W. Curtis Preston—known as Mr. Backup—is an expert in backup, storage, and recovery, having worked in the space since 1993. He has been an end-user, consultant, analyst, product manager, and technical evangelist.
He’s written four books on the subject, Backup & Recovery, Using SANs and NAS, and Unix Backup & Recovery.
Ironing out recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO) is crucial to balancing what stakeholders want and what it will cost to meet those expectations.
Replication excels at providing immediate data availability, but it shouldn’t be the sole safeguard against human errors, data corruption, or cyberattacks.
Snapshots are virtual copies that can rapidly recover data but depending on the approach can have very different performance characteristics.
You need to practice restoring your databases so when it becomes necessary in your live network, you’ll be prepared to do it right.
The surest way to protect data created on mobile devices may mean backing it up to the cloud and then backing up that backup.
Encryption, immutability, tape, and third-party key management are among measures to keep data backups safer.
Restricting access to onsite backup servers and limiting their ability for outbound communication are among ransomware defenses to protect enterprise data.
Compromised backup servers can thwart efforts to restore damage done by ransomware and give attackers the chance to extort payments in exchange for keeping sensitive stolen data secret.