Almost all of our customers who have implemented a backup system (BMS) think that this solves all their problems. They did everything in their power to ensure that everything was backed up and, in the event of an accident, correctly restored. But it often happens like this: the company is facing a serious problem, and the traditional backup system does not allow you to recover within the time that the company considers to be the target. In fact, the SLA, which the backup system must comply with, is not met. Alas, during our work we have accumulated many sad examples confirming this. Below we present two cases and give advice on what technical means will reduce the recovery time. When choosing cases, we focused on examples related to databases, where the most business-critical information was stored.

Retail Challenges

Customer: large insurance company.

Brief description of the cause of the crash: personnel error, incorrect patch installation on Oracle.

Description of the problem

We are talking about a large company that has a mature IT department and invests enough in its equipment and staff. Suffice it to say that the Oracle DBMS was running on two Oracle Exadata, distributed over two technology sites, with a well-developed DR solution and a customized backup system.

One sad day, it was decided to install a patch on the Oracle DBMS. Unfortunately, the engineer did not read the instructions to the end: “What, I won’t install the patch without a piece of paper ?!” - and did it wrong. The error was noticed a few hours later, when the DBMS began to behave strangely and report it in the logs. Then the engineer decided to roll back. This action finally immobilized both instances of the database (all changes managed to be replicated to Standby) and corrupted all the data.

The company was left without its main information asset - a database through which all business processes worked. Business has practically stopped.

Solution

The customer has decided to restore from a backup. At that time, restoring a 5 TB database (now ~ 15 TB) took - attention! - over 30 hours! In total, after 1.5 days the base was restored a day before the accident. But there was more data! Everything else was restored by programmers and staff from other company systems, from primary documentation (application forms, copies, scans). It took another 1.5 days of hard work.

Total

2 High-End Oracle Exadata systems, Oracle Standby, working backup system and 3!!! days of complete downtime due to incorrect patch installation. Was this allowed by company policy? Of course not.

The main problem: the lack of quick recovery tools for logical errors.

How could you have avoided

To mitigate the consequences of such accidents, you need to move in two directions. On the one hand, to make backups more often, and on the other hand, to be able to recover quickly. The following products might help:

Oracle FlashBack- a technology that allows you to not only "roll forward" new data to the backup Oracle system, but also roll back to the desired transaction. With such a scheme, it would be possible to roll back the system before the problems with the patch began, which would greatly facilitate data recovery.

Snapshot technology. Snapshots allow you to back up and restore data in seconds. At the same time, they have little effect on performance, and it is possible to take snapshots quite often (for example, once an hour). Thus, it was possible to roll back an hour and recover only an hour of lost data.

Continuous Data Protection- continuous data protection. These are proprietary devices or software that allow you to log all records with the ability to roll back to any point in time. Works similar to Oracle FlashBack, but for any data.

Case: Hardware failure

Customer: Federal service in one of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation

Brief description of the cause of the crash: hardware error inside the disk array.

Description of the problem

This time the company has a slightly less developed IT infrastructure, but it is more common with our customers: mid-level disk arrays, Oracle DBMS, Standby is not used.

As is often the case, on Friday, when everyone was happily going home, the array hardware failed. Due to a bug in the firmware, when a disk failed, the array turned the data into a mess. From this, the databases of the federal level service stopped working. For more than a day, the customer was waiting for a solution from the storage vendor. After analyzing all the logs, the vendor gave his conclusion: the data is lost!

Solution

The customer has decided to restore from a backup. This process took about a day, despite all the tricks and performance tuning (the base is quite large). While the database was being restored, the backup copy of the logs was lost (the Retention Period was set too short, the SRK deleted them itself).

Further - deeper. The company, like many others, at some points used unlogged operations in Oracle, which greatly improves performance, but leaves no chance to recover, except from a backup. That is, it must be done immediately after the operation session. Naturally, over the years, the operation service forgot about this. Thus, part of the data was completely lost.

It took a few more days to completely restore infrastructure services - there were no backup copies of operating systems, binaries, configurations, etc.

All the lost information was collected from primary documents (third-party databases, paper documents, data on the computers of the tellers), which took another 3 days. Some documents may never have been recovered.

Total

An array problem caused data loss and downtime for about a week! In modern conditions, this can lead to the bankruptcy of the company.

