Data protection is the safeguarding of important data from destruction, alteration, or loss. It is achieved through a combination of technology, business processes, and best practices. Core components of a data protection strategy are backup and recovery, remote data movement, storage system security, and Information Lifecycle Management. Business drivers influencing data-loss strategies are fear of financial loss, the need to comply with regulations, attempts to maintain high productivity, and the need to meet ever-increasing customer demands. Risk is potential exposure to harm. An organization can be harmed when data is unrecoverable, applications fail as a result of data loss, or the time to recover data is unacceptable. The risk to a business manifests itself in lost sales, the inability to operate properly for some time, lawsuits and fines, and the effects of theft of critical information. Increased connectivity creates a risk multiplier. The more resources that can be affected by an event, the greater the potential harm. Business continuity strategies strive to keep businesses operating in the event of disaster. Data protection is a key component of business continuity. Data protection is changing. New practices and technologies include disk-based backup, networked storage, ILM, and remote data movement. These practices and technologies are providing system architects more options for protecting data.
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