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5 Reasons To Switch Backup

Introduction

By now, our worlds have been completely flipped upside down. But one thing remains the same. Most legacy backup solutions in the market today…well… aren’t very good. Spending too much effort on backup, IT admins lack the time, resources and simply the energy to proactively tackle the real business challenges are holding businesses back and slowing them down. The frustration is real, people!

Here’s some data to prove the point. Between September and December 2020, an independent research company asked 3,000 IT pros from 28 countries about their backup and it turned out that only 63% of backups completed on time without errors and 33% of all restore jobs/tasks fail to be successful. Leaves a bad taste in your mouth, doesn’t it?

These days, IT needs to think not one, but several steps ahead. Taking ransomware, vendor lock-in, storage capacity, cloud mobility, as well as unpredictable world economical and health factors into the equation.

To add a cherry on top, the events of 2020 and now 2021 have compounded these pressures like a match to a tinderbox. From the explosion of remote working, to the increasing sophistication of security attacks, data protection needs to be a priority. Don’t settle for “meh”. You can’t afford to put it off any longer.

If you’re reading this, you can probably attest to some, or maybe even all, of the above. This means you’re likely a victim, I mean customer, of one of those mediocre backup solutions.

It’s OK. Know this: you’re not alone. IT pros around the globe are feeling your pain! This quick read is designed to help you understand the why and when.

Then, the ball is in your court to determine the how.

List of the 5 Reasons

Here is what 1,500 IT pros from around the globe had to say when asked this simple research question:

Another very interesting data point from this question:


Only 2% of respondents claimed, “nothing would drive my organization to change its primary backup solution to a new solution or service”. If 98% of IT pros having a reason to switch doesn’t scream a lack of trust, loyalty and confidence in their current provider, nothing else could!

Reason #1

My current backup is unreliable.

The most popular reason to switch primary backup solutions is reliability or, a lack thereof. This comes from taking 20-year-old code (or even 30 if you can believe it) and attempting to retrofit it for the IT challenges of today. It’s the equivalent of the Winnebago in Spaceballs. Absolutely
ridiculous. (If you’re too you ng to get that joke, Google it, then watch it. That movie is great. And may the Schwartz be with you!)


In addition, dedupe databases often become error prone and can cause complete data loss. Many solutions lack data recovery verification, or only provide this availability for limited platforms (for example, VMware only). Another issue is simply visibility into what is working and what’s not. All too often, IT admins only find out there’s an issue when it’s too late. It’s like discovering a leak in your roof in the middle of a monsoon. Not good.

Many companies chalk this up to lack of training or skills. This is untrue. If a backup solution is stable, reliable and easy to use, then you shouldn’t need a PhD to work it. In addition, many IT pros avoid testing due many reasons, but a modern solution can test your backups on schedule
in an isolated virtual network.

What you should expect from your next backup solution is peace of mind, and a “set it and forget it” type of confidence. You deserve a solution that’s got your back. Plus, imagine actually knowing that you can restore when needed.

Reason #2

Once you add everything up, it costs a lot.

When considering the cost of data protection, it’s easy to focus on the traditional costs — hardware, software and storage. Some hardware costs can come at a premium when you’re locked-in, and your software isn’t flexible enough to handle alternatives. Many software solutions
include add-ons, secondary components or ongoing services so make sure nothing is excluded from your calculation. For storage costs, we all know someone who has been burned with hidden charges and data reduction promises that never quite come to fruition. The days of simply pointing to a target are over. You need to find the right balance between performance and cost efficiency, and the recovery SLAs you’re comfortable with for the cost. Without any “gotchas”. Those are the worst.

Don’t forget the less tangible, often forgotten costs. The cost of downtime and data loss. In addition, impacts that downtime and data loss can have on your relationship with your customers or damage to brand integrity can be quite impactful. The time, effort and resource costs to not only maintain your backup infrastructure, but also to get ramped up, trained
and running at full capacity. Another cost is lost productivity. Few things are more frustrating to an IT pro than when they are wasting time and energy reacting to data protection issues, opposed to proactively working on other important project.