Main problems:

• RMS was set up incorrectly, trial restores were not performed.
• There were no means of prompt recovery in case of an accident and no redundant systems.
• There was no clear DR plan.

How could this be avoided:

• Use Oracle Standby located on another array. This would allow for a short time to switch to a running data instance.
• Oracle ZDLRA would have made it possible to restore the database on backup equipment in a much shorter time.
• Proper planning of backup and recovery processes would have avoided such large losses and recovered in less than a day.

Output. From the above examples, it can be seen that the backup systems were installed and configured, but despite this, they were not able to recover within the time frame specified in the SLA.

Main problems of backup systems

Based on our experience, we decided to highlight a number of problems that, in our opinion, readers should pay special attention to.

Speed ​​of backup and subsequent recovery

At the moment, the backup speed is directly proportional to the amount of data, while all of our customers have an annual data growth of at least 30%. In 3-4 years, data at least doubles, but for some companies this figure is even higher, while during the same time the backup speed does not change at all. Here we can make a simple conclusion that those terms and those SLAs that were relevant 3–4 years ago now need to be at least doubled. At the same time, business requirements for data recovery (RPO / RTO) are constantly growing.

Gradually, all business processes of the company are being transferred to IT and paper primary documents (copies and originals of documents, applications, scans, etc.) are dying out. Everything revolves inside IT systems, and data loss is, in fact, the loss of everything. IT no longer has the right to make mistakes. In the cases that we cited, all the time the data was not available due to various circumstances, the companies could not function. This led to both direct losses, when it was impossible to carry out the main business process of the organization, and implicit ones, for example, reputational ones, which are not so easy to measure in monetary terms, but which in the future can cause no less damage to the company.

On the image I reflected my observations regarding recovery time (RTO). As data grows, the actual recovery time will certainly increase, while SLA requirements will only become tougher. The point on the graph where the actual time equals the required time has already been passed for most customers.

Dependence of recovery time on the amount of data

Low granularity recovery

In fact, most errors are due to the loss of some part of the data. At the same time, traditional backup tools allow you to restore data directly from backup, but more often you have to restore the entire system. If your database is 15 TB, you will spend several days on it. We do not know customers who have an RTO (Recovery Time Objective) requirement of 2 days. In our practice, there were no such examples when the client would say: “Guys, it's normal to recover for 2 days, I'll be patient,” if the administrator accidentally deleted several rows from the database. A fairly common problem that our customers face is how to isolate a small piece of data from a backup without restoring it itself (and not spending several days on it).

Excessive RPO (Recovery Point Objective)

In a world where paper records have disappeared and everything is stored in IT systems, data is created every second that we would like to protect immediately - at the same moment when it was created. But with the help of classic backup systems, this cannot be done. For each piece of data, there is a certain long period of time during which this data exists all over the world in a single copy. Our customers want to protect data continuously, from the moment it appears. When deciding to restore from a backup, you will most likely have to restore a day ago, then the data for the day will need to be obtained from somewhere else. As a rule, this is a long work of administrators, which takes several days. With the most negative development of events, this can result in the loss of critical information. Of course, the question is not limited to backup, it concerns the construction of an IT system as a whole, but the topic of RMS in this case is very important, it cannot be neglected.

Hidden bugs

Unfortunately, there are still no cheap and quick options to check how well the backup is made. Of course, this can be done with periodic test restores, but this is a very expensive operation in terms of human effort and IT resources. This is the work of a separate team on a separate hardware.

Alas, most of our clients do not. It often happens that everyone makes backup copies, but by the time of restoration, it turns out that they could not be done - they simply are not restored, despite the outwardly correct operation of the RMS. This happens for various reasons. And the best way to demonstrate this is with an example. One of our customers used a SAP system with an Oracle database. Backup was carried out by built-in SAP tools with the help of one of the largest vendors of SRK.

2 different backup policies were configured: one of them was file-based - it copied operating system data and software settings, and the second one - the database itself. Since they were directed to the same system, an exclusion list was set up in which the database was entered. The file policy took into account this list and did not reserve those directories in which the database was located. Due to the peculiarities of the RMS architecture, the database reservation policy ignored the list of exceptions and correctly copied the necessary data.

In one of the software releases, this vendor fixed this “bug”, from that day on, both policies began to take into account the list of exceptions and bypass the database. Moreover, this did not affect the errors in the RMS software in any way, since it worked normally: all data not specified in the list was backed up normally. The system reported on its serviceability.

