🤓 W. Curtis Preston’s Post

How many times must I say that snapshots are not backups? Not until they are copied somewhere else, that is. In the case of storage snapshots, they rely on the original for most of their data. In the case of cloud "snapshots" (because I don't like calling them that) they are residing inside the account they are backing up. If your filer dies, so do your snapshots. If your AWS account is deleted, so are your snapshots. Just ask "Codespaces dot com" a company that was deleted in one step by a hacker, and whose backups were in the deleted account. Do you folks run into this? Do people not realize they have to copy their cloud snapshots to another account to protect them from hackers? Do people really still think snapshots of a filer volume are actually good enough? Please give me hope. Please tell me I can stop explaining this. We talked about it on this week's episode of The Backup Wrap-up. You can check it out here: https://apple.co/3N6gDIX

Has anyone been around long enough to remember when CDP (Continuous Data Protection) was going to solve all our DR woes? (Hint: it was about 20 years ago, to my memory.) It seemed that half of Storage Networking World (remember SNW?) was CDP vendors. And all of them said they were going to change the world. Most of them are gone now or were acquired as part of a bigger portfolio. CDP still offers great value for the right need. It's hard to beat an RPO and RTO of zero, right? The question is which apps need such a stringent requirement AND are willing to pay the extra cost that comes w/CDP. It's also not a replacement for backup, so you have to pay for both! Eeeek! If you want to hear me and my cohost Prasanna Malaiyandi discuss the state of CDP, you can check out the most recent episode of The Backup Wrap-up: https://bit.ly/3u0IMu6 What are your thoughts on CDP? Do you use it for DR? Where does it show the most promise? #CDP #DataProtection #CyberRecovery #DisasterRecovery

Data protection thought of the week: While replication is an essential element to many data protection strategies, it is not (by itself) a viable tool for such needs. It's a great way to distribute and migrate data, but it (again, by itself) is a horrible way to provide backup or DR to a critical application. Why is that, you say? Because replication simply makes your mistake (e.g. dropping a DB table) or attack (e.g. ransomware) more efficient. You will have two dropped tables and two copies of ransomware if all you use is replication to protect it. This is why historically, apps needing tight RTOs/RPOs used backup for operational recovery and replication for DR. But even that is bad design when we look at modern problems, because an attack can take out both your primary and your replicated copy. Over the last decade or so, we've looked at a variety of other ways to get this job done – possibly with one tool. We've looked at source-side dedupe, replication coupled with snapshots, and even continuous data protection to give us both backup and DR that won't get taken out in an attack. I'll be talking about each of those in the coming weeks, but I wanted to start with replication due to (a) how popular it is and (b) why I think it's so bad by itself. What do you think? Am I giving replication a bad rap, here? If you'd like to hear Prasanna and I bloviate about this, feel free to check out this week's episode of The Backup Wrap-up. https://lnkd.in/gtjVEqwp

Is it a backup, or is it just a copy? A backup will be very useful when your server, database, laptop, or other resource is damaged, destroyed, or hacked. A copy will disappear with the destroyed or hacked resource it was meant to protect. Many people make copies when they want to make a backup, and they don't find out until it's too late. - Storage snapshots are virtual copies that aren't even a copy, let alone a backup. Double disk failure or fire and you'll be crying. - Versioning inside the same system (e.g. Microsoft 365) are copies, not backups. Someone hacks 365 and you're SOL, buddy. - A replicated storage array, volume, or database for DR will be rendered useless when you delete a directory or drop a table (We talk about what makes a copy a backup in this week's episode of The Backup Wrap-up. Check it out here: https://lnkd.in/gPvDF7x7 ) Do you have other examples of things that are copies and not backups? I'd love to see them in the comments.

Are you backing up your IaaS, PaaS, & SaaS data? I mean... you are backing it up, right? If you're backing it up, how are you protecting those backups from a ransomware attack against that cloud account? Are your backups stored in the same cloud account you're backing up? I hope not. You don't have to look any further than the stories of codespaces.com, OVH, RackSpace, Musey Inc & KPMG to see what happens when you don't have SEPARATE backups of your cloud data. Codespaces: hacker deleted the whole company and its backups OVH: Fire destroys IaaS datacenter & its backup servers Rackspace: Ransomware attack destroys hosted Exchange business & it never recovered Musey, Inc: Admin deletes entered g-drive account & doesn't get it back KPMG: User deletes accidentally all private chats of 150K employees These are just the greatest hits. The stories go on and on. What do you think? How should you properly back up your cloud data? We talk about this on this week's episode of The Backup Wrap-up. If you're interested, come check it out! Here's a link: https://lnkd.in/gjpyV2e2 #DataProtection #CloudInfrastructure #Ransomware #CyberSecurity

