Erik The Cloud Guy

Musings about the Microsoft Azure Cloud and related technologies

Azure Backup simplifies your cloud backup and recovery strategy

21 March 2019 Erik-Dempsey Azure, Backup (0)

About a year ago, at my previous job, we wanted to implement data and VM backups in Azure, and I was tasked with digging into the service to find out capabilities, costs, retention, etc. I have to say, after all the research, lab work, testing, and move to production, I could not be happier with all the different options and capabilities of this service. 

 But before I get into that, let's talk a little about Backup and Recovery. For the context of this post, backup and recovery regards to data backup and restoration of the backed-up data. Disaster Recovery (the ability to recover from a geographic site failure/catastrophe) is a separate topic entirely and is not covered in this blog. 

There’s more to backup and recovery than technology

I have been doing IT infrastructure since 1999 and in my opinion backup/recovery is one of those necessary evils of the job. It seems straight-forward but it usually isn't. I think most organizations look to technology alone to solve this business problem. However, there is a lot more to it than that. 

I know of organizations where their backup solution starts and ends with the software and hardware used to perform the backups. There is and has been very little time spent on anything other than ensuring the software and hardware is running as configured. The challenge is that, when a recovery opportunity comes, little time has been spent testing that process and so it ends up being a mad scramble and late nights with little sleep while trying to recover a critical system.  

In the aftermath, an organization will then look deeper at their process and work to get it resolved. But that effort usually gets sidetracked with the latest project that needs to happen now, and we settle for "Well, I took notes so it should be better next time". 

The biggest cause of this looping issue with backup and recovery is that most organizations, even large enterprises, I have dealt with don't have a dedicated backup and recovery team. Most don’t even have a single individual responsible for that process and yet it is one of the most, if not the most, critical components to any business. 

Data loss recovery can make or break any organization

The ability to recover from a data loss event can make or break any organization regardless of their annual revenue. But most organizations are still dealing with skeleton IT teams. That means the function of backup and recovery becomes part of the team's overall job responsibilities. While all members understand the critical nature behind backup and recovery, it can get lost in the shuffle of all the other critical systems they are managing daily. I believe that having the right partner in this area can be a game-changer to ensure your business and its IT assets are properly protected from data loss. 

How to start your backup and recovery strategy

Here are some questions to consider when developing your backup and recovery strategy: 

  • What is the data that needs to be backed up?
  • Are there different categories of data, meaning is all data treated the same, and if so, is that required?
  • Does each category have the same retention?
  • Does each category have the same recovery requirements - Recovery Point and Recovery Time?
  • What is the current retention policy?
  • Does your retention policy match your capability to truly recover the data?
  • How often is your hardware refreshed and does that have any impact on your retention plan?
  • What are the backup data availability requirements?
  • Where is the backup data stored and does that location match the availability requirements?
  • Does the backup data need to be encrypted at rest and/or in transit?
  • How often do you test your recovery plan/process?
  • Are there any regulations or external compliances that govern your backup strategy?
  • Is your backup and recovery strategy audited?
  • Is any of this documented and communicated to the organization? 

Answering and documenting the answers to the above questions is a great start to an overall backup and recovery strategy. 

Azure Backup key features and capabilities

Ok, so how does Azure Backup fit into all this and why am I so impressed with it? Glad you asked. Here are some key features and capabilities of Azure Backup that I found make it a great technology to consider: 

Backup Options

There are 4 ways to back-up data, each with their own benefits and limitations: 

  1. Installation of an agent on servers - physical or virtual, on-premises or in the cloud
  2. Integration with System Center Data Protection Manager
  3. Azure Backup server - essentially System Center DPM but specifically tuned for Azure Backup services
  4. Azure IaaS VM instance level backups 

You also get unlimited data transfer to the backup vault at no charge, including: 

  • Data encryption: both in transit and at rest
  • Application-consistent backup: whether backing up a file server, virtual machine, or SQL database, you need to know a recovery point has all required data to restore the backup copy. Azure Backup provides application-consistent backups, which ensures additional fixes are not needed to restore the data. Restoring application consistent data reduces the restoration time, allowing you to quickly return to a running state. 

Retention

Instead of switching backup copies from disk to tape and moving the tape to an off-site location, you can use Azure for short-term and long-term retention. Azure doesn't limit the length of time data remains in a Backup or Recovery Services vault. You can keep data in a vault for as long as you like. Azure Backup has a limit of 9,999 recovery points per protected instance. So, if you take a daily backup of an instance (server, workload, etc.), you can retain those recovery points for 27 years before you hit the 9,999 limit. If you do monthly backups of the same instance, you can retain those backups for 833 years. 

