How important is data protection in real time? Well, how important is the protection of anything in real time? Let us take a home, for example. If burglars break into a house, the owners, having purchased a home-security system, would expect the alarm to go off and the police to be alerted right away. If the alarm didn’t go off until the next day or the police weren’t notified until the end of the week, the loss would be substantial and most likely permanent.
The same could be said of computer data protection. While most all enterprises have backups in place–as well they should–a backup will only contain a version of data that existed at the time of the backup. What if a considerable amount of work has occurred on a file since the last time it was backed up, and then it is accidentally deleted? Or worse, what if the file was created since the last backup? In either case, time and money are lost in direct ratio to the effort it will take to restore that file to the state it was in when it was deleted. That includes IT personnel having to search through backups for the last version as well as employee or employees having to redo work that wasn’t included as part of that last version backed up.
If a file is created and saved on a local drive, it can be recovered from the Windows Recycle Bin. But in most companies user data is saved across networks to servers–and the Windows Recycle Bin won’t recover it. It is obvious that, in addition to backups, an additional layer of data protection is needed. That desperate call to the help desk (“I’ve accidentally deleted a file and I need it for that meeting in the morning!”) is the same as the home security alarm that goes off too late. Loss of valuables has already happened, and now it’s just a question of how much time and effort it will take to get them back or, worse, replaced.
A real-time data protection solution is one that replaces the Windows Recycle Bin with one of its own, allowing instant recovery of any deleted file, including one deleted across a network. The hours (or even days) that would be needed to recover and re-create an accidentally-deleted file are saved. This same solution also allows for the retrieval of earlier versions of other file types which normally cannot be recovered in any circumstances, such as earlier, over-written versions of Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files.
Just as it is crucial that a home have an instantly-responding security system, it is vital that all enterprises, in addition to backups, add real time protection and real time recovery to their data protection schemes.
