Virtualized Storage

An Excerpt from Don Jones' Definitive Guide to Backup 2.0 about Backup and Disaster Recovery

What’s so technical about whole-server backup and disaster recovery? Windows stores critical data in a number of places, and some of them are files and databases that are continually open and under modification by the operating system(OS): the Windows registry, Active Directory’s (AD’s) database, and certain critical OS files are just a few examples of these. These files are difficult to backup and restore simply because the OS itself can’t “lock” the files to provide a “clean” image of the file. In other words, because the files are constantly open and constantly changing, traditional backup recovery programs can’t easily “see” the complete file to back it up.

Whole-server backup also includes user files, such as those stored on a file server, or in virtualized storage along with numerous configuration databases associated with Windows itself. Although all of these might not be open at all times, they can still be tricky to back up because they may be open during the brief window when the backup software is running.

So the goal with whole-server backup is to get a good, usable backup of the entire server. And by “usable,” I mean that the backup can serve our main business goals related to backup and recovery, which I stated in Chapter 1:

Backups should prevent us from losing any data or losing any work, and ensure that we always have access to our data with as little downtime as possible.
 
As little downtime as possible suggests that we need to do more than just back up the entire server in a way that facilitates restoring the entire server; we may also need to recover a single file, or a single configuration database, or a single AD object. Being able to recover just the data we want from a backup will help reduce downtime, as recovering a single file is obviously—or should be—much faster than recovering an entire server.

We also have to recognize that downtime doesn’t just apply to the server that we’re recovering; it also applies to the people who are waiting for the recovery to be complete. We can get a user back to work faster by recovering the one file that the user needs rather than having to recover the entire server. That said, we’ll certainly want the ability to recover the entire server, in the event that a complete disaster occurs and we lose the entire server. When that happens, the ideal is to lose as little work as possible, meaning whatever we’re using for backups should be continuous.

To learn more download Chapter 3 of the Definitive Guide to Backup 2.0

An Excerpt from Don Jones' Definitive Guide to Backup 2.0 about Backup and Disaster Recovery

Virtualization is being used in more and more creative ways (like virtualized storage or virtual disaster recovery, for instance ) —and it’s sad when Backup 1.0 can’t keep up. Here’s an excellent story about using virtualization to provide hot spares for critical computers—I can see this technique eliminating the old- school rental facilities where you’d have a bunch of physical servers ready to act as standbys in the event of a disaster. But see if you can spot where Backup 1.0 methodologies wreck the elegance of the solution:

My organization used to rely on an outsourced “hot site” for disaster recovery. The theory is that, in the event our data center was hit by a meteor or something, we would relocate to this offsite facility. They have lots of servers handy, and we’d just restore our latest backups to those servers. Sure, we’d lose some data—but we wouldn’t lose it all. We could then operate out of that site until our own data center was brought back online.

The cost for these facilities can be staggering, so we’ve recently constructed our own recovery center in one of our larger remote offices. We can’t afford to buy all the servers we’d need, so we are relying on virtualization. We’ve identified our two dozen or so most important servers, and we have enough servers in the spare facility to virtualize all the critical servers. Performance won’t be tops, but in the event of a disaster that serious, we’re okay with the tradeoff.

To keep these hot spares working, we regularly take offline our critical servers for maintenance and do a physical-to-virtual (P2V) conversion, converting each physical server into a virtual machine in the spare site. We actually do the P2V conversion locally during the maintenance window, then copy the new virtual machine images later because the files are of course huge and the WAN can’t support giant copies like that very quickly.

In theory, that means our critical servers are always ready to go and are no more than a week or so out of date. Our plan would be to restore our more recent backups to each virtual machine to bring it even more up to date. Great plan—almost. Having to pull servers offline to do a P2V migration is nuts. Why take servers offline at all? The bones of this method are a good idea, but the whole Backup 1.0 “snapshot” mentality—which most P2V migrations play into—is messing things up.

Consider this instead: Use a Backup 2.0-style solution, which makes continuous, block-level backups of your source servers without taking them offline. Restore those backups to an empty virtual machine—one without even an OS installed. This is essentially the same as a “bare-metal” restore, just that the metal in question is virtual. Your backups will always be up to date to the latest changes, and you can do a weekly restore to your “hot spare” virtual servers so that they’re ready to go at a moment’s notice. Or, if your backups are being stored safely—so that a complete disaster in your data center won’t also take out your backups—you could just do yet another bare-metal restore when disaster strikes, and your hot spares will be virtually indistinguishable from the real servers.