I think we need to be backing up the Internet of Things. I doubt it surprises you that I do, though, right? I mean, "Mr. Backup thinks you need to back up something" isn't quite an attention-grabbing headline, is it? LOL. Since I'm pretty sure you might think I'm wrong, let me clarify. I don't think I need to back up my Ring camera, my smart thermostat, or the series of smart plugs I have in my house. I also don't think we need to back up the sensor devices driving a car plant, the smart street lights and water meters, or even the body cams the police are wearing now. But we should be talking about all the data these devices create, where it goes, and whether or not the data is important enough to BACK UP! So NOW what do you think? How many different places is IOT data being stored in your org, and have you had any conversations about protecting it? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments. If you want to hear more of my thoughts on the matter, you can listen to this week's episode of The Backup Wrap-Up podcast! Latest episode is here: https://apple.co/48NGq1q #DataProtection #IoT #SaaS #DigitalAge #Backup

Are you using (or considering using) a hybrid cloud storage system like Nasuni, CTERA, Panzura, etc? One of the selling points of such systems is they say backup is included. OR IS IT? EVERYTHING NEEDS A BACKUP. So how are they providing backup services? Would what they are doing make Mr. Backup happy? How does the platform provide for operational recovery, disaster recovery, and cyber recovery? Where are backup copies/versions stored? Are they in the same account, region, etc? Or is there a completely separate copy in a different account/service/region? Do they use ACTUAL immutable storage for the backup, or is the immutability simply something in their UI? In other words, if I steal your admin access to the S3 bucket you are using for storage, can I delete the backups? What happens if I delete the entire account? Does the backup system support dedupe? Extra copies can get very expensive. How easy is it to restore a single file, a complete user, or a complete folder? What kind of cyber defense features are built into the product? What happens if I delete/corrupt/lose my configuration? All of my files are now thousands/millions of objects in S3. Is there a way to put Humpty Dumpty together again? SOUND OUT! What do you think? Anyone from these three vendors is welcome to participate in the conversation. Just realize that if you do, I will ask pointed in questions to your comments. :) The discussion we had on this week's podcast will challenge your preconceived notions and leave you with a fresh perspective on the topic. If you'd like to listen to it, just search for "The Backup Wrap-Up." (We just changed the name this week! It's the podcast formerly known as "Backup Central's Restore it All.") #TheBackupWrapUp #DataProtection #BackupAndRecovery #CyberRecovery

5 Star Review: "Insightful and entertaining: They are shedding light on a very crucial part of business that doesn’t seem to get enough attention. Cyber attacks are only ramping up mor…" via @PodpageHQ

Do you think backup and security are merging? This week I had the pleasure of hosting two guests from N-able, (Chris Groot and Stefan Voss). My biggest takeaway from the conversation the convergence of security and data protection: While they acknowledged that these are distinct swim lanes, they emphasized how these two domains are rapidly converging. This realization was reinforced by their experiences at industry conferences, where they observed the growing importance of backup in the context of security. It's clear that the boundaries between these domains are blurring, and this has significant implications for businesses and professionals in both fields. What do you think? Which of the following do you agree with? 1. Backup people need to learn more about information security 2. Information security people need to learn more about backup 3. We need to merge these two disciplines The podcast's home is here: https://lnkd.in/gujDzmVT The episode is here: https://bit.ly/3t2KHO9 #Backup #DataProtection #Security #BackupCentral #RestoreItAll

Recently when speaking with a cyber expert (Rick Mischka) for my podcast, he really gave me food for thought, especially when it comes to battling ransomware. He talked about how as technology professionals, we often believe that the solution to every problem lies in a new piece of gear or software. However, he emphasized that IT has three sides: process, people, and technology. He thinks the focus should be on optimizing processes, then people, and then leveraging technology to enhance data protection & cyber security. This caused me to rethink my oft-discussed dream of using ML/AI to detect and stop data exfiltration. What do you think? What is your priority of people, process and technology? Oh, BTW, if you'd like to hear what he said, here's the episode: https://apple.co/3PI5Mq0 #DataProtection #Cybersecurity #AI #Biometrics #Networking