What you should expect from your next backup solution is a simple, yet flexible cost model; where you can use the hardware and storage you want, that can snap in with the software solution you like. You should also be able to make a change in your own environment without setting off a domino-effect nightmare that results in you having to cancel your weekend plans to clean up the mess. This restriction also prohibits your use of modern technologies which perpetuates a long-term effect of reduced efficiency.

Reason #3

That ROI never became a reality.

We’ve all been promised software could do something only to later find out that it couldn’t. Now you’re juggling multiple solutions to cover certain aspects of your environment, or that path to simplicity just became more complex. That ROI calculator you were promised drifted away just like Homer Simpson disappearing into the bushes taking your confidence, budget and reputation with him.


Another ROI consideration for your benefit is data re-use. All data protection solutions encapsulate a great deal of data. In today’s ecosystem, data is power, and the right ROI calculation isn’t simply crunching the numbers of time saved versus money invested, but the value provided by putting your data to work.

What you should expect from your next backup solution (and those that are selling it) is the principle to “under promise and over deliver”. No Sales Engineer demo magic tricks. A software-defined trial experience with YOU in the driver’s seat, available immediately without waiting on an appliance to be delivered and a Systems Engineer to configure it. Maybe you can even find a solution to help you tap into the power of the data gold mine that you’re sitting on. Like adding marshmallow fluff to your peanut butter and banana
sandwich, that extra layer makes all the difference.

Reason #4

My recovery times are slow, and backup windows are long.

Some backup vendors might try to wow you with an example, but when you dig into product breadth — backup configurations, architectural flexibility, snapshot integrations, replication capabilities — reality sets in. It takes time, years really, to build the required breadth.


Another key factor is recovery speeds and flexibility. Often, it’s not a story of if you can recover, but how easily and quickly can you do it. Count the number of clicks it takes you to recover something simply, they may surprise you. Many solutions either lack the granularity for specific recoveries, or the scalability for bulk restores.


But let’s think bigger — what if you can’t tolerate even a few minutes of data being lost in the shortest of backup windows? You need the big guns — continuous data protection (CDP). Many would agree that it’s the best when it comes built-in with your existing backup solution,
operating replicas natively from the same console. However, some vendors still separate CDP as a separately priced product or specialize exclusively on CDP, making you couple it with another product for more regular backup needs.

What you should expect from your next backup solution is a variety of recovery options to satisfy any SLAs, as well as a proven track record of continuous innovation, built on top of a strong foundation of happy customers. Imagine a product release where users are
literally giddy to get their hands-on code versus “let someone else QA it”.

Reason #5

This is taking too much of my time and resources.

With backup software, ease-of-use cannot be understated. So much so that “babysitting a backup” is a thing. Far too many products in this industry are hard to use and complicated. Kind of like the latest craze to substitute every meal with some ridiculous 14-ingredient protein shake. Good grief just eat a cheeseburger! But we digress…


Other solutions can do what you want, but only through scripting or the right level of PowerShell expertise. It doesn’t need to be that hard, and you shouldn’t have to build a workaround. You bought software to do that for you!


Another important factor is that your backup software needs to be able to evolve with you — like those adjustable pants we all secretly wish we were wearing for a big holiday meal. If adding a new NAS device or changing cloud storage requires you to change your data protection strategy, spend time re-educating IT staff or losing sleep about whether or not your IT team has the skills do to it successfully, you’re doing it wrong.

What you should expect from your next backup solution is the gift of time. Time back to work on other priorities, cut out of work early or actually use that vacation time that keeps piling up.

Questions to Consider

Conclusion

By now, hopefully the why should be clear and the when equally so. (Hint: that’s now).

The how is up to you.

At Vault365, we believe our products provide unparalleled backup and recovery and would love for you to take them for a spin.

Our mission is to deliver a modern platform that can cover today’s backup needs, but more importantly can expand and adapt around whatever you’ll need in the future (cloud workloads, cloud mobility, Kubernetes, etc.)