To learn more download Chapter 2 of the Definitive Guide to Backup 2.0

An Excerpt from Don Jones' Definitive Guide to Backup 2.0 about Backup and Disaster Recovery

This is a trick question. The answer is, “Of course.” Fact is though, few folks actually do. Why? Well, there are really a few reasons, many of which are related to the Backup 1.0 mindset.

First, as I mentioned earlier, is the time commitment. Spending hours doing a test restore isn’t in most folks’ budgets these days. Of course, a block-based restore can actually be done more quickly: You’re streaming the restore from disks over a high-speed network, not reading them ever-so-slowly from a tape drive.

Second, there’s the availability of hardware. Now, if you’re testing Single Message Restore, most backup recovery programs will allow you to restore files to any location you want, so you just need a small spot on an existing file server. But you should also be testing full-on backup and disaster recovery, where you restore a server that was completely lost (say, to fire) to a different piece of hardware. The problem is that many Backup 1.0-style solutions require you to restore to identical hardware, meaning you have to have a lot of spare servers around. Not gonna happen.

The best server backup software will let you restore to dissimilar hardware, which is actually more practical from a disaster recovery perspective; an ideal solution will let you restore to a virtualized server, which is absolutely perfect. So yes: Test your backups. Regularly. Perform both Single Message Restore and the type of bare-metal restore you’d associate with a total disaster, ideally utilizing modern Virtualized Storage technologies to eliminate or reduce the need for extra “test restore” hardware.

To learn more download Chapter 1 of the Definitive Guide to Backup 2.0

An Excerpt from Don Jones' Definitive Guide to Backup 2.0 about Backup and Disaster Recovery

Do you need offsite storage, storage compression or virtualized storage of your backups? Probably yes. In 1996, Paris-based Credit Lyonnais had a fire in their headquarters. Administrators ran into the burning building to rescue backup tapes because nothing was stored off-site. Let me write that again: Ran into a burning building.

Folks, fire is a constant possibility, as is the possibility of damage from floods (bad plumbing anyone?) and other disasters. If the data is worth backing up, it’s worth keeping copies somewhere else. At the very least, have some sort of on-site storage that’s disaster-proof—a waterproof fire safe, for example. Does that mean you have to use magnetic tape? No, but you probably will, simply because it’s relatively inexpensive, fairly durable, and easy to work with. You’ll likely end up using tape in conjunction with something else like virtualized storage, in fact, with tapes being the sort of last-resort place to restore from.

The point is this: Don’t assume that a major disaster will not strike you. Past performance is no guarantee of future results; just because you’ve never been hit by a disaster before doesn’t mean you won’t be hit by one eventually. That’s why people buy insurance policies, and backups are basically a form of insurance.

In terms of Backup 2.0, we might combine our block-based backups with some tape-based storage. Our backup server, for example, might periodically dump all its backed-up blocks to a tape array, allowing us to carry a snapshot offsite for archival purposes and to protect against a total disaster to our data center.

To learn more download Chapter 1 of the Definitive Guide to Backup 2.0

An Excerpt from Don Jones' Definitive Guide to Backup 2.0 about Backup and Disaster Recovery

The first backup—technically—was around 1951, when the first generation of digital computing appeared in the form of UNIVAC I. The “backups,” such as they were, were the punch cards used to feed instructions to the massive machine. Once computers began to use more flexible forms of storage, reel-to-reel magnetic tape began to replace punch cards. In 1965, IBM introduced the first computer hard drives, although through the 1970s, these devices remained impractically expensive to use for backups. Floppy disks came into use in 1969—an 8-inch monster storing just 80 kilobytes of data. Recordable compact disks as a backup recovery program became available in the early 1990s, and flash drives became common in the early part of the 21st century. Shockingly, magnetic tape—the second-oldest form of backup storage—is still in use today.

Here's a timeline of data backup storage (excerpted from www.backuphistory.com), and you can see that tape is still alive and well—and has been for almost 50 years.



