According to Storage magazine's Spring 2010 Purchasing Intentions Survey, companies both large and small are decreasing their use of tape backup
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, but increasing the use of data
deduplication and cloud
storage technologies. According to the survey, "among large companies, 36% will decrease tape
use in 2010, the highest we've seen to date. For small companies, the figure is 34%, a six-point
jump from last fall and also the highest recorded in years." In terms of data dedupe, respondents
hoped to increase their spending on data deduplication, and cloud storage is also seeing a rise in
small business users, with 38% of respondents using at least one cloud storage service in their
backup environment.
To help you gain a more in-depth look at small business data backup from the past year, we've compiled our top five small business backup tips from 2010. See what you need to know when buying your first tape library, find out how to combine both tape and disk backup, learn about cloud archiving and read about how to choose the best data deduplication technology for your SMB.
TIP #1-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Buying your
first backup tape library: What you need to know
Backup tape libraries have several advantages. They have a bigger capacity than tape drives, more
features than a tape autoloader and are usually better built than tape autoloaders. In this tip,
find out what to look for when shopping for a tape library, the cost of tape libraries and what
tape format best fits your small business data backup environment. Read the full tip on buying your
first backup
tape library.
TIP #2-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tape vs.
disk backup: Get the best of both worlds with D2D2T
Whether to use tape or disk in your backup environment is an ongoing debate between both large and
small enterprises. Because both technologies have their pros and cons, it might be best to invest
in a combined disk-to-disk-to-tape (D2D2T) system, which first backs data up to a low-cost set of
disks, then copies that data over to tape. Find out the functions and features of D2D2T
and whether or not a D2D2T system is right for your SMB backup environment.
TIP #3-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Getting
started with cloud archiving: Tips for smaller businesses
Many small businesses assume they don't need to invest in cloud archiving if they already do some
sort of cloud backup. However, cloud archiving is not cloud backup, and cloud backups should not be
used as archives for your company. This tip looks at the differences between cloud archiving and
cloud backup, and how cloud archiving can benefit SMBs. Read the full tip on getting started with
cloud
archiving.
TIP #4-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Small
business data backup tutorials and tips
Data backup is always the biggest pain point for data storage administrators, especially those at
small businesses; their tasks are often the same as large enterprises, but they have fewer
resources, a lower budget and a smaller staff. This tip is a collection of tutorials and tips on
small business data backup. See how to handle data backup technologies from an SMB perspective,
from data deduplication, to tape backup, to the newest backup option for SMBs -- cloud backup. Read
the full collection of small
business data backup tutorials and tips.
TIP #5-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Deduplication
best practices and choosing the best dedupe technology
Because data deduplication technology reduces the amount of data in storage environments, it offers
several benefits, including more efficient use of disk space. This guide explains how to choose the
best dedupe technology for your small business data backup environment. Learn about the pros and
cons of source deduplication and target deduplication, the difference between inline dedupe and
post-process dedupe and the pros and cons of global deduplication. Read the full deduplication
best practices guide.
This was first published in December 2010