Backup Is One Thing… Recovery Is Everything

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/K-WU--ZiiWA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <br / />If you have read my blogger profile, you will know that I have been listening to customer stories for many years. Here are some of the most common words, acronyms, and phrases I have heard when I've asked the question, “What keeps you up at night?” Meeting the backup window. RTO and RPO. I have tape longevity concerns. Data sprawl.


If you have read my blogger profile, you will know that I have been listening to customer stories for many years. Here are some of the most common words, acronyms, and phrases I have heard when I’ve asked the question, “What keeps you up at night?” Meeting the backup window. RTO and RPO. I have tape longevity concerns. Data sprawl. Do any of these responses resonate with you?

In this blog, I am proud to introduce the first podcast in a new series discussing data protection with IT practitioners.

Robert Dillard at Healthcare Realty and Dave Vellante at Wikibon discuss how new requirements for data protection and availability are driving IT transformation initiatives.

Faced with the challenge of shepherding corporate data in decentralized environments, Robert and his team needed to rethink their approach to protecting data. At Healthcare Realty, three fundamental requirements for corporate data were identified:

  1. Data must be readily accessible to employees anywhere, anytime.
  2. Data must be protected at all times.
  3. Strict compliance audit requirements must be met.

To meet these objectives, Healthcare Realty began its journey to centralize data with these strategic moves: First transitioning from tape to disk, then moving away from a backup admin centric environment and moving to backup as a service as well as replicating data off-site.

How many times have you recently heard the phrase “Data Protection as a Service”?

Healthcare Realty is doing just that, making its backup service ⎯ a self-service offering. Gone are the days of a decentralized organization. By aligning the role of the backup administrator with business objectives, IT and the business are closely tied.

“The backup admin’s job is to understand what the requirements are from the business standpoint for protecting the data, and configuring the policies for protecting that data, and making those policies available to the SQL admins and VMware admins. And then ensuring there is base level compliance across all of our systems and across all of our data,” Dillard details.

The next stop on Healthcare Realty’s journey is automating IT operations to enable the business.

What is your IT transformation story?

About the Author: Lisa Matzdorff