Better backup and recovery: know your data and your storage

Computer Technology Review, March, 2004 by Ken Barth

You may only require a consolidated, centralized view of backups across one or a small handful of servers, with or without looking at these backups in relation to the entire storage network. You may be in a position of having to control your costs and justify your usage at the request of an entity that is higher on the food chain. You may be facing service-level agreements that require you to provide hundreds of reports each period to other departments within your organization. You may see the value in keeping your data groomed, systems balanced and potential bottlenecks scrutinized for the sheer altruistic joy of a job well done--that is, in addition to all of the above. In short, even if your control requirements do not stretch end-to-end, but only to your end, you may find that integrated management and reporting tools will provide as little or as much pain relief as you need, and are modular and scalable as your areas of responsibility and capability grow.

Performing a proactive diagnosis of data management problems is essential prior to considering any acquisition of storage or backup resources. Armed with in-depth information, it is possible to make a responsible decision instead of reactively or reflexively purchasing hardware. When evaluating your management options, consider toolkits that provide granular visibility into your environment and that offer a full complement of monitoring and reporting.

Storage challenges continue to grow as budgets diminish, but management software that goes the distance such as Profiler Rx, allows you to save time, ensure data availability, prove backup success and address many other device- or application-specific pain points to monitor usage patterns, simplify administration, and ensure consistency in your organization. With the modular approach of Profiler Rx, users can now implement as little or as much pain relief as they need and scale up as their network grows, while preventing unnecessary equipment acquisitions.

Ken Barth is president and CEO of Tek-Tools (Dallas, Texas)

www.tek-tools.com