Document management (DM) systems are not new to medium size and larger enterprises. DM is a discipline typically tied to one or more business processes that result in specific documents or data stored in a relational database. In the former, managing content according to defined business processes in a DM system is well known in the information management industry. How the DM system stores data is also well defined. DM systems store data as both a file and a database component. Understanding the different data types is a pre-requisite to supporting and developing a data and system recovery effort.
InMage has been protecting document management systems for many years. The challenge with protecting document management systems is similar. InMage must support a Microsoft SQL relational database and a file server component. At first glance it would seem that recovering these systems would be challenging because there are at least two components that must be backed up and recovered in tandem.
Ensuring a consistent recovery requires one to recover both components to the same point in time. That challenge, if taken by traditional backup, could be quiet difficult. In fact, the best you could hope for was the last full backup of both the file data and the SQL database. The introduction of Continuous Data Protection offers a much finer level of recover. Yet, identifying a point in time where both the SQL database and the file system are in synch could be challenging.
InMage makes it simple to find a recovery point for both the SQL database and the file system. Like other CDP software, InMage Scout uses a bookmarking technique. Bookmarking is software setting that identifies a demarcation point for server and application data consistency. InMage uses bookmarking for database consistency as well as consistency between the servers hosting the file system and database. Bookmarks enable a recovery manager to focus on what to recovery and from which point in time. InMage further simplifies that with a recovery interface from which the manager can choose a bookmarked recovery point.
The manager is assured that the database and file system components are consistent when selecting a bookmarked recovery point. Typically, companies deploy their document management systems with a portal hosting file template, a Microsoft SQL system and a mid-tier indexing solution. Therefore, rolling back to the bookmark is quite essential. Recovering the individual server’s data back to the bookmark is the easy part. Recovering each server across the document management system is where the challenge begins.
Join us later in the month when we delve into Part 2: InMage uses two agents to support the confluence in Document Management systems