Thus, everything worked for more than six months. Until you need to recover...

Non-systematic approach

An important problem is a non-systematic approach to the problem of backup. RMS has historically been built either by the company itself or by an integrator involved. At the time of construction, it certainly met all the requirements and performed its function entirely. Over time, the company's IT landscape has changed. At the same time, the backup system simply adjusted to it as the system developed, and most often no systematic approach that would take into account the importance of keeping the system in line with the initial indicators at all subsequent stages was observed. When building an RMS in your organization, remember that this is only part of your data protection strategy.

We have presented several case studies that demonstrate that the approach to data protection should be comprehensive. Alas, the SRC is just a reserve parachute, not a silver bullet, so when starting to create it, you need to clearly understand what place it will take in the global data protection strategy.

To check how systematically you have approached the issue of building RMS, answer a few simple questions:

• Do you have a built-in risk model, within which the place of the IBS is registered?
• What failures does the IBS protect you from?
• How do you protect yourself from other risks (these may be not just technical solutions, but also other compensatory measures)?
• Are you sure that the system will recover within the specified time frame?
• Have you tested this in practice?

Solution

Based on our own experience and the experience of our customers, we have tried to develop an approach that allows us to solve or significantly reduce the consequences of these problems. The essence of our approach:

First, you need to decouple the speed of backup and recovery from the volume of the system. Manufacturers of storage systems, application software and RMS offer some tools that can be used to solve this problem. Below I will describe the most promising of them.

Snapshots allow you to back up and restore data in seconds with virtually no impact on performance. This is done by means of the array, and at the same time it can be controlled by the SRC, be part of its policy. Such backup and recovery really takes seconds, which distinguishes this technology from classic systems with alienable media.

Another solution could be to use various application tools, such as Oracle Standby, DB2 HADR, MS SQL Always On. All these tools allow you to have a working copy of a productive system, decoupled from the original, which can be deployed instantly. This allows you to start working immediately after failures.

The second is to give the opportunity to recover only the necessary data. Our approach takes into account that when restoring part of the data, we do not need to copy the entire system, we can restore the data that we need at the moment. This is achieved by the ability to quickly deploy or use already deployed systems that contain this data. Just like in the first case, snapshots allow you to solve this problem (you can quickly open a snapshot to a neighboring server and pull out the necessary piece of data). This also includes continuous data protection technologies, for example, Oracle Standby with Flashback, continuous data protection (CDP) solutions. They allow you to quickly deploy a working copy of the data at the right time.

When you need to get one logical block, for example, a row or a database table, these tools greatly facilitate the task, allowing you to restore the necessary piece of data without restoring the entire copy.

The third is to reduce the gap between the appearance of data and their protection. This can be achieved in several ways, based on the specifics of a particular case and the degree of importance of the data.

For example, for less critical systems, the time interval for backup can be reduced to several hours. In this case, we use snapshots. They can serve as a restore point, which can be done once an hour. Some modern arrays cope with these processes quite well and can store a fairly large number of system snapshots. This is a great way out of a situation where you need to roll back a while.

For the most critical systems, there may not be a time interval at all - data must be protected continuously. There are several solutions of this class, for example, Oracle Standby with FlashBack, which allows you to roll back the database some time ago by logging all changes. You can also use the Oracle ZDLRA PAC, which almost synchronously receives all changes to the database, or general-purpose hardware and software systems, for example, EMC RecoverPoint, Vision Solutions Double-Take software. They also log all changes and allow you to restore to any point in the time interval.

When it comes to innovations in backup and recovery systems, one cannot fail to mention the Oracle Zero Data Loss Recovery Appliance (ZDLRA). This software and hardware complex of the Oracle Engineered Systems family provides the ability to backup and quickly restore Oracle Database of any platform and any Edition (Enterprise and Standard). ZDLRA is based on virtual backup databases (Virtual Full Backup), obtained on the basis of the first full backup and subsequent change logs. Due to these virtual backups, you can restore the database to any point in time much faster than with the classical use of the RMS according to the scheme “full backup once a week, incremental once a day”. We can say that ZDLRA continues the direction given by Oracle Exadata. In Exadata, due to special Software, an innovative storage system is implemented, optimized for Oracle Database tasks. And in ZDLRA there is a special Software that optimizes the backup of Oracle Database.

