

Backup and recovery systems (BRS) can make or break a business depending on their success or failure, according to two EMC storage experts who spoke on The Cube recently. At Oracle OpenWorld, The Cube host Dave Vellante sat down with Shane Jackson, VP of BRS Marketing, and Mel Shum, Principal Technology Consultant, at EMC.
To begin the interview, both gentlemen expressed their surprise that Oracle had successfully transformed from a software company into a hardware company and that it was now in the backup and recovery spotlight, thanks largely in part to the backup and recovery systems provided by EMC. One of EMC’s chief products is for database backups, as problems related to it could truly cripple a business.
Because recovery of backups is so crucial, it has become one of EMC’s main points of focus. Data is growing substantially, but companies still need to maintain low costs and have the agility to manage backups and successfully recover them when necessary. Shum pointed out that if a company is able to restore 99% of a backed-up database, it is still a failure, as 99% of database files would not produce functional results. A database administrator needs 100% in order to consider it successful.
Jackson went on to say that too many companies restore backups by committee. The database administrator (DBA) and several other IT people often converge when there is a problem and attempt to piece together scattered backups to get the system up and running again. Instead, the backup system should be streamlined so that only the DBA needs to restore the backup and do so with little hassle.
Vellante asked the two men if tape backup was still the primary method of storage for anyone, despite EMC’s largely successful efforts to move away from it. Jackson replied that tape backups have become inadequate and that the purpose-built backup appliance is the current technology most companies should use. Shum mentioned, however, that some countries still require tape backups for compliance with old laws.
As for the future, Vellante asked Shum and Jackson what role the cloud would play in backup and recovery. Shum described three areas where the cloud would serve as the backup target: (1) remote backup, where the production is in-house but the backup is outsourced, (2) outsourcing of both the servers and the backups, and (3) replication services, where they have on-site backups but replicate them in another location.
You can watch the interview in its entirety right here.
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