Strategic Backup & Recovery: A Comprehensive Guide

1. Building a Backup & Recovery Strategy Michael Karp Senior Analyst Enterprise Management Associates

2. What We’ll Cover • User demands… and your ability to address them • Building a strategic planning methodology • How to plan it • Identifying what’s important • How to implement the strategy • What to demand of your vendors • Success metrics

3. Issue The context: Today you’re in Chicago, tomorrow you go back to … • Increasing deployment of packaged apps has resulted in 1000’s of objects & complex database relationships • Business-critical apps require 7x24 availability, typically in a heterogeneous environment • Multiple platforms cause exponential resource drag • Smaller maintenance windows = less backup time

4. Let’s Play the Maalox Moment Game! • Unmanaged storage (asset utilization) • The (in)experience of your DBA’s • Supporting data-hungry, mission-critical apps (SAP, CRM, payroll, email, etc.) • Redundant hardware/personnel/software • Assurance/manageability/performance

5. The Fundamental Issue: It All Comes Down to Business Continuity • It’s not about SAN, NAS and DAS … it’s about protecting storage where it lives, and delivering it to where it’s needed • The goal: pervasively available data in the context of affordable business continuity • The economic issue includes ROI, TCO & the opportunity cost of sub-optimized systems

6. Checklist The 7 Steps to Highly Successful Backup and Recovery Strategies • Define a methodology • Identify service levels • Build a calculation tool • Identify assets & expenses • Identify solutions • Deal with vendors • Deal with your management

7. Identify assets & expenses Define the methodology Identify service lvls Identify solutions Deal with vendors Deal with your mgmnt Build a calculator • Understand that the process is non-linear, only partly generalizable, & seems to be never-ending Understanding the Process

8. Step 1: The Planning Methodology • Hint: It’s all Deming! • Define a strategy, build a team • The roadmap – what you need to build it • Identify what/who you’ll need • Demand, serviceability, retirement, et al. • Specify what service/solution/resource comes on-line when

9. Step 2: Determine Service Levels • What are they … more than more 9s? • What is their purpose … scoping? retribution? • Are you achieving them…how do you know? • If so, at what cost? If not … • Look out 6-8 quarters… Can you meet next quarter’s demands with next quarter’s budget?

10. Rules of the Road for Meeting SLAs • Service levels vary with users & applications • Key backup & recovery metrics • Recovery time, recovery point, data integrity • Availability & performance impact • Cost/benefit analysis & risk assessment • To ensure compliance, set policies & automate • How to build an agreement

11. Gotcha Building the SLA • Make sure everyone understands why you have it • Deal with all necessary constituencies • Define quantities and quality • How much, & at what level of accuracy, & over how long? • It’s nonsense to offer better SLAs than your vendors give you • Use a generalized template (but it will likely have varying values)

12. Step 3: Begin to Build an ROI Calculation Tool • The most important & least well-understood step • Why do it? • Backup & recovery require high capital investment, yet are perceived as non-revenue generating • CIO’s get numbers to show their bosses, substantiating IT expenditures (the finance dept loves this bit) • Shows the business impact of the IT investment • Illustrates –- quantifiably -- all values achieved

13. Tool Savings Investment ROI = What goes into the ROI Calculation • The higher the ROI, the better the project • Shows value of future cash flows and future savings in terms of today’s dollars • Positive number means it is a beneficial investment • Typically calculated over a 3 years term • Goal: More revenue throughput from fewer assets

14. The good news: It’s just a spreadsheet • The trick: identify the meaningful areas • Reliability (backups, restores, mirroring, etc.) • System performance (asset utilization – hardware, software, biologics) • Availability (effects of window limitations on data use) • Costs (assets, change-over, personnel, downtime) • “Nimbleness” (scaling, M&A, “x-sizing”)

15. Quality results demand consistent input • Give visibility to all assumptions • Build a matrix applicable to all solutions • Purchase cost, roll-out, maintenance cost, depreciation, etc • Personnel requirements • Calculate savings through improved performance/processes/revenue impact/ etc.

16. Beginning to Build the Spreadsheet The NPV calculation The payback calculation (initial cost/annual net benefit)

17. Step 4: Identify Assets & Expenses • Goal: Reduce the burden • Reduced down time, reduced time to recover • Optimized resources (hardware, software & personnel) • Method: Identify backup & recovery expenses: • Local & remote assets • Identify carrying costs for each (depreciation, admin, licenses, downtime, maintenance, etc.), not sunk costs (whatever won’t be impacted by change)

18. Where are the Expenses? • Often in this order, but your mileage may vary: • Hardware • Biologics • Software • Down time (what goes into the calculation?) • Lost data (the others are no-brainers; this one …) • Your goal -- achieve granular understanding

19. Step 5: Identify Solutions Decision Point • GOAL: Greatest good from the least investment • An example of the process: • IF maintenance windows are shrinking {the problem} THEN minimize the data set being backed up {solution} OR buy faster devices {solution} OR automate the process to reduce human error {solution} OR move data to a SAN … {solution} • WHICH SOLUTION (OR COMBINATION) IS BEST?

20. Warning Identify Solutions: The Question of “Best-In-Class” • If everyone acknowledges that “one size doesn’t fit all” … • Forget about best-in-class products! • Remember Zeno’s paradox (even if they exist, you probably don’t want to pay for them) • You may not need them • Focus instead on implementing best-in-class internal processes

21. Identify Solutions: The Question of Outsourcing

22. Good Idea Step 6: Deal with the Vendors • Get a complete environmental impact statement! • Calculating ROI and TCO • They all do this now, but there’s a catch • Make sure their calculations and yours include the same assumptions, variables, formulas, etc. • Almost all of them can help. Your job is to identify which ones help the <best>

23. Dealing with vendors –How they’re coming at you • BMC, CA, Legato, Tivoli, Veritas • Compaq, EMC, HDS, HP, IBM, Sun • Other vendors • Service providers • Cooperation, competition, co-opetition, interoperability, and believability

24. Dealing with vendors –What they’re pitching • Invisible/serverless/etc. backups & rapid recoveries (but remember the laws of physics!) • Remote backup & restore • Disaster planning, response & recovery • Virtualization • Simplified management • They are all “Swiss agnostic”

25. Dealing with vendors – What to look for • Solutions that address your major expenses • Leverage across key existing investment • Simplified management • Take advantage of commoditization • Reduce the number of objects under management • Solutions that support your next gen policies

26. Step 7: Deal with your management • It’s always a business issue • Identify the hot button • Specify the appropriate success metric(s)* • Present the quantified business case • Let the vendors do some of your job for you

27. What are the success metrics? • Time To Recover (TTR) – how long? • Recoverability – how much (what percentage)? • Data integrity after recovery • Production availability impact • Production performance impact • Cost-benefit analysis • Risk of solution failure or breakdown

28. Where to Find It Where to turn, what to watch out for • Vendors • “3rd parties” • Trade organizations {danger} • Sis {GREAT DANGER} • User groups {these guys are the best} • Internal resources

29. Checklist The 7 key points to take home • Technology decisions are really business decisions • Understand your expenses • Quantify the benefit • Know your demand curve • Iterate the analysis process • An informed decision is … an informed decision • Don’t let your vendors off the hook

30. Your turn! Mike Karp Enterprise Management Associates mkarp@enterprisemanagement.com 1-508-366-0328