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Hybrid Infrastructure Trends from 2020-2024

Veeam recently published the latest and largest research report on data protection, as surveyed by an independent research firm with nearly 3,400 responses from 28 countries. If that was big – this is bigger: 8,000 responses between the DPR 2020, DPR 2021, and now the DPR 2022 reports.


For each of the three research reports, respondents in enterprise organizations (> 1,000 employees) were asked what percentage of their servers were:


Physical servers, not including virtualization hosts, within a data center

Virtual machines within a virtualization host within a data center

Cloud-hosted servers within either a Managed Service Provider or a hyperscale (e.g. Amazon, Azure, Google) cloud

Then, they were asked what they anticipated the percentage to be two years from now. When you interleave the three datasets, you get a massive trendline from 2020, 2021, 2022, as well as what was anticipated by 2023 and what is expected by 2024. Below image shows the trendline for 8,000 organizations and their hybrid strategies:


Candidly, we have rarely seen such a large data sampling on a pragmatic IT strategy question – especially with the “shape” (trend) of the data being reported so consistently across three large and separate data sets. This teaches a few key truths for 2022:

The data center is not dead nor dying. There are as many good reasons to run a workload on premises as there are to run workloads on the cloud.

Your data protection strategy needs to accommodate physical, virtual and multiple cloud-hosted options.

So many organizations recognize that “hybrid” and “multi” cloud are “the new normal” for organizations of nearly every size and locale.


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Vault365 Backup Challenge

How secure is your data?

Welcome to your Vault365 30 Second Challenge

Are your backups secured from Ransomware using Immutability (cant be deleted or overwritten)?

Have you implemented the 3 - 2 - 1 - 1 - 0 best practice strategy for your backup data?


3: Maintain at least three copies of your data and applications.
2: Store your backups on at least two different types of media.
1: Keep one of the backups in a different location.
1: Keep at least one of your copies offline.
0: Verify your recovery plan has zero errors.

Does your offsite backup solution have the option to deliver restored data to your site directly using physical media, to reduce your RTO (Recovery Time Objective)?

Are you provided with daily failure and success reporting on your backup solution?

Do you carry out continuous backup processes and procedures, to ensure that your critical data is always protected and not based on an ad hoc review?

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What is driving Data Protection changes, and what are organisations looking for moving forward?

Data Protection is still a key focus for most businesses especially given the rise in remote working. Security is an ever evolving and changing landscape but the focus on Data Protection is always a steadfast. Below are the results from a survey conducted by our partner Veeam on Data Protection Trends for 2022.

Why will organizations change backup solutions in 2022?

The short answer is qualitative improvement — e.g., reducing data loss, reducing downtime, improving reliability of backups (so you can restore), etc. Literally, the top reason making organizations interested in changing backup solutions is so that it works better! Beyond that, businesses are concerned about economics, best-in-class tools for protecting the increasingly diverse production workloads and platforms that organizations rely on, and so on.


What are organizations looking for in their next data protection solution?

If the last topic covered where organizations are coming from, this covers where organizations are going — with an emphasis towards hybrid architectures for both protection and production. As a happy surprise, one of the up-and-coming responses (having asked this question for the last three annual surveys) was customers looking to move workloads from one cloud to another, which is only achievable with a third-party solution (like Vault365), since that isn’t a goal of the hyperscale clouds.

 

 

 

We hope these first two topics have been helpful. This post is the first part of a multi-part series, so please stay tuned to the Vault365 blog:

Part 1: What is driving change & what are organizations looking for moving forward

Part 2: Hybrid Infrastructure Trends from 2020 to 2024

Part 3: Data Protection Trends in Public Sector

Part 4: What does “Enterprise Backup” mean in 2022?

 

 

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All-in-one backup with Vault365

All Data is securely hosted at Vault365’s Irish-based data centre

Paradyn, one of Ireland’s leading cybersecurity service providers, is today announcing it has invested €500,000 in the launch of Vault365, a brand-new all-in-one backup, ransomware and data protection solution for data stored on premise and in cloud applications, including Microsoft 365. The solution has been designed to enable the fastest data restore in the industry.
The company forecasts revenues of €750,000 in 2023 following the launch and is creating five new jobs over the next 18 months. Initially available for Irish-based customers, Vault365 plans to roll out their backup services in the UK within the next six months.

