Implementing Backup and Recovery: The Readiness Guide for the Enterprise

The Goals of Tape Backup

You always want to keep in mind that the overall goal of tape backup is to make copies of your data that can be used to recover from any kind of data loss. The primary goals of the tape backup portion of an overall data protection strategy are to do the following:

• Understand the goals of the business in order to deliver a properly configured backup environment.

• Enable information services to resume as quickly as is physically possible after any system component failure or application error.

• Enable data to be relocated to where it's needed, when it's needed by the business.

• Meet regulatory and business policy data retention requirements.

• Meet recovery goals; in the event of a disaster, return the business to a predetermined operating level.

Each of these goals relates to a specific area of data protection and needs to be considered as we put together our overall backup strategy. Specifically, you should ask why data is being backed up. As you consider each system or group of systems, keep in mind whether the data is being backed up to protect against failure, disaster, or regulatory requirements, and if the goals of the business will be met in the event of a failure or disaster. In reality, your success as a backup administrator will not be measured by how fast you are able to back up your data but how swiftly you are able to meet the aforementioned goals. Stated simply, your success will be defined by the restorability of the data in the environment.