Data Storage Backup

Data storage backup is data protection by means of creating copies of your data. The backed-up data must be immediately available, either for restoring individual items like files, databases, or for Disaster Recovery purposes. The data storage backup is only the first step of the complex process which is Data protection.

Data storage backup can be performed as a Disk to Disk Backup or a Tape Backup.

Disk to Disk Backup

With the disk to disk backup, the data storage backup is done on the "short-term" storage, named also the staging disk area. Data backups on the short-term storage are kept for a limited period of time, which varies according to the organization policy. Be it either one month or six months, the backups must be processed further, as their size on the disk staging area can become very large.

A good data storage backup strategy must manage the backups in one of the following ways:

• - Send the backups to another disk storage area, thus resulting in a Disk to Disk to Disk (D2D2D) solution. From the second disk storage, backups may be sent to a tape library (D2D2D2T).
• - To a tape library, as part of a Disk to Disk to Tape (D2D2T) strategy.

From the staging area, the backups can be sent to the second disk storage through a data replication process. To minimize the size of the staging area and the replication target disk area, Data Deduplication at the staging disk level is highly recommended.

Tape Backup

In this case, the data storage backup is performed to tapes in a tape library. In some environments, tape backup may still be the main choice, with tapes being stored offsite on a rotation basis.