As Office 365 will only retain data for up to 90 days, Vault365 securely backs up and eliminates the risk of data loss on Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business and Microsoft Teams. The easily-managed solution, which includes a Backup-as-a-Service (BaaS) option, also protects physical servers, virtual servers, cloud and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications such as Salesforce. Businesses can leverage powerful search tools, fast and flexible recovery, and export options to perform eDiscovery across their entire backup environment.

All data is securely hosted at Vault365’s Irish-based data centres. This ensures local access to data if needed and minimal downtime in the event of an incident, with speedy disaster recovery enabled. Should any incident occur, including a ransomware attack, customers can quickly recover data with the fastest data restore in the industry. Customers also have control over their own data with secure and easy-to-use portal access.

Vault365 is hiring in the areas of sales and support to meet customer demand for increased data backup and security in an ever-evolving IT landscape. The company will be engaging with customers across private and public sectors.

Businesses can avail of a 30-day free trial of backup for Office365 following the launch of the new service.

Cillian McCarthy, CEO, Paradyn: “Proactively protecting data has never been more important in a world where security risks are higher than ever. We are one of a few Irish companies offering this service, which we’re launching to meet customers’ increasing backup and security needs for their mission critical data, regardless of where it is. There is a common misconception that backup is included with Microsoft, and a solution like this is crucial for businesses to avoid irreparable loss or theft of their Office 365 data.

“Our engineers are experts in their fields, and Vault365 enables business continuity which, in turn, offers peace of mind to customers. We are also excited to make the solution available to our UK customers within the next six months. With Vault365, data is always protected and accessible in today’s uncertain technology landscape.”

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7 Critical Reasons
for Microsoft 365
Backup

The case for why organisations need to protect Microsoft 365 data

Do you have control of your Microsoft 365 data? Do you have access to all the items you need? The knee-jerk reaction is typically, “Of course I do,” or “Microsoft takes care of it all.” 

But if you really think about it — are you sure? 

Microsoft takes care of quite a bit, and provides a great service for their customers. However, Microsoft’s primary focus is on managing the Microsoft 365 infrastructure and maintaining uptime to your users. They are empowering YOU with the responsibility of your data. The misconception that Microsoft fully backs up your data on your behalf is quite common, and without a shift in mindset, could have damaging repercussions when this responsibility is left unattended.

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45 Veeam Recovery Options

The Backup options are endless with Veeam for Office 365.  Whether it’s Exchange, OneDrive,  SharePoint or Teams – we have you covered.

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The Security Process with Paul Casey – Paradyn COO

As anyone in the industry will tell you, there is more to cybersecurity than simply information technology: human factors are the main vector for attack, and, in the world today, the technology is the business.

Paul Casey, chief operations officer at Paradyn, said that with its security service practice, the goal is to help its clients with a holistic and best-practice framework to secure business assets and resources.

 

The bulk of Paradyn’s clients are in the government and enterprise sectors, both areas in which cybersecurity has shot up the agenda of management.

 

“From an IT or cybersecurity point of view, they tend to be more sophisticated than a mom-and-pop shop on the corner and would tend to have some level of internal IT, whether it’s focused on infrastructure or even has some focus on cybersecurity,” he said.

 

The company works with its clients to understand the business, where and how it is exposed to threats and then from there develop a strategy for keeping things secure.

 

Even organisations at this level where security has never been skimped on have had to learn lessons of late. And it is a tale that will be familiar to just about everyone.

 

“The last 18 months have put the focus on cybersecurity so much. Working practices have changed. Previously, most organisations had everyone inside the castle. Yes, you had some remote workers on the road, but generally you had a lot of control. Then a switch was flicked,” he said.

 

With the shift to remote work, new opportunities were created not only for businesses to move online and workers to consider relocating, but also for criminals seeking to profit from confusion and uncertainty.