There’s an interesting parallel to be drawn here: Despite numerous technical advances in storage (such as storage compression and virtualized storage), we continue to rely on one of the oldest mediums to store backups. The same applies to our backup and disaster recovery techniques and procedures: Despite advances in how we perform backups, we tend to still use the same decades-old techniques, albeit wrapped up in pretty new tools. Throughout computing history, backups have been practical, simple procedures: Copy a bunch of data from one place to another. Complexities arise with “always-on” data like the databases used by Exchange Server and SQL Server, and various techniques have been developed to access that form of in-use data; however, backups have ultimately always been about a fairly simple, straightforward copy. Even magnetic tape—much more advanced than in the 1960s, of course—is still a primary form of storage for many organizations’ backups. We call it “Backup 1.0”—essentially the same way we’ve all been making backups since the beginning of time, with the only major changes being the storage medium we use. Although many bright engineers have come up with clever variations on the Backup 1.0 theme, it’s still basically the same. And I say it’s no longer enough. We need to re-think why we do backups, and invent Backup 2.0—a new way to back up our data that meets today’s business needs. Surprisingly, many of the techniques and technologies that support Backup 2.0 already exist—we just need to identify them, bring them together, and start using them.

To learn more download Chapter 1 of the Definitive Guide to Backup 2.0

What is “Cloud Backup” Anyway?

We’ve talked here before about the ubiquity – and arguably the overuse – of the term “cloud” as it applies to, well, pretty much everything. But when it comes to cloud backup, the distinction is pretty important. As Chuck Hollis  – VP of Global Marketing and CTO at EMC – points out, cloud storage is more than just a big pile of disk.  Mr. Hollis outlines three key ways in which cloud storage, what we call cloud backup is more than just a collection of disk space: clouds are built differently, clouds are operated differently, and clouds are consumed differently than traditional IT.

For more detail on each of these concepts, be sure to have a look at the rest of Mr. Hollis’s post, Can You Call a Big Pile of Disk “Cloud Storage”?

Industry News

Can You Call a Big Pile of Disk “Cloud Storage”?
What’s the difference between “cloud storage” (what we call cloud backup) and just a big pile of disk? Chuck Hollis – VP of Global Marketing and CTO at EMC – has a blog post this week that will explain what it really takes to build cloud backup.
 
What Is On The Horizon That Will Shape Storage Strategies Tomorrow?
Even in the current times, where budgets are under scrutiny due to the economic situation, the storage industry is not standing still. New technologies are constantly developed and companies need to decide which technologies will be of benefit to them in the long run. This article by Carla Arend, IDC Group, looks at some of the storage compression and virtualized storage technologies that will shape storage strategies today and tomorrow.

Microsoft Finalizes Exchange 2010
Microsoft said this past week that it has finalized the code for Exchange 2010, the next version of its e-mail and communications server. Exchange 2010, which has been ahead of the rest of the Office family in development, becomes the first of the Office 2010 wave of products to be finished.
 

Virtualization Opens Up Opportunities for Cost-Effective BCDR Plans
Businesses rely on keeping people and information connected no matter where or when unplanned problems occur. With security top of mind for today’s IT decision makers, companies need a disaster/recovery plan that covers the systems, infrastructure and processes that prepare organizations for disruptive events to ensure critical data remains securely stored.

Creative Ways to Trim Your IT Budget
While managing the books for your company may not be your day job (or anything close to your idea of a good time), in this economic climate, everyone is expected to contribute to cutting costs. Use the tips in this article to help identify ways to trim your IT budget without cutting too close to the bone.

Keeping up with the Treadmill

One of the greatest challenges an IT Pro faces is keeping up with the treadmill – that is, staying up-to-date on all the latest technology and techniques, so they can continue to do their job. Information technology practically reinvents itself every 18 months, and it can often feel like one’s skills go stale the day after they finish acquiring them. So what’s an IT Pro to do?

It’s important to choose your resources carefully. We only have so much time to spend on training and education, and there’s so much to learn, so picking the resources that give you the most bang for your buck is crucial. That’s why I’m always glad to see resources like the Data De-duplication Software Technology Primer from TechTarget this week. Concentrating learning resources in one place saves time, and always makes my life easier!

Do you have any favorite resources for keeping up with the treadmill? Post your comments here, or find us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/appassure.


