Top 10 2007: #3: Continuous Data Protection (CDP)
OK, this isn’t so much a product as it is a class of products. Actually, a class of services.
Let us explain:
Going back to the beginning of computer time, engineers realized the importance of BACKUPS. “You can never be too safe with critical data!” was the battle cry of many a computer warrior.
Backups began life as critical information copied to large reels of magnetic tape, and then manually carried off-site by THE KEEPER OF THE BACKUP. If an Act of God were to happen upon and smite both the inhabitants and the computers at the live location, the backup was safely removed off-site and data was (hopefully) recoverable.
And thus it was in the 1960’s. And the 70’s. And into the 80’s.
Then, an incredible breakthrough!!!! They made the tapes smaller. Well, a lot smaller… But the concept was exactly the same: Back up to tape, and physically take the tape off-site.
That was the 80’s and the 90’s.
The 21st Century arrived, and things still carried on as they were. But a few years into it, someone had a truly bright idea: how about making a complete “image” copy of the original hard drive (definition: “image copy” is a byte-for-byte duplicate of the hard drive. An exact, well, image). Instead of just saving critical data, we could now save the data and ALL SYSTEM SETTINGS, so that, in the event of, yes, an Act of God, you could recover not just your critical data but also your entire system, without having to reinstall Operating Systems and Applications and reconfiguring everything! Praise be thee, Lord! And pass the Manischevitz!
And it was good. But not as good as good could possibly be.
Problems still remained. There were still a few gaping holes:
1. Data was usually backed up once a day. What would happen if there were a critical failure 23 hours after the last backup?
2. Data was stored off-site only. In the event of a computer problem, major or minor, time to recover from an off-site location was measured in hours, not minutes;
3. There was widespread lack of testing of the integrity of backups. A recent report by a very well respected journal (trust us) has indicated that as many as 70% of all recovery attempts made from backups failed due to one or more reasons, including, most commonly, human error with properly establishing correct backup procedures to begin with.
Alas, it was not so good. Not nearly as good as the goodness originally appeared to be.
But, lo and behold, came the year of two thousand and seven, the same year that the Holy War in the ancient land of Iraq went into it’s fifth year, one year longer than World War II, with no end in sight (pardon the digression).
Two thousand and seven, also known as 2007, saw the introduction of what we at 123 Technology are now considering the Holy Grail of Backup and Recovery.
Picture this:
You are on a Windows server network. Your server is the essential hub of activity. In fact, you are running Windows 2003 Server for Small Business Server (aka, thankfully, “SBS”), which acts as your Active Directory root domain controller, file sharing server, printing server, Microsoft Exchange E-Mail Server, and the collaborative neighborhood called Sharepoint, full of things called ‘blogs’ and ‘wikis’ and ‘process-driven document repositories’ and other scary stuff.
And it’s all pretty scary, and only but a precious few power geeks actually know how the whole thing stays together and works, but everyone knows that daily business life almost completely depends on that server being UP and AVAILABLE to the corporate masses, and that all of the data placed, stored, and retrieved thereupon, therein and therefrom must be kept whole and preserved, and available 99.999% of the time, and that none of said data could ever be irretrievably lost lest the company suffer extermination with the loss of its secret sauce.
Fear not! We now have a solution. From the people-who-love-to-call-everything-by-an-acryonym, and-then-fight-over-what-the-heck-the-acronym-really-means (pwltcebaaatfowthtarm) department comes Continuous Data Protection, or “CDP”.
Ah, this is very good! Very very good, indeed! ! In fact, perhaps most excellent! !! But what the heck does it really mean?
Well wouldn’t you know that of all things, the devil is in the details. And, too, we are hereupon the celebration of the country’s birthday and must go forth into the night and celebrate, so alas, the details will need to be saved for another time, soon to come.
But trust us: it’s really cool.
RG, 123T on this, the one hundred and eight forth day in the year two thousand and seven of the Lord.