 

The organised crime aspect of cyberattacks is what is truly different from the past, when hackers worked for bragging rights or simply to be a nuisance.

 

“Cybercrime is a business and a lot more money is involved [than before]. You can contract and hire ransomware organisations and split the profits. Frankly, it has been commodified,” Casey said.

 

The rational response to this world of professionalised crime is to accept the arms race is going on and to respond with equally professional countermeasures, he said. However, this requires more than throwing resources at the problem. Instead, the first step is to understand the risk.

 

“Obviously everybody is worried about ransomware, but it’s at the end of the process. It’s what happens after someone has given away credentials, clicked on something they shouldn’t have or something hasn’t been patched. We’re looking to take a step back and take a deep look at the business.

 

“It’s easy to get caught up in thinking ‘there’s a shiny firewall I need to buy’ or ‘I can get this software, but, ultimately, cybersecurity is a much wider thing. It’s about company culture, it’s about leadership, and it’s about business processes. A lot of cybersecurity is about getting the boring stuff right,” he said.

 

Casey recommends businesses look at the Center for Internet Security’s list of Controls, version eight of which is now available free online.

 

“CIS Controls is a set of best practices, and it forms part of what we use to identify, develop, validate, promote and sustain best practice solutions for cyber defence,” he said.

 

Paradyn uses a three-stage ‘gap analysis framework’ derived from the CIS Controls, during which it reviews clients’ IT infrastructure estate in order to chart the gaps in not only systems, but also processes and policies.

 

Casey said that the question of people and processes was too often ignored: “You do need the server guys, you do need the firewall people, but you also need to get the business processes right.”

 

Of course, with remote working the question of processes becomes even more urgent.

 

“If you look back ten years ago, what were you securing? You had on-premise users and an on-premise e-mail server, and possibly an on-premise database server. Now you have cloud to manage, possibly multiple ones, plus people all over the place, then the CEO comes down and says they want Outlook Anywhere or Office 365,” he said.

 

From inventory and control of hardware and software assets up to penetration testing, the right controls help protect organisations, and they also enable compliance with measures such as GDPR.

 

GDPR, though, is not the be all and end all of data, and issues such as intellectual property should be in the frame.

 

“GDPR is good, as it brought great emphasis on data, [however], the thing that I talk to companies about is that GDPR is concerned about PII [personally identifying information], but there’s more to data than PII. A lot of organisations put a lot of work into GDPR compliance, but it stops there,” Casey said.

 

“Cybersecurity is not just three things, it’s a thousand small things,” he said.

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First things first in security

Cyber crime as a service is the new reality, and businesses need to fight back with better defences. They can start by getting back to basics.

Remote working. Previously unknown exploits. Phishing. Smishing. Ransomware. Compliance. It’s a cliché to call the internet the Wild West, perhaps even an insult to the denizens of the old West, but the reality is that businesses today are under extreme pressure to ward off cyber attacks.

Businesses know this, but the question is: do they know how to respond to it?

“There is, I think, a recognition that the threat landscape has changed,” Paul Casey, chief operations officer at network IT and service management solutions company Paradyn, said. Legislation has had an impact, of course, notably the EU’s general data protection regulation (GDPR), which has lit a fire under companies that hold or process customers’ personal data.

“Following on from the likes of GDPR there is a lot more compliance among medium and small enterprises. Of course, large pharma, banking and governments were already used to a level of compliance,” he said.

Casey said that one of the important aspects of GDPR was that companies had to not only do the right thing, but demonstrate good faith. Insurers, too, want to see the right policies in place, otherwise they may adjust rates or even remove cover. “Even from an insurance perspective, businesses are looking to demonstrate that they’ve done the right thing,” he said.

Clearly, then, the pressure is on. There are methodologies out there, though, that can help, notably from the Centre for Internet Security (CIS) and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), adherence to which can give businesses confidence that they are doing things right.

“Were doing a lot with CIS controls. There’s another one, NIST, and there’s also ISO 27001. They all work in similar ways: what they do is allow an organisation to examine and understand everything they do.” Casey said that adherence to these standards led to what he called ‘security hygiene’. “Cyber security hygiene is like personal hygiene: you will be more prone to infection if you are not looking after hygiene,” he said.

