Data Preservers

The anniversaries of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina have passed. The hottest summer in recent memory, the cause of prolonged East Coast power outages, is finally over. In the wake of the turmoil are jangled nerves and a passel of lost data. Whether it's the next calamity or someone deleting files, more people are thinking about data protection than ever before.

Data is growing exponentially, and information availability is vital to business. Customers may be finding a bevy of new and more affordable ways to make sure their data is backed up and retrievable, but with the alternatives come choices that can make even the savviest customer's and solution provider's head spin: BCP. CDP. ILM. WAFS. And the dilemma goes beyond acronyms. There are backup, replication, mirroring snapshots, vaulting, archiving and de-duplication, not to mention the complexity of supporting multiple applications and operating systems.

More than 40 vendors of note offer data-protection products through various channels. Microsoft put a stake in the ground about a year ago when it released its Data Protection Manager, a tool that legitimized the continuous backup of file-based data. Today, it's becoming the norm to back up data to low-cost disks, sometimes postponing for months, if not years, the archiving to tape.

Today, backup and disaster recovery ranks second only to security infrastructure when it comes to IT spending priorities over the next 12 months, according to the first VARBusiness Market Insight Report. Only 12 percent said it's not a priority at all, while 8.6 percent are outsourcing the entire business-continuity effort.

One-third are addressing business continuity and disaster preparedness in conjunction with a third-party technology provider, the study revealed. Case in point: Fred Nix, CTO of Syscom Technologies, a solution provider in Marietta, Ga., says business in that area "is doubling and tripling quarter over quarter."

NEXT: Many new technologies and business imperatives are changing the way integrators deliver disaster recovery and backup to customers. Here are some things to consider.