Distributed enterprises with varying size remote offices under their management are no different than any other organization in that they also want to capitalize on the numerous benefits that integrated backup appliances offer. Yet selecting the “right-sized” backup appliance for each office can quickly become very complicated as it can create a tangled web of backup and recovery management if neither the appliances nor the backup software can be centrally monitored and managed.
The challenge distributed enterprises face is that most integrated backup appliance providers only offer two or three models. The problem this creates is that as a distributed enterprise seeks out the most appropriately sized appliance for each office, it may be forced to acquire an appliance that is possibly over sized for one office or under sized for another. This puts them in a predicament where they may need to backup some of their offices using different backup software, be forced to buy an appliance from another provider or even again resort to building their own backup solution.
As such, distributed enterprises with multiple offices have four specific backup requirements when it comes to choosing a backup appliances that set them apart from organizations with a single site or even just a few offices. These include:
- Use the same backup software across all appliances. To effectively and efficiently backup data across multiple sites, all of the integrated backup appliances should have the same backup software on them. Using this approach, organizations create a consistent means to protect and recover data across their enterprise as they only need to train administrators on one backup software solution that uses a common set of backup policies. This approach also simplifies backup software licensing.
- Common management interface. Deploying integrated backup appliances that use the same software everywhere is still no guarantee that a central console exists to manage each of these appliances. Distributed enterprises need a centralized backup console that aggregates all of their appliances under one interface so they can easily manage either the appliance or the backup software on it regardless of where an appliance is located.
- Right-sized appliances.While some distributed enterprises may have the luxury of only needing one or two different sized appliances to meet their specific needs, many do not. Selecting a provider that has a family of integrated backup appliance models gives a distributed enterprise the flexibility to select the most appropriately sized for that environment that aligns with each office’s technical and budgetary requirements, which may include a virtual appliance.
- Replication between appliances. While every organization wants to successfully backup and recover its data, distributed enterprises often need to backup their data at one site and then recover it in another to satisfy either disaster recovery or operational requirements. These requirements dictate that integrated backup appliances replicate data between one another.
Distributed enterprises may use these criteria to create a short list of potential providers and products. While there are a large number of integrated backup appliance models on the market, the number of providers that offers a family of appliances that meet the specific requirements of small, midsized and large environments as well as the broader needs of distributed environments becomes very small rather quickly.