

This solution uses several open-source technologies to ensure its key functions, together with IBM software components licensed under the Embedded Solution Agreement (ESA) regime, which allows IBM software to be used as part of partners’ own ESA solution.

This solution is an irreplaceable part of backup. Every company has many information systems available for different processes, and each of them backs up data at different times and with different frequencies. This is because the more complex the hybrid cloud is, the more complex the backup strategy should be. An effective backup strategy must be flexible in itself to support the evolving business and not be a limiting factor.

Data backup is a sophisticated topic, so even the chosen partner who can guarantee data recovery after a crash should have enough experience in this area. Most data changes over time. It is therefore essential that the strategy covers all data types and formats. The chosen solution must accommodate different backup approaches, instead of forcing all the disparate data into one specific and therefore inflexible form.

A key component of a solid backup strategy is flexibility. However, without automation, it would be extremely limiting. The preparation of backup and recovery in the hybrid cloud is a complex process. Thanks to automation, it is completed without intervention, and at the end of it, the user receives a report on its result.

Added to automation is orchestration, which takes all the automated processes that each do separate things and combines and manages them into a complex organization. In this way, it is possible to achieve a smoother functioning of the organization than ever before.

About eGroup Solutions

eGroup Solutions, as is a Slovak company that designs, builds and operates reliable and secure IT infrastructure. It was founded in 2009, while the portfolio of its activities grew gradually, but it was always connected with the concept of operation with zero downtime – Zero Downtime, which today also includes cloud solutions such as DRaaS, OaaS, ITaaS, which it primarily deals with today. eGroup Solutions, as is a platinum partner of IBM Slovensko, spol. Ltd