Collecting and processing data is part of every company to a certain extent. Some make a living with it, others just have their customer data, emails and notes digitized. They use them constantly and aren’t aware how existential it is to their work. DTI / Pricewaterhouse Coopers, the University of Texas and the CPSR Corporation all agree that 94% of all companies that experience data loss will declare bankruptcy within the next two years. The NFIB (National Federation of Independent Business) states that 30% of small businesses will experience a natural disaster and 10% will experience a major data loss as result of a human error. That is a 37% risk that any company can experience data loss and 94% of them will declare bankruptcy. In conclusion there is a 35% chance of closing the company if no Disaster Recovery plan is present.

An off-site backup storage is essential for the worst case scenario, and here are a few examples of how Open-E JovianDSS can solve the issue.

Page index

• Disaster Recovery with one server
• Off-site backup storage
• Multiple off-site backup storages
• One off-site backup storage for several locations

Disaster Recovery with one server

Securing data against loss and corruption.

Open-E JovianDSS On- & Off-site Data Protection prevents data loss and data corruption already when only a single system is used. This includes human error, virus attacks or unreadable data from an unscheduled shutdown. By means of retention plans, snapshots are automatically created to meet any Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO), customized to the user’s needs.

Even though this doesn’t protect the data from disasters such as theft, fires or floods, it grants instant access to previous states of the data. When a file was mistakenly deleted or modified, it can be restored instantly and the same applies to virtual machines or a complete NAS server.

For complete data security, at least two systems need to be used: one for production and one at an off-site location for backup.

Off-site backup storage

A backup storage at an off-site location additionally secures data from hardware failure and natural disasters.

The Open-E JovianDSS On- & Off-site Data Protection feature was designed for complete Disaster Recovery plans. Data loss and data corruption happen more commonly than hardware failure or natural disasters, and can be easily countered with a retention plan inside one system. But hardware failure happens in the lifetime of nearly any server and natural disasters threaten many companies. Therefore, it is important to keep a backup at an off-site location, which is not affected by the consequences of the production environment.

On- & Off-site Data Protection is able to replicate data asynchronously to a different Open-E JovianDSS storage. The process happens in the background and is so small that it has no impact on the system’s performance. The production system only sends snapshot deltas to the off-site backup storage, which means that only actual changes are transmitted. Even slow WAN connections are therefore suited for On- & Off-site Data Protection. The systems can be placed in different fire safety zones or different locations entirely to decrease the risk that both get destroyed at the same time.

Retention plans can be different on source and destination. For example, if the recovery point objective is set to five years, it is not necessary to keep all this data on the source. The system at the production site stores only snapshots from the last month, keeping it small and agile, while a high-capacity off-site server holds a complete data history of the last five years.

Multiple off-site backup storages

Increased Data Security by having many copies at several off-site backup storages.

Sometimes data is so important that replicating it to one system just doesn’t suffice. The risk of data loss needs to be reduced to the absolute minimum, and this simply is achieved by creating more copies. On- & Off-site Data Protection can create parallel data replication tasks on any amount of servers at production or off-site locations. And each can have its own customized retention plan.

As a side note, replication tasks can run both ways between two nodes. Two storages can be used as a production server and off-site backup storage at the same time if two locations are already present.

One off-site backup storage for several locations

Consolidated backup at off-site location for cost reduction.

Most commonly a company has one production site and wants to have its data secured at one off-site location. But it is not uncommon that one company has several sites that actively work with their data and want a backup.

In Open-E JovianDSS On- & Off-site Data Protection, a system does not require a personal counterpart to create a copy of its data. It can accept any amount of replication tasks and create backups from several servers at once. This decreases initial investment and management costs, because fewer systems are necessary to create secure storage for all locations.