Industry News

Data De-duplication Technology Primer
Data de-duplication Software is the hottest topic for Data Storage Compression professionals this year. But as with any new technology, there's a lot to learn, with new information and products constantly being released. This resource from TechTarget has collected some of the best data de-duplication tips in one place.

Virtualize Storage through SANs, says IDC
In a new report entitled “Removing storage-related barriers to server and desktop virtualization,” the analyst firm claimed there is no need for high-end expensive systems to reap the benefits of virtualization - just create a SAN with virtualized storage software.

Microsoft starts rolling out final Windows Server 2008 R2 bits
As promised, Microsoft has made the final Windows Server 2008 R2 bits available on August 14 for download by Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) and TechNet subscribers.

Amazon's data shipping goes both ways now
Amazon Web Services has expanded a shipping service for large data sets on its S3 cloud storage platform so customers can get their content back instead of just sending it.

Safety in the Cloud(s): 'Vaporizing' the Web Application Firewall t...
Cloud computing and Cloud Disaster Recovery was not designed for security, although organizations such as Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) and Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) are making great strides in helping the industry solve the myriad security problems confronting cloud computing.

Let me start by saying - if you don't read Steve Duplessie's blog (Steve's IT Rants), you should start right now. I was steered to it the other day by a colleague, and I'm sorry I've been missing it all this time. Steve writes for the Enterprise Strategy Group, and covers a myriad of issues that radiate from the data center (Storage Compression, Virtualized Storage, security, compliance, and so on). He does so in a very thoughtful way, and I've now gone through his last dozen or so posts in the past 24 hours.

It's his most recent post though, entitled Scarcity Continued... (a follow-up to Scarcity Imbalances - why the SMB (and the Cloud) will change the game) to which I'd like to draw your attention. Steve uses this post to demonstrate why data deduplication software has become such a popular topic these days. The answer: it solves the scarcity problem.

It works like this (quoting Steve):

1. The Original Problem: Time. The problem that started the whole phenomenon that culminated in billions of bucks being spent had NOTHING to do with dedupe technology. It had everything to do with TIME. Right or wrong, IT departments do backups (a separate scarcity issue). Backups need to finish within a 24 hour window. If they finish at 23:59, it might not be optimal, but it isn't a "problem" that equates to a home run market. At 24:01, it does. Time was the scarce element that was valued originally.

2. The Original Solution: Disk. Disk solved the time scarcity problem. Not deduplication - just disk. Data volume and tape caused the time problem, disk solved it.

3. The Secondary Problem: Money. Once the original scarcity issue was solved (time, via disk in the backup process), the new scarcity issue became money. Disk costs much more than tape (no matter what anyone says!) in terms of both capacity and operations.

4. The Secondary Solution: Deduplication. Dedupe, and specifically Data Domain, solved the economic issue of utilizing disk in the backup process. Not a technical issue, an economic one. By deduping data, suddenly you could squeeze a ton more capacity out of your disk system - and thus lower the equivalent cost of that disk system to levels that were actually BELOW the cost of tape. Data Domain created huge value by creating huge value for the market by solving the true scarcity issue - which they did not create as it was created for them in the original problem - which was all about $$$$.

Data Deduplication Software is valuable not just because it does something useful (consolidate your data), but because disk is expensive - therefore scarce - therefore consolidating your data to save disk space is valuable. It's a terrific point, and very well made. Be sure to check out the rest of Steve's post - valuable stuff.

Cheers,

Josh

Storage Magazine had a great article this week that ponders whether the use of traditional data protextion software has come to an end (or at least, whether or not it should).

The idea actually makes quite a bit of sense. Their point is that traditional backup software was really designed for two things: moving data between clients and servers, and managing tapes and tape libraries. But the concept of "backup" has evolved so far beyond that (to what Don Jones has called Backup 2.0 in his new book, The Definitive Guide to Windows Application and Server Backup 2.0). Backup 2.0 focuses less on backup itself, and more on recovery. It covers concepts like full-volume snapshots, continuous data protection software (CDP), data deduplication for more efficient use of storage, and application-aware recovery. Backup 2.0 isn't about backing up your files. It's about being able to restore your computing experience (data, applications, and all), and it's about doing so very quickly, and with very short recovery windows.