Now we are talking only about operational recovery. In the event of major disasters or the need to recover more time back, regular backups remain an indispensable tool. But in the current conditions, this is only a reserve parachute, opened at the last moment.

The fourth is the reduction of latent errors. There is only one way to make sure that the backup is working correctly - to try to restore it. This is the most correct and rarely used method by our customers.

But we offer a way out of this situation. First, to have easily recoverable system instances. This is again a story about snapshot and standby systems that can be quickly deployed and tested. It will take incomparably less time and effort than "unwinding" the entire backup. Of course, this does not always help, but it leaves a little more hope that in the event of an emergency it will be possible to recover data at least by these means.

Secondly, some SRKs allow you to perform automated testing. At a certain time, according to a schedule, you can run virtual machines in an isolated environment and, using predefined algorithms, check whether the data has really been restored, whether the application is available, whether it is consistent, and whether it responds to the necessary requests. In this way, administrators can be saved from long routine work.

Fifth - the transparency of the backup system. The described integrated approach involves building a complex system using a variety of technologies from different manufacturers. The task of making this system really workable, laying in it the possibility of further changes and scaling, is not trivial, and it can be solved in two ways:

• The first way - provided that the customer is competent enough himself and wants to take this system into operation. Here, as an integrator, we help build all the necessary processes, create a regulatory framework, develop all the necessary instructions and plans so that the customer's IT department can continue to independently develop and operate the system in the right direction. And then transfer all this practical base of regulations and tasks to the customer in the form of a working system of business processes.

• The second way, when the customer is not sure that he will be able to maintain the RMS system constantly in a combat state, the way out is to transfer the system to partial or full outsourcing. And we have such clients who successfully use this service, constantly increasing both SLA requirements and the scale of our involvement as an IT outsourcer.

Unfortunately, there is no universal recipe yet that would solve the problem of data recovery in the current conditions of constant growth and complication of systems. Only a combination of the solutions described above and a systematic approach will allow companies to recover data within the time frame required by the business.

Press center

Backup and restore

A basic challenge for any data center is to provide a service level agreement between IT and the business. The key point in meeting business requirements is a guarantee of data safety, therefore, an integral infrastructural block of the data storage subsystem of any properly organized data center is a data backup and recovery system.

The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) defines backup operations as follows:

• Backup copy - data stored on non-volatile media, usually remotely, intended for recovery in case the original copy of the data is lost or unavailable.
• Backup (English backup) - the process of creating backups.

All data backup systems can be divided into three types according to the backup method used: it can be file-by-file, block or application-level data backup.

The block backup system (English image-level or block-level backup) works directly with the media, ignoring the file structure, and preserving all the contents completely - the operating system, work data, settings, and so on. The advantage of performing this type of backup is high speed. However, when performing copy operations, it is usually necessary to pause applications in order for the copy to be consistent.

When performing backup operations at the file level (English file-level or file-based backup), the file system is used. In this case, a relatively simple task is to restore some specific files. In general, backup operations take longer, there is an additional load on the operating system, and there is also the problem of accessing open files.

Backups can also be made at the application-level backup. Copying and restoring operations are performed using the Application Programming Interface (API) specially provided in the backed up application. A backup is a collection of files and possibly other objects defined by the application itself, which together represent the state of the application at some point in time. With this backup method, there may be a compatibility problem between different versions of applications and backup systems that implement the corresponding interface.

The backup system is a service subsystem of the data center and has the following features:

• The backup process is not critical for solving IS tasks, i.e. a failure in the backup system does not reduce the availability of critical information services.
• The load on computing resources that the backup process creates is not useful in terms of providing information services to the IS.

When building a backup system, you must:

Keep within the reduced "window" of backup. The requirement for round-the-clock (24x7) operation of information services reduces the available time interval for shutting down applications required for a backup operation (the "backup window").
• Reduce backup data traffic on a shared corporate computer network.

Backup methods.

LAN backup
Prior to the advent of Storage Area Networks (SANs), a dedicated backup network was used to reduce backup traffic on the core network, along with a multi-tier structure that included multiple copy servers. Dedicating the copy server and placing it on the network "closer" to the productive servers that process the largest volumes of information allows you to localize backup traffic between the copy server and productive servers and reduce the load on the shared LAN.

