Backup và DR: Strategies for backing up and recovering data

Today, data is considered a valuable asset, with market analysts like Gartner and IDC referring to it as the "data era". In Vietnam's current digital transformation journey, data is seen as a fundamental component—if there is no data, there can be no digital transformation. In this article, Viettel IDC will provide basic information to give you an overview of appropriate measures for backing up and recovering data after a disaster. This will help you make decisions regarding your business's database.

Risks leading to data loss

Currently, organizations and businesses are facing numerous risks that can result in severe data loss. There are five main causes of data loss, including:

1. Hardware failures (server, hard drive, network devices) causing disruptions in access and application operations.

2. Human errors: Mistakes made by system administrators (accidental deletion or modification of files), which can be difficult to recover from without backups.

3. Cyberattacks: Cyberattacks have surpassed hardware and human errors as the leading cause of data loss. One of the most prevalent forms of cyberattack recently is ransomware, where customer data is encrypted and held for ransom. Without backups, recovery becomes nearly impossible. Once attacked, businesses are left with the option to either comply with the hacker's demands or manually reconstruct data from alternative sources.

4. Natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, and other calamities causing power outages or data center fires and explosions.

5. Centralized storage device failures: Most business data is stored in centralized storage systems (NAS, SAN, Object Storage). If these systems experience critical failures, there is a risk of complete data loss and disruption of customer services.

Backup and DR: solutions to protect data

To address these issues, organizations can choose from two commonly used data protection measures today, including Backup and Disaster Recovery (DR). However, they are applied in different scenarios and cater to different types of data.

Backup

Backup involves copying data into one or more copies and storing them in different locations or infrastructures to ensure recovery capability, particularly in cases where the primary device encounters issues. Therefore, issues categorized under groups 1, 2, and 3 can be resolved through backup solutions.

DR and Effective Data Backup/Recovery Strategy

DR involves an organization predicting and handling technology-related disasters. DR solutions focus on three key elements: planning, processes, and tools to ensure the organization's IT systems are restored as quickly as possible. This solution is suitable for issues falling under groups 4 and 5.

Specifically, to implement an effective data backup/recovery strategy, we approach three main issues:

1. Identifying data types (structured or unstructured) and data sources (physical, virtual) because not all data needs to be backed up 100%.

2. Prioritizing the concepts of RPO (Recovery Point Objective) and RTO (Recovery Time Objective). For example, if a system fails at 8 AM and the most recent synchronized data from the primary site to the backup site was at 2 AM, the RPO indicates the amount of data lost in the timeframe from 2 AM to 8 AM. Hence, when designing backup/recovery strategies, careful attention should be paid to this metric.

3-2-1 Rule: Gold standard in data backup

This rule dictates:

- Having 3 copies of data (1 primary and 2 backups).

- Storing these copies on two different types of media, with 2 copies kept onsite to facilitate quick restoration.

- Keeping the primary copy offsite to guard against data center failures (backing up to service providers).

5 Basic steps for implementing a data backup/recovery project

- Step 1: Identify the types of data requiring backup. Assess the risks associated with each data type to prioritize backups accordingly.

- Step 2: Plan for each type of data. Determine whether Backup or DR is necessary and establish corresponding RPO and RTO requirements. Develop specific backup jobs for each type of data.

- Step 3: Choose the appropriate solution. Today, VN enterprises deploy diverse IT infrastructures including physical, private cloud, and public cloud. Even within a single enterprise, Multi-Cloud systems may exist, and Viettel IDC offers backup/recovery models for all these systems.

- Step 4: Implement the solution.

- Step 5: Conduct regular drills. IT systems frequently undergo architectural and scale changes, making periodic drills essential for minimizing errors and reducing recovery time.

Conclusion

In years of providing Data Center and Cloud Computing services, Viettel IDC has encountered numerous cases which customers were affected by ransomware attacks. Viettel IDC's backup and data recovery solutions have effectively minimized damages for customers, sometimes even preventing any loss despite ransom demands reaching millions in virtual currency.

However, some businesses have yet to implement timely backup solutions, leading to challenging and risky incident responses.

For further information on our services, please contact Viettel IDC:

- Hotline: 1800.8088 (free call)

- Fanpage: https://www.facebook.com/viettelidc

- Website: https://viettelidc.com.vn

Viettel IDC – Leading provider of Data Center and Cloud Computing solutions in Vietnam