So perhaps it's time we stop thinking about our backup software in 1.0 terms. Take a look at the article from Storage Magazine and let us know what you think! We'd love your thoughts on continues data protection software beyond traditional backup and recovery programs. There is more to Backup 2.0 than Storage Compression or Virtualized Storage. It's a comprehensive backup and recovery program that companies need to build into their processes.

Everywhere we turned this week, there was news about new physical and virtualized storage options. Two terabyte traditional drives are entering the mix, one terabyte solid state drives are on their way, and Intel is having some trouble with their new offerings. Of course, for every story about new storage products, there are ten more about organizations moving their data into the cloud for cloud disaster recovery. Earlier this week, we looked into a story about companies seeking to sure up their disaster recovery plans by moving towards hosted services, in hopes of saving money on infrastructure costs while protecting their data. Has your organization gone down this path yet? We’d love to hear about your experiences. Be sure to post your comments here, or send us a tweet at @appassure.

Industry News

Hitachi announces first 2 terabyte 7,200 RPM hard drive
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Inc. announced that it is shipping what it said is the world's first 2TB, 7200 RPM hard disk drive, the Deskstar 7K2000.

OCZ to release 1TB SSD this month
OCZ Technology Group Inc. said today it will release its Colossus solid-state drive (SSD) in the next couple of weeks, delivering the first 3.5-inch form factor SSD with 1TB of capacity.

Intel Halts SSD Sales Due to Data Loss Errors
Intel has halted shipments of its new X25-M and X18-M solid state-disk drives (SSDs) after discovering a problem that could cause data corruption. The new drives were the result of a joint venture with Micron Technology and used a new 34 nanometer manufacturing process that was supposed to offer more storage density and data storage compression at a lower cost.

The Impact of Cloud Computing: Will Data Centers become Dinosaurs?
As more and more data – and infrastructure – is moved into hosted services, will the in-house computer room become extinct?

Windows 7 RTM Available for Download on TechNet and MSDN
TechNet and MSDN subscribers can now download the English version of Windows 7 RTM. Software Assurance customers can download their copy from Microsoft Volume Licensing.

Building a Hyper-V Cluster on Windows Server 2008 R2
In the latest video from TechNet Edge, join Matt McSpirit as he walks through the setup of a Hyper V backup cluster – including network and storage configuration - on the latest Windows release, Windows Server 2008 R2.

To be sure you have the ability to perform fast recoveries in Exchange Server, you need to be sure you have a good method of Exchange backups. The Exchange backup process must be fast, complete, and, of course, recoverable.

Shrinking the backup window in Exchange can be achieved with the use of multiple storage groups. Keeping databases to a manageable size will also shrink the time it takes to back up those databases. Storage compression and virtualized storage can help to shrink backup windows by requiring less need for full backups. Replication can be the primary fast recovery option with backup as the secondary option.

Microsoft has a great document titled “What Needs to Be Protected,” which is a good gauge for how to setup your Exchange backup strategy.

Another best practice is to create reliability for Exchange backups. This can be done several ways. One way I like to emphasize is the use of disk imaging backups for Exchange. After you have a disk backup of the Exchange Server, you can use tape backup or replication to create redundancy.


… Excerpted from Backup Methods Available for Exchange by Ron Barrett (published by Realtime Publishers).
Download the full version here

Myth: “Continuous Data Protection Software for Exchange is expensive”

Reality: Maintaining a proper Exchange environment requires more than just a server, an Exchange license, and some Exchange backups. You need storage, processing capacity, bandwidth and of course, backup and recovery software. All of these components can add up to big price tags, exceeding many budget limits.

Not all backup and recovery solutions are created equal. Find a solution that balances your needs (performance, recovery time objective, automation) with right suite of utilities that fits with your budget. Newer, modern "Backup 2.0" solutions are built to be application-specific, which means they make the backup and recovery process easier to automate, maintain and perform. Avoid the generic storage solutions. Think about a solution with the flexibility to support virtualized storage and with storage compression options.

That's out 10th myth! but we are not done just yet, the last one is coming!

We’re happy to announce the release of the first chapter of The Definitive Guide to Windows Application and Server Backup 2.0. In this new e-book, Microsoft MVP Don Jones explores the "Backup 1.0" mentality and its shortcomings, and proposes a new "Backup 2.0" way of thinking. He examines the true business needs behind backup recovery programs (namely, quick recovery and as little lost work as possible), and proposes new techniques - using leading-edge technologies that are available today - that do a better job of meeting today's business and technology needs and finding the elusive best server backup software.

