Traditional backup and recovery technology, based on database snapshots, is inadequate for cloud-based digital business, writes Wikibon CTO David Floyer. The problem with the present state of the art in backup – purpose-built backup appliances (PBBAs) such as EMC’s Data Domain — is that they use a batch process based on taking snapshots of a database at rest. As a result, they cannot approach the near-zero recovery point objectives (RPOs) and millisecond recovery time objectives (RTOs) required by cloud-based real-time transactional applications. Businesses cannot afford to lose transactions and wait hours for recovery of customer-facing applications.

Digital, cloud-based businesses require a new approach to backup that works directly from the database in memory without interrupting the application, backs up continuously to a local backup that can restore the database in milliseconds. This in turn should feed an off-site, cloud-based backup site that can restore with as close to zero RPO as possible (see figure above).

Floyer cites Oracle’s Zero Data Loss Recovery Appliance (ZDLRA) as a prime example of the new generation of backup and recovery. These will be offered as-a-service both in public and private clouds and will be less expensive and much easier to administer than present generation PBBAs.

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