Cloud computing technologies are evolving at a remarkable rate in an attempt to bring utmost efficiency, scalability, performance, and of course, data protection to enterprises and small businesses across the global commercial sector. One of the latest innovations in the field is Continuous Data Protection (CDP) that strives to eliminate the need for traditional, cumbersome incremental backups and data protection methods.
While both the traditional and the CDP method start off by taking a snapshot of all your data, this is the point where these systems part ways and CDP becomes the higher-performing solution. After the first snapshot, CDP will continuously monitor for any changes in your data, only saving the files that have been altered. This leads to better performance across the board, but also minimizes data loss. Let’s break down the five major benefits of CDP and how it can help your business thrive.
Continuous protection with lower RPOs
As the name implies, continuous data protection means that the system is constantly replicating altered data to the journal in real time and as you are writing it. Unlike traditional snapshot solutions, continuous data protection doesn’t require you to set up numerous RPOs during the day, such as every hour. In case of hardware, software, or communications failure, your data will be easy to recover.
Instead of losing an hours-worth of work, for example, you will be able to access data aged no more than a few seconds before the time of the malfunction. This kind of continuous security will allow you to elevate productivity and efficiency, knowing that the data you enter will be stored immediately in a safe place, available to be used at a moment’s notice to resume operations.
Continuous server performance
The constant flow and storage of data can put heavy strain on the server, and hinder its performance during peak hours. Given the fact that legacy systems operating on a snapshot-basis need to read and re-read all of your data every single time you initiate a backup process, subpar server performance should come as no surprise.
On the other hand, Continuous Data Protection is a system that doesn’t waste resources by re-reading the data that hasn’t been changed, and instead only focuses on altered information it can quickly process and store. This leads to improved and balanced server performance throughout the day, regardless of the usage or the volumes of data that are being produced.
Scaling with the growth of the enterprise
When a company grows, its needs for storage capacity and server performance grow with it, which is where the majority of traditional cloud architectures and their data protection systems tend to show their biggest weak points. They are simply not easy to scale and rely on the available appliances that cannot be unified under a single data structure. This makes the business susceptible to data loss, especially during the expansion phase.
This is also the reason why modern private cloud providers are increasingly offering comprehensive hyper-converged infrastructures that run with a combination of CDP and traditional backup mechanisms in order to allow for easy and quick business expansion with no downtime regardless of the performance requirements, giving you the best of both worlds. In turn, your data will be kept in its entirety during the entire expansion phase with no drops in server performance.
Making the backup process a breeze
Every business leader or IT expert understands the dread of scheduled daily or weekly backups where you always stand to lose at least a day’s worth of data in case of a complete server breakdown, all the while hindering overall performance until the job gets done. The problem is that many a time this subpar performance will continue into the next workday, effectively impacting your bottom line.
However, with Continuous Data Protection, you can make data backup a seamless and efficient experience in which data is constantly stored and information is available without the need to create a backup window. This is a cost-effective way to streamline processes and increase data security to boot.
Increases disk space efficiency
Traditional data protection systems that take complete snapshots every time the system is backed up are extremely inefficient when it comes to storage space. Writing such cumbersome amounts of data every time begs the need for some of the earlier snapshots to be erased or the storage capacity of the drive to be expanded in order to meet the data requirements of the company.
Continuous Data Protection stores only the bare minimum of data that is required to fulfill the RPOs and thus maximizes available data through a kind of a recycling process. Given the fact that you ran a complete system backup a single time and that every additional piece of data is being added on a continuous basis, you are effectively recycling existing data and adding new information without consuming more disk space than you need.
In conclusion
Even though Continuous Data Protection offers numerous benefits to enterprises and small businesses, it’s important to know that CDP should not be the only system you rely on for all of your data storing needs. Instead, you should find a provider that offers the best of both worlds, encompassing CDP and scheduled backup in order to provide your business with the highest level of performance, protection, and scalability.