Chapter 1 discusses traditional means of backup, henceforth known as Backup 1.0, and why it's time for a shift. The need for smaller backup windows, continuous data protection software, and recovery of the application - not just the data - means that it's time for an evolution in backup and recovery techniques. Don will walk through some of the basic vocabulary of disaster recovery, and present ideas for new approaches. In future chapters, Don will dig deeper into application-specific approaches to recovery, including Exchange, SQL Server, and SharePoint, and also discuss how virtualization, including virtualized storage will have a major impact on how we go forward.

We're excited about the release of this book, and especially excited that Don is the author! Don has written more than 30 IT books, including Windows PowerShell: TFM; VBScript, WMI, and ADSI Unleashed; Managing Windows with VBScript and WMI; and many more. He’s a top-rated and in-demand speaker at conferences such as Microsoft TechEd and TechMentor, and writes the monthly Windows PowerShell column for TechNet Magazine. Don is also multiple-year recipient of Microsoft’s “Most Valuable Professional”.

So take a look at Chapter 1 of The Definitive Guide to Windows Application and Server Backup 2.0 and let us know what you think!

Tags: 2.0, backup, definitive, disaster, don, ebook, guide, jones, recovery

Last week, I pointed you towards an article by Pav Cherny on Improving SharePoint Performance. A central point of the article was that SharePoint has a number of infrastructure dependencies that might present potential performance issues. Among those dependencies are IIS, the .NET Framework, and SQL Server.

Well, SQL Server has dependencies of its own. Among the many are memory, CPU, and of course, storage. When it comes to SQL backup how you do storage compression and virtualized storage is central to speedy recovery.

In a recent post on SQLBlog.com, Joe Chang discusses storage performance issues related to SQL Server. Just as in Pav's SharePoint article, Joe breaks down common causes of performance issues, and the various aspects of storage infrastructure that an IT Pro needs to understand. Working your way up, performance might be impacted by the disk controller, the individual disks themselves, the configuration of several disks as they're joined together into arrays, and so on.

IT infrastructure is an ecosystem - built of many parts, each of which has parts of its own. Understanding the basics from the ground up can go a long way towards heading off issues before they start. Luckily, we have folks like Pav and Joe around to help.

For more from Joe Chang, check out his blog at http://sqlblog.com/blogs/joe_chang.

You may have seen in the news this week that back in May, Twitter suffered a security breach that allowed an attacker to gain access to various (and confidential) internal e-mails, documents and spreadsheets relevant to Twitter’s business. It became news this week when the blog TechCrunch received copies of the confidential files, and took its debate over whether or not to publish them public.

Setting aside that particular debate, when we look further into how the attack took place, we learn that the attacker managed to use a common password reset system (in this case, Yahoo’s, where one answers one or more preset questions) in order to access a Twitter employee’s personal e-mail account. From there, they were to recover information that allowed them to access the employee’s Google Apps account, which was used to store these confidential documents.

It’s a lot easier than you’d think. This was not a deeply technical attack that required significant coding and advanced knowledge of network infrastructure and protocols. This was an attack based entirely on social engineering, and as more of our data, and more of our business for that matter, moves into cloud, issues like this will only increase in frequency and severity.

Does your organization have processes or regulations in place concerning how and where your business data is stored? More importantly, do you have any means in place to enforce those rules? This week’s news might be good cause to evaluate your security plans when it comes to cloud computing.

Industry News

Lessons from the Twitter Security Breach
In light of the recent security breach at Twitter, the security of Web applications in general has come under fire. What are the implications for IT professionals as more data moves into the cloud?

Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit for Windows 7 and Window...
In yet another sign that the RTM of Windows 7 is imminent, Microsoft has released its Assessment and Planning Toolkit for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Microsoft has also released an update to its Windows Automated Installation Kit with support for the new OS releases. Have you started planning your next OS deployment? Assessing your current environment is a great first step.

IT Budgets: Shifting By the Week?
As earnings season shifts into high gear, what’s the outlook like for IT budgets? According to many, the answer is really a moving target.

