Mobility will increase bandwidth backup issues

Phil Evans notes that increased mobility means looking at backup again

Tablets and other more mobile devices are increasingly being added to the mix of laptops and desktops hosting corporate information that requires data backup – although the IT manager is unlikely to have any additional bandwidth for those users.

Why not then back up to a product that connects to the main vault when the network is quiet – perhaps at night or over the weekend?

Local NAS installed on the office LAN performs backup at network speed without using huge amounts of bandwidth, although the initial backup has a larger footprint. Users back up locally over the LAN and store all the backups from one office. All the local staff back up to the NAS device.

This solution works in areas where bandwidth is expensive and where speeds are not much better than those offered by the old 14.4k modems – in less-developed parts of the world, for example.

These tools often come with deduplication functionality as well, so customers can ensure that data is sent just the once. Also, local backup can be encrypted and it can be restored quickly if needed. Detailed audits should be available in case of data breach, so you can know exactly what data has been compromised.

This may seem needless when you consider that the data is encrypted. However, customers can use the information to query their processes and mitigate their risk in future.

Software can also be used to block ports where needed. Also, end users will often disable encryption if they can as it slows them down.

Companies need a way to back up data without affecting productivity, but still remaining secure and then being able to call up those backups when the data is needed.

Phil Evans is vice president for EMEA sales at Datacastle