Despite the whirlwind of change, businesses have a responsibility to themselves and to their customers, one that is increasingly present in law. “The boundaries have all moved, but the fact is you still have to control things. You need to find out where you’re doing well and where you’re not and work from there,” he said. “That’s where the frameworks come in.”

The goal is a different way of thinking about security, one that means stepping back from saying ‘right, I need another box with lights on it’ and instead looking at the data, systems and network that run a business. ‘It’s really not about putting another box in,” he said.

In fact, businesses often trip up on basic measures including things such as patching and updates. The threat from this seemingly trivial fault is very real indeed and businesses may find they are entirely exposed as a result, especially as so-called ‘zero day’, or novel, exploits are on the rise. “The Chrome browser has had 12 zero day exploits this year alone,” said Casey.

In any case, businesses need to get the basics right before they can move on to more complex measures. As a result, auditing processes is at the top of Paradyn’s list of crucial steps to take in the fight to protect its clients from online criminals.

“If your processes aren’t right, if your users aren’t being trained, and your users on-boarded and off-boarded correctly, then there is a problem. These are things that organisations need to think about and it requires a formalised approach,” he said.

Casey said he is not arguing there is no requirement for new technology, however.

“There are next generation tools with the capability to mitigate against new threats, but if those tools are not implemented in the right way you’re not going to get maximum benefits or, if it’s particularly badly done, you’re leaving yourself open,” he said.

Paradyn also helps to produce reports for internal teams or for businesses own cyber security teams, helping to ease the burden on often already stretched IT staff. “Keeping on top of everything that is changing – the Windows 11 rollout, all of your ongoing projects – is a difficult job as it stands,” Casey said.

But keeping on top of things is essential. A recent report in trade newspaper Computing indicated that it is not only legitimate businesses that are leaning on service providers: strange as it sounds, hackers are now offering criminal gangs ‘exploit as a service’. As a result, the only possible response is to seek external help to fight off the growing threat.

“There’s a massive demand for security services,” Casey said. Little wonder.

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Paradyn and Veeam keep National Concert Hall’s show on the road

Cybersecurity experts implement watertight system for the high-profile venue

Cybersecurity experts implement watertight system for the high-profile venue

Paradyn is one of Ireland’s leading cybersecurity service providers, with a security-first approach to implementation, monitoring and ongoing support. Its team of highly trained network and security consultants deliver best-in-class advice and support, enabling customers to reduce their cyber risk and focus on delivering their core business activities.

As the trusted technology partner of the National Concert Hall, Paradyn has delivered a secure Veeam data backup, storage, and
disaster recovery solution to protect the venue’s Microsoft365 data.

Robust backup and recovery solution

Having recently rolled out Microsoft365 (including Office365) to its entire IT user base, the National Concert Hall required robust backup and recovery for this new deployment. Paradyn designed and implemented a tailored Veeam 365 Backup solution which backs up data for Mail, SharePoint, and Exchange Online.

All National Concert Hall’s M365 data is securely hosted at Paradyn’s data centres through Veeam’s technology, meaning no downtime in the event of an incident, enabling speedy disaster recover and eliminating data loss. Furthermore, the venue has access to a self-service portal where it can carry out information recovery and restores, in cases of accidental or malicious
deletion.

“Having previously worked with Paradyn, we knew we could trust them to deliver on a resilient M365 backup solution”, said Philip Deacon, IT manager at the National Concert Hall. “Hosting a busy programme of events each year with multiple clients, we are confident that company and customer information is secure with backup and disaster recovery in one, so that our business can continue uninterrupted.”

“Veeam is like having an internal backup team and this solution enables us to provide proactive, real-time monitoring to the National Concert Hall,” said Cillian McCarthy, chief executive officer of Paradyn. “It’s not widely known that M365 doesn’t come with backup, which is why a solution such as this is essential for businesses. We have created a secure environment which
enables business continuity and protects against ransomware in a challenging IT landscape.”

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