The State of the Green IT Economy
There’s a lot of talk about Green IT – both as a good business practice and as the socially responsible thing to do. But the latest study shows only 16% of businesses have a Green IT policy in place. Did you know virtualized storage, storage compression and virtual disaster recovery planning are 3 of the most green IT initiatives you can undertake dollar for dollar.

Here are a few basic database concepts all administrators should understand before creating a disaster recovery plan for Exchange backups.

Database: In Exchange 2000/2003, the database is comprised of two files—an .edb (rich text data) and .stm (native content) files. Databases can be either mailbox stores or public folder stores.

Transaction logs: Before data is written to the database, it is first written to a sequential set of transaction logs. These logs are not only essential to the performance of Exchange, but they are also a key ingredient in an Exchange disaster recovery plan.

Consistent database: When a database is dismounted, or the information store service (store.exe) is shut down, all logs are committed to the database. After all logs have been committed, the header information in the database is flagged as “consistent.”

Inconsistent database: When a database is stopped prior to all transactions being committed (because of a power outage, for example), the header of the database is not flagged and is therefore regarded as “inconsistent.” To make the database consistent, the transactions that were not committed must be replayed into the database. A database must be consistent in order for it to be mounted.

So before you create your recovery plan, make sure you are familiar with all these terms and others like continuous data protection, virtualized storage and data deplication to achieve maximum efficiency and no mistakes.

Backup and Disaster Recovery planning is very important for every company to protect its data. There are three components to a successful recovery plan:

1. Having a plan—your plan must account for every possible contingency that might necessitate a recovery. At a minimum, this plan will include hardware failures, corruption or loss of your Exchange data, failure of the infrastructure components (such as Active Directory—AD—and electrical power) that Exchange requires, and interruption of physical access to your servers.

2. For each of these contingencies, you need to have a response. This response might be simple (for example, if non‐critical hardware breaks, you wait for the vendor’s service technician) or complicated (if your Los Angeles data center is damaged by an earthquake, you fail over its operations in your Denver data center). The point is to accurately describe the potential problems you might run into, and to have solutions identified for them. Need to account for virtualized storage? Put it in the plan. Exchange backups important to your company, make sure you have single message restore built into the solution.

3. Being able to follow the plan—just having a plan is fairly useless if you don’t also have the ability to put your plan into action. This action will probably require a combination of money, persuasion, education, management support, and acquisition. For every solution you identify in your disaster recovery plan, you must have the necessary mix of equipment, skills, and preparation to make it actually happen.

Finally, in order to have a working recovery plan, make sure you practice it several times and keep it updated, this will prevent any failures that could cost lots of money and time to fix. Remember, you can never be “too-prepared”.

In any given week, it’s easy to find big technology news in every sector, pouring in from around the globe. But without a doubt, the big news this week is the announcement from Google of the Chrome OS. In a clear shot across Microsoft’s bow, Google is leveraging its investment in its Chrome browser to develop a lightweight operating system, certainly targeted at the booming market for netbooks. Questions abound about how effective this foray will be, but in large part, it doesn’t matter. This is Google we’re talking about, after all, and their efforts are rarely half-hearted. As far as we’re all concerned, it’s one thing to see new applications enter the market, but a serious new contender in the operating system space is almost certain to have a ripple effect in every aspect of how we as IT professionals do our job.

The news is still pouring in, but we’d love to hear your thoughts on this major announcement. Leave us a comment here or find us on Twitter, and let us know what you think!

Industry News This Week

Google Announces Chrome OS
Larry Dignan: Google plans to launch a lightweight operating system dubbed the Chrome OS that will target netbooks and Web apps. A direct assault on Windows? Google's entry into the software stack game has big implications for Linux, the enterprise, the cloud -- and, yes, Microsoft too.

Flash prices rise; likely to impact SSD
A report from iSuppli has shown a rise in price for NAND flash, which it predicted will affect the SSD market.

Microsoft Internet Explorer Share Falls
Even with IE8 share gaining, Firefox, Safari and Chrome continue to chip away at Microsoft’s dominance. What does this mean for computing in the cloud?

What is your CIO Really Thinking?
In a fun read for this week, Thomas Wailgum shares some insights to help you understand what your CIO is really thinking.

Consider exploring cloud disaster recovery and virtualized storage this week.