LAN free backup
With the advent of the SAN, it became possible to transfer backup traffic not through the LAN, but directly from the servers to the storage devices (usually tape libraries) connected to the SAN. This method is called "LAN-free backup". When using this method, the server-client, along with other tasks, acts as a server for copying backup data to storage devices accessible to it via the SAN. At the same time, the task of executing the backup schedule is assigned to the backup management server by issuing control actions via the LAN (via the TCP / IP protocol) and monitoring the execution of tasks by the copy servers. Thus, the problem of reducing backup data traffic in the LAN is solved.

But the "LAN-free backup" method does not solve the "window" backup problem. Moreover, this method creates an additional load on client servers, assigning additional functions of backup data copy servers to them. Some applications allow for online backups, this is implemented in many transactional applications and with the help of special options of the backup software, such as tools for copying open files. However, the use of such technologies does not reduce the load on productive servers, which, with large amounts of data (terabytes or more), can increase the time for solving basic tasks above an acceptable threshold.

serverless backup
The ideal backup scheme would be for the client server data to be copied over the SAN to a storage device by some third-party device (dubbed "Data Mover") without using the client server's computing resources or interrupting its operation. This backup method is called "Serverless backup". The "Data Mover" role can be performed either by a server dedicated for this purpose, connected to the same disk array as the productive server, or by a special device - a router.

CDP (Continuous Data Protector)
According to the SNIA definition, continuous data protection (CDP) is a technique for constantly tracking data changes and storing them in a storage independent of the original data, allowing recovery to any point in time in the past. CDP systems can be implemented at the block, file, or application level and provide fine-grained recovery of objects to any point in time, up to a single write operation. According to this definition, all CDP solutions have the following properties:

• Changes are constantly monitored and recorded
• All changes are stored on a separate logical device
• RPO (restore point) is arbitrary and should not be predefined.

Implementation examples.

In this article, we will look at data backup techniques for small and medium-sized businesses.

A typical question that customers ask is to ensure the safety of the 1C system database, about 1 GB in size, and the customer database in MS Access, about 300 MB. All information is important and losing more than a day of work is not desirable. The budget allocated to the IT department does not exceed 100,000 rubles.

It is necessary to understand the requirements of the customer - how much information needs to be backed up, how long it takes to store backups, whether remote storage (offline) of backups is required.

If the customer needs to store data for the next few days and the cost of the solution should be minimal, then the simplest and most convenient solution would be a small network attached storage (NAS - Network Attached Storage). These devices are produced by various hardware manufacturers, have from 2 to 12 drives and provide access via the main access protocols: CIFS, NFS, HTTP, iSCSI. The block diagram of the solution is shown in Figure 1.

Fig.1 NAS storage.

The cost of this solution ranges from 15,000 to 70,000 rubles, depending on the amount of storage.

The main disadvantages of this solution are the impossibility of scaling with the growth of storage volumes and the need to control the success of the backup.

To automate backup procedures, special software is used that controls the process of creating backups and the recovery procedure, and also allows you to work with various storage media, including tape devices.

To create backups, backup policies are created that regulate "What, Where and When". What data, where and how often should be saved. Additional features of the centralized backup software allow you to restore individual letters and database tables without the need to restore the entire amount of data. Recording backups on tapes allows you to organize remote storage of backups and the safety of important data in the event of a disaster. The use of tape media for storing archival copies makes it possible to read data 50 years after it was written.

The cost of such a solution starts from 50,000 rubles and includes a server for storing backups and backup software.

Analyst company Gartner once again conducted a study of the market for data backup solutions for enterprises. The specialists analyzed the conditions for the development of the backup direction, current products, techniques and solutions for saving and restoring data of physical and virtual servers, applications, etc. The main representatives of the market were evaluated according to many criteria. Leadership in the industry of analytics of Gartner was given to such companies: Commvault, Symantec, EMC and IBM. Dell, Acronis, Asigra, FalconStor and others were singled out as niche players in the market.

The company's analysts also emphasized the main features of the work of these backup solution providers, their strengths and weaknesses. Here are some of them.

SYMANTEC BACKUP SOLUTIONS

Symantec has recently continued to expand the implementation of integrated backup tools; a greater variety of features has appeared (for example, NetBackup Accelerator for fast backups and Instant Recovery for VMware virtual machines).

Strengths of Symantec:

• can be used by the largest enterprises, offering various data protection tools for a wide range of operating systems and applications;
• NetBackup features are the main distinguishing features of the product (Accelerator for online backup and OpenStorage technology for backing up disk devices, which allows for better management of backup devices);
• NetBackup's integrated tools are cost-effective for users, easy to use and manage, and have good performance improvements.

