Falconstor Community

When it comes to backup and recovery, data center managers are fighting battles on several fronts. First, they face exploding data growth – increased numbers of data volumes, larger data volumes and increased numbers of servers – even as backup windows shrink (assuming there is a backup window anymore). Second, IT has to keep costs down despite expanding protection license fees, increased capacity expenses, inefficient utilization and other factors. This is the classic case of doing more with less. Finally, organizations have a data assurance burden – their teams lack confidence in the integrity of backup data. They have been burned too many times in the past when they needed to access backup data only to find out it was not usable or incomplete.

One of the nice things about the technology sector is that it’s never boring – there are always changes to make life interesting. This can be a new technique that provides a better solution to a problem, or a new, disruptive technology that requires us to re-evaluate our current processes.

Like everyone else these days, I’ve been watching the economic news with a feeling of dread combined with a strong sense of outrage. How did those idiots – and by “those idiots” I mean “them” and not “us” – screw this all up for the rest of us. Luckily, the talking heads on the news shows all assure us things will get better – just as soon as we hit absolute rock bottom.

It seems every year someone publishes a list of the top issues in IT, and every year backup issues are right up there at the top of the list. After 20 years of working on backup products, I find it a little disconcerting that backup remains a major problem.