Virtualization was something that was supposed to simplify our lives. And, in some ways, it has, but in others it’s complicated things. In it’s early days, virtualization was as easy as a single server and a few VMs, but today’s virtualization has multiple hypervisors, clusters, server farms, virtualized or shared storage, and the list goes on. And now that you sort of have what you have in terms of a virtual infrastructure, you’re tasked with protecting every bit of data –

Virtualization has more than just allowed you to run multiple VMs on a single physical machine; it’s ushered in an era where even the smallest company can host the most complicated multi-tiered applications. And while for some of you virtualization does just mean having a few guest OSes on a hypervisor, for others it’s a more complex mix of clusters and server farms – all of which need to be protected in case of the need for recovery. And with that complexity comes the questi

We’re nearly at the end of this series of articles covering the ways you can improve business recovery, while increasing your service revenue. I’ve covered a number of ways to recover entire machines using virtualization as both a platform for disaster recovery, for continuous recovery, and in cases where going virtual to virtual makes sense. While virtualization plays a dominant role in the infrastructure for many of your customers, some still have specific servers still run

Pizza delivery has a history of getting a bad rap. We’ve all experienced long hold times, limited topping choices, late delivery, and, in the end, wrong orders or, worse - cold pizza. Backup/Recovery can also get a bad rap when it comes to delivering on promises of quick recovery, business continuity, and agility to adapting to mixed server environments. In this uniquely creative (and completely pizza-themed) webcast, I join Mike DiMeglio from Unitrends and discuss how you

Virtual to virtual (V2V) recovery involves the backing up and recovering of virtual machines. So you may be thinking that your customer already has a virtual infrastructure, so why would they need V2V recovery services? Great question, right? But there’s one presumptive point in that question that may not be true when recovery is required. When you consider your customers with a VMware or Hyper-V-based infrastructure, and think about the idea of offering V2V recovery, you pro

In my previous article (in this 8-step “recovery” program for businesses) I talked about the recovery of critical files, the recovery point objectives (RPOs) for them, and how file versioning helps meet the customer need to recover files that simply don’t change very often. But most files don’t fall into the “this is critical, but it doesn’t change much” category; I think you’ll agree that most fall into the “I created this once and never touched it again” category. So are th

Most backups are relatively small because they only contain changes made (at a file or, even better, a block level) since the last backup. But while you’re backups are busy grabbing the latest and greatest, some files simply don’t change very often and are, therefore, overlooked. For example, take an organizational chart—it is important, but won’t change daily. Now add to this the fact that your default retention of backups may only be, say, 30 days, with a few archives at mo

Some applications will be important enough that having an ability to recover to the same (or similar) hardware isn’t enough. Take email for example. If your client has an Exchange server running and wants to make sure it can be recovered within an hour with data no more than 4 hours old, that’s an absolute standard. It means no matter what, you have an hour. Period. What if you have no network, no server hardware, how about no building? You have an hour! How in the world are

Your business could use some additional revenue, and your clients could use some additional protection. It’s a vicious circle that only you can break. You already back up a good portion of their data, applications and systems, so what’s wrong with what you’re doing today? Is there really more to offer? In this 8-part series, I’ll focus on 8 ways you can increase revenue, provide better service, establish more protection for your clients, and improve your ability to recover th

As an advocate for your customers, it’s critically important to you that the solutions you implement have your customer’s best interest at heart. After all, the moment you stop putting them first, they’ll stop depending on you, right? So, when it comes to backups, the most important point in time is when you select the solution you’ll use. That inflection point is going to determine whether you are going to be successful at recovering that Excel spreadsheet, the SQL database,