Delivering Backup as a service
- 1. 1 What should a backup solution address?
- 2. 2
- 4. 4 How to control costs With average annual data growth running at around 40%, the traditional approach to backup means more capital expenditure on servers, VTLs, tape libraries and software. Escalating procurement of tapes, maintenance and support contracts all add to a bigger management headache. Research shows that the vast majority of firms admit they do not know what backup costs. What you should be looking to achieve is shifting IT focus back on to the project that make a difference, store your data on appropriate tiers, and pay for what you use not what you forecast. Take advantage of utility pricing to save up to 40% over traditional approaches.
- 5. 5 Dealing with capacity issues Getting your forecast for requirements up to 3 years in advance is often more luck than judgement. Too much and you have overpaid, too little and your storage array or VTL fills up or you run out of tapes. Often it leads to quick fixes, you may have to tactically expire data early just to create space and it turns into an ongoing headache. Chances are you will be going back to buy more capacity at some point. Why should capacity be your issue? Why not pay for what you use regardless of whether your data grows or shrinks.
- 6. 6 Breaking vendor stranglehold Vendors are very keen to keep you in a re-fresh stranglehold, why wouldn’t they? They have been making hay for decades thanks to the lack of alternatives. The cycle of refresh, end of life decisions means more Capital Investment, another round of support contracts and is estimated refresh projects take up to 20% of IT teams time. New technology or change means new skills and training, maybe new employees. Then what to do about the legacy? Can you honestly say your vendor has your interests in delivering a service at heart?
- 7. 7 What happens when the call comes? Backup’s primary function is providing the ability to recover from a disaster, and it is neither quick nor straightforward: in fact, it’s sufficiently challenging that many organisations simply bury their heads in the sand and don’t test DR. An SLA is your insurance policy. When you do get a recovery request you can be safe in the knowledge that this will be dealt with.
- 8. 8 Strategy and a future roadmap Cloud is where the market is going but many organisations believe it is just for start- ups with little on-premise infrastructure. Many are also unsure if a cloud solution will work for them and if it did where we would even start. The approach is a key step and making sure that the right solution is put in place not just for the present but for the future.
- 9. 9 Why you should view backup as a service
- 10. 10 A cloud backup service is not just the storage but includes software and hardware on a pay per use basis and wrapped with a robust SLA. Increase performance AND save money - Cloud backup is typically 10-40% cheaper than the TCO of running in house (more on that later) as well as offering improved service levels through high backup success rates and negligible long-term failures. One less management overhead - One of the key benefits. You no longer need to worry about managing the backup operation, reporting, data growth, capacity, kit refresh or having enough tapes as the entire function becomes the supplier’s responsibility. Speed of restore - Onsite appliances are the crucial piece of the cloud backup jigsaw, providing restores as fast as your network can deliver them for anything up to a months backups. It’s where the market is going - More and more companies are realising that the adoption of cloud allows them to concentrate on their core business by handing over their IT needs to suppliers. It also enables you to move other services into the cloud Disaster Recovery is the most obvious example, but there are others for which backup is a stepping stone.
- 11. 11 How to start the journey
- 12. 12 Work out the business case so you can sell the idea internally What are the financial implications on moving to the cloud? Consider in particular the expiry of licences and equipment write-downs – you may need to get some budget for the latter. Start with a pilot The beauty of backup is that you can run two processes in parallel. Test cloud backup on at least part of your environment before taking the plunge. Analyse your data and make sure your policies are appropriate Storing data unnecessarily means incurring cost you can do without, and this applies in the cloud just as it does with proprietary solutions. Work out what you are going to do with your legacy data Retaining your legacy data is an important consideration, but so is minimising costs. Realise those cost savings! Once cloud backup is live, get after the savings by decommissioning backup servers and tape libraries and freeing up datacentre space. Terminate hardware and software maintenance and tape storage agreements. Redeploy staff.
- 13. 13 About 4sl
- 14. 14 About 4sl Founded 2007 Head Office in London with operations in USA, Benelux, Germany and India Specialists in backup services for larger SMB & enterprise clients We employ more accredited engineers in the leading backup software technologies than any other independent European firm Clients include several FTSE100 and Fortune Global 500 companies Consulting clients include Barclays, Symantec, Commvault, Sky, UBS Managed Services clients include HP, Investec, Betfair, Trafigura, Kennedys, Abellio, Allianz
- 15. 15 4sl by Numbers 15 FTSE 100 clients Presence UK, Benelux, Germany, USA & India 24/7managed service as standard 99.87% backup success SLA performance (Q3 14) 24,000+ servers under management 90+ Consultants 7 years old 4PB+ under management
- 16. 16 We've been privileged to work with:
- 17. 17 Thank you We would be happy to discuss your strategy and objectives in more detail sales@4sl.com