Experts warn: according to some reviews, the company's support service does not work at the highest level, although there has been a gradual improvement in recent years.

ACRONIS BACKUP SOLUTIONS

Provides solutions for small and medium businesses or individual divisions of the enterprise. Several options for cloud-based backup and remote storage services are provided. Copies can be written to 5 different storages, including Acronis Cloud or via FTP/SFTP to a private cloud. Special technologies enable full or selective data recovery with support for Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server and SharePoint, as well as other Microsoft services, VSS-compatible programs and databases. To speed up backup processes, deduplication and compression on the source side are combined with post-processing (indexing, cataloging) on ​​the target side.

Strengths of Acronis: flexible licensing model, user-friendly interface, support for any type of migration (V2V, V2P, P2V and P2P), support for 6 different types of hypervisors, regardless of the purchased version, etc.

Experts warn: Acronis may not be very suitable for large companies, and network attached storage (NAS) support is limited to CIFS/NFS protocols.

BACKUP SOLUTIONS FROM VEEAM

Veeam has long been recognized by users as a leader in the field of virtual machine backup. In this area, it outperforms many competitors due to the provision of special features (for example, Veeam Explorer and Snapshot Hunter), ease of use and reliability. The latest release adds enterprise-critical features such as end-to-end encryption, advanced backup controls, support for EMC Data Domain Boost, NetApp Snapshot, SnapMirror, SnapVault, and more.

Strengths:

• Veeam Backup & Replication is a reliable and feature-rich data protection solution for virtual environments;
• Veeam offers some of the easiest-to-use and most affordable enterprise-level backup products;
• It has a lot of positive feedback from users on the experience of using different functions.

Experts warn:

• only supports VMware and Hyper-V, so backups for other hypervisors or physical servers are not offered;
• Veeam's own deduplication has a fairly low ratio, requiring more space to store backups;
• Since Veeam offers the U-AIR feature, separate recovery support for solutions such as Domino, MySQL, and Oracle is not yet available.

BACKUP SOLUTIONS FROM COMMVAULT

Commvault is able to meet a wide range of user needs with its unified data platform that includes end-to-end backup, archive, reporting, analytics and data retrieval capabilities. Over the past year, the vendor has launched 4 solution packages, including products aimed at backup and recovery for virtual machines.

Strengths of Commvault:

• single administrative console and reporting/analytics engine for all backups (data center, remote office, SaaS or PC applications), archiving, file synchronization and transfer, search and data loss prevention functions;
• targeted solution packages, Simpana's multifaceted license system, and others.

All this makes it suitable for data backup of enterprises of various levels: from niche companies to large corporations.

Experts warn: the price of acquisition and further support can be quite high.

Summing up the results of the study of the backup services market, Gartner specialists noted several main trends that can be observed in the industry today:

1. Many companies continue to aggressively rebuild their backup system to find the latest solutions to handle new data types, storage models, and increasing workloads, as well as the challenge of accelerating backup and recovery processes.
2. The main directions of the search for improvement methods are the use of disk solutions, including: backup directly to disk and additionally to the cloud, array snapshots and replication implementation, server virtualization for backup, as well as technologies for the most efficient data deduplication.
3. Vendors strive to develop many different backup solutions, trying to satisfy user needs of different protection objects: personal computers, servers, remote offices, virtual machines, various applications and database, etc.).
4. Many companies are looking to reduce the cost of ownership of their products and introduce new solutions that are as easy to use as possible.

Data backup is an important feature for every responsible computer user. There is nothing worse than realizing while sitting in front of a computer that the result of your monthly work or important files have just been lost, which there is no way to recover.

Data is often very valuable. And it doesn't matter if these are personal files or information that is used for work. Let's see what functions for data backup and recovery Microsoft developers equipped with the latest version of their operating system - Windows 10, and also consider the possibility of backing up data recovery using third-party programs.

Data Backup: What is it?

File backup

We sometimes hear about the need to "back up your computer". But it’s not entirely correct to say so, since there are two ways to back up data. First, creating a backup copy of files, with which you can create copies of individual files and folders stored on a computer or any other storage medium. Each user who has important data stored on the computer should back it up on an external hard drive in case the original source is lost or deleted.