Recovery options

There is a dependency on which backup option you have. But, for the most part, you have the option of restoring an entire instance or a portion of an instance, and you can test your recovery without impact to production. 

Availability

Azure Backup services has a 99.9% uptime guarantee, and you can configure either locally replicated backups or geo-replicated backups. Locally redundant storage (LRS) replicates your data three times (it creates three copies of your data) in a paired datacenter in the same region. LRS is a low-cost option for protecting your data from local hardware failures. Geo-redundant storage (GRS) replicates your data to a secondary region (hundreds of miles away from the primary location of the source data). GRS costs more than LRS, but GRS provides a higher level of durability for your data, even if there is a regional outage.

Unlimited Scaling

Azure Backup uses the underlying power and unlimited scale of the Azure cloud to deliver high-availability - with no maintenance or monitoring overhead. You can set up alerts to provide information about events, but you don't need to worry about high-availability for your data in the cloud. 

Cost

As with most Azure services, you pay only for what you use. There is no upfront investment where you pay for idle devices or media or software. There is a per-instance-fee, and then you pay for the storage used to house your backup data. 

Flexibility is key to your backup and recovery strategy

The great news of Azure backup is that they understand one size does not fit all. They know not all data is the same so not all backups need to be the same. Flexibility is key when it comes to managing your IT assets, and your backup strategy is no exception to this. Backups can get expensive fast, especially if you treat all data the same. Recovery can get expensive fast if you don't have a defined process and then practice that process regularly, especially with new employees. 

Lower your stress and sleep better

Backup and Recovery can be a beast, but it doesn't have to be. Using Azure Backup Services can improve your organization’s protection against data loss and reduce your lost sleep and stress the next time you have a data recovery event.

The Need for IT in a “Clouded” World

20 March 2019 Erik-Dempsey Cloud (0)

Here is an oldie but a goodie.  This is a blog article I wrote about 5-6 years ago but I think it still applies today.  I have updated this to match current technology names but the overall premise, in my opinion, is still valid.

 

The “Cloud” has done quite bit for IT in today’s marketplace. Some good, some not so good. The “Cloud” has created some unnecessary misunderstandings, mostly due to the massive amount of definitions for what the “Cloud” is and what it can do. The main misunderstanding is that by implementing a cloud-based solution, a company’s need for IT human resources is reduced. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

For the sake of this discussion, let's combine all systems-based roles: administrators, engineers, technicians, analysts, etc. into a single role called systems administrators. Systems administrators (the main role-group in IT affected by cloud implementations), have historically identified themselves with the hardware they support and implement rather than the software, meaning they call themselves “server guys”. But I submit, as a former systems administrator and current systems engineer, that every “systems” person IS as much a software administrator as they are a systems administrator. As a “server guy” I spent way more time dealing with software and software-related issues than I ever did with the hardware. Granted there was a portion of those issues that were related to the operating system but the majority of my time was spent more on the software that defined the server – SQL, Exchange, SharePoint, and other applications.

In most cloud implementations, especially software as a service like Office 365, the systems team is removed from the operating system. However, they still have to manage the software – in the case of Office 365 that would be Teams, Exchange, and SharePoint, etc. just as they do with their on-premises versions. A significant workload when you consider that SharePoint Online has the same governance requirements as the on-premises version, Exchange Online will still receive all of the Spam and Anti-virus laden messages that system admins deal with in their on-premises systems, and most of all, you still have users that are using all this software and have no clue that the servers providing them these services are no longer in the building.

Ok, so what has changed then? For one, you no longer have to deal with “Microsoft Tuesday” every month, you no longer have to implement, update, maintain, and watch your monitoring software for when green lights are no longer green. And for those shops who’s “monitoring solution” is having the systems admin walk into the server room/data center every day and look at every system to “monitor” for the green lights, can now spend that time in a much more productive manner – such as figuring out how to get more systems than just Exchange, SharePoint and Skype for Business/Teams in the cloud.

The usefulness of the cloud, including the scalability without the huge investments, will not go away. Rather they will only expand and be enhanced. But the need for IT resources on site will also always remain and should remain because they are the ones that will manage those cloud services and ensure that they are successful and productive for the organization. There will always be the need for the expert(s) that understand the software and services used by the company to make money and get things done. Although the System Administrator role may have changed slightly, the role(s) are not going away any time soon.