System backup

Another way to back up data is known as a System Backup or System Image. This is a more complicated way of backing up data, since in this case we are talking about creating a copy of the entire operating system of a particular computer, along with programs, files, and settings. A system backup is used to restore it if Windows becomes unstable or stops working altogether.

A Windows backup can take up hundreds of gigabytes of storage. But using special data backup software, you can configure the function to save only changes that have been made since the last backup of the system.

Backing up and restoring data using Windows

Windows 10 has built-in tools that are designed to create backup copies of files and the system, as well as restore information with their help. Many users do not use them, not knowing about their existence or how to properly configure them. They are more likely to use third-party programs than tools built into the operating system.

File History

The easiest way to back up and restore files and folders is File History. With this function, you can copy data regularly, according to a user-defined schedule, and save it to an external hard disk or other external media. Copies of files can also be saved to the computer's hard drive (although this is contrary to the basic rule of backup).

To set up File History, go to the Start menu and select Settings. In the Options menu that opens, go to Update & Security / Backup Service.

On the right side of the panel, in the Backup using file history section, click Add Disk. You will be prompted to select one of the external storage media connected to your computer. Select the one to which you want to backup data and set the archiving parameters: the interval for saving file copies and the duration of their storage, if necessary, you can specify a specific folder for a copy of files from which you want to create or remove an unnecessary one.

During backup, File History also automatically copies all user account folders: Pictures, Documents, Downloads, etc.

This feature can be turned off at any time, but in order for user-specified data to be backed up at a set time interval, Automatic File Backup must be turned on.

By default, files are backed up every hour. The minimum time that can be set is 10 minutes, the maximum is Daily. You can also set the duration for storing copies: from one month until the moment when free space is needed (in this case, older backups will be deleted automatically to make room for new backups).

Restoring files from a backup

To restore files from a backup drive, go to the Control Panel and select the File History menu.

In the left column of the window that opens, select Restore personal files, navigate to the folder and find the file you need to recover. To restore a file, click the green button below and specify the path to restore it. Versions of backup copies of files by date and time of their saving can be selected by pressing the buttons from the right and left arrows.

OneDrive cloud service

Another way to protect yourself from losing important files is to transfer them to cloud storage and synchronize it with your computer. There are many such storages: Dropbox, Google Drive, etc. But a feature of the latest versions of Windows (10, 8, 8.1) is the presence of its own Microsoft cloud service built into the operating system, called OneDrive.

When using one of the cloud services, they usually create a folder on the computer disk under their own name, the files from which are synchronized. In recent versions of Windows, the OneDrive folder exists by default, i.e. The service is available to every user immediately after installing the operating system.

Any file. which will be saved to this folder will be immediately copied to the cloud storage and synchronized with it. The user can also access the files in this folder from any other device, just go to your OneDrive account from it.

Recovery Point

Another side of backing up and restoring Windows 10 data is the restoration of system files and the health of the operating system. Creating and restoring an operating system backup is a more complicated process than with a user's personal files and folders. But for this, Windows 10 provides a special function - System Restore. With its help, the user can return the operating system to working capacity by “rolling back” to the saved early state - the Recovery Point.

By default, the restore feature in the operating system is not enabled. In order to be able to use it, it must be configured. System Restore works by creating Restore Points, which save the state of Windows at a specific point in time. Along with the settings and state of the operating system, a Recovery Point includes installed applications (for example, Microsoft Office) and device drivers (for example, video cards).

The user can create a restore point at any convenient time. It is also created automatically if you install some application on your computer or download system updates, etc. But remember that System Restore does not restore a user's personal files.

If you begin to notice that the operating system is not working correctly or with failures and errors, then you can run one of the previously saved restore points and Windows will return to the state at the time of its creation.

To do this, go to the Control Panel and select the menu Recovery / System Recovery Settings / Customize, with which you activate and configure the function.

To restore Windows from a restore point, go to the Control Panel and select the menu Recovery / Start System Restore, select the required restore point and click Next.

System image

Probably the most basic and complex Windows backup feature is a feature called System Image.

Using this option, you can create a “duplicate” of the entire computer disk, including Windows 10, as well as all programs and user personal data. The system image is saved to an external hard drive, from which, in case of need or failure of the computer, it is deployed back to the computer's hard drive. As a result, the user receives a working version of the operating system, along with programs and files.

This is a very useful feature, but its disadvantage is that the user does not have the ability to restore individual files from a system image, as from the File History. You can only fully expand the entire image. Therefore, users often use these functions in parallel.

To create a System Image, go to the Control Panel and select the File Backup and Restore menu. In the column on the left, click Create a system image, and select the drive where you want to save it. Keep in mind that the System Image is usually large.

To restore the system from a System Image, go to System Settings / Update and Security / Recovery, and select special boot options. After Windows 10 reboots, select System Image Recovery from the menu provided.

Other software to back up and restore Windows 10 files

Backup systems ensure the continuity of business processes and the protection of information from natural and man-made disasters, the actions of intruders. These technologies are actively used in IT infrastructures of organizations of various industries and sizes.

Data backup- the process of creating a copy of data on a medium designed to restore data to its original location in case of damage or destruction. In addition, a backup system is one of the necessary methods for ensuring business continuity. Building a centralized backup system reduces the total cost of ownership of your IT infrastructure through optimal use of backup devices and reduced administration costs (compared to a decentralized system).

Organizational challenges in terms of data protection

• Internal contradictions in the technical team
• Should application administrators be responsible for data retention, SLAs, and recovery?
• Centralized automated control - reduced risks for the IT director: increased transparency, predictability of IT processes

The right data protection strategy for the data center

An outdated approach called "BACKUP"

• Backup
• Recovery

A modern approach called "INFORMATION MANAGEMENT"

• Backup
• Recovery
• Content Analytics
• Context search
• Mobile data access
• Transparent cloud integration
• IS tasks
• ANY third party data processing applications (Open API)

The copy problem

• In the absence of a centralized approach, the amount of data grows uncontrollably
• Where is the most current version of the data?
• If I need to delete Compliance data, where can I find all copies?
• Removal and archiving of obsolete information. How to determine a reasonable criterion for the value of data?

Architecture and operation of the backup system

The centralized backup system has a multi-level architecture, which includes:

• a backup management server that can also combine the functions of a data copy server;
• one or more data copy servers to which backup devices are connected;
• client computers with backup agent programs installed on them;
• backup system administrator console.

The system administrator maintains a list of backup client computers, recorders, and backup storage media, and schedules backups. All this information is contained in a special database, which is stored on the backup management server.

According to the schedule or at the operator's command, the management server instructs the agent program installed on the client computer to start backing up data in accordance with the selected policy. The agent program collects and transmits the data to be backed up to the copy server indicated to it by the management server.

Off-server copy

This type of backup is a further development of the off-network copying method (LAN-free), since it reduces the number of processors, memory, I / O devices involved in this process. This process backs up entire partitions, unlike file-by-file archiving, but still allows you to restore individual files. By definition, off-server copying copies data from disk to tape and vice versa without the server's direct involvement. Since backup requires some additional third party, which is fully responsible for the copy process, this is where another name for this approach comes from - copying with the participation of a third party (Third_-Party Copy, 3PC). So, as such equipment, a data storage router can be used, which takes over the functions previously performed by the server.

One of the advantages of the SAN architecture is the absence of a hard connection of its constituent systems to any data storage devices. This property is the basis of the backup technology without the participation of a server. In this case, both the data server and the devices involved in copying from disk arrays can have direct access to the disk array. The backup of data blocks related to a file is preceded by the creation of some kind of index or list of numbers of blocks belonging to it. This allows you to further attract external devices for backup.

Thus, off-server replication allows you to directly move data between SAN-attached disk arrays and libraries. At the same time, data moves over the SAN and does not load either the local network or servers. Such replication is considered ideal for corporate networks that must operate continuously 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Especially for those for which the time period during which backups can be performed without a significant impact on the work of users and applications becomes unacceptably small.

Data replication

Modern disk arrays have the means to create copies of data within the array itself. The data created by these tools are called Point-In-Time (PIT) copies, that is, fixed at a certain point in time. There are two types of PIT copying tools: cloning and "snapshot" (snapshot). Cloning is usually understood as a complete copying of data. It requires the same amount of disk space as the original data and some time. When using such a copy, there is no load on the disk volumes containing the original data. In other words, there is no additional load on the disk subsystem of a productive server.

The mechanism of operation of "snapshots" is different and can be implemented both in software on a productive server and in hardware within an array. At the moment when it is necessary to start a backup, the agent program instructs the application to complete all transactions and save the cache memory to