Businesses work with a huge amount of data daily. Regardless of the industry, businesses use computers and other devices to keep track of important documents, customer information, employee payroll, and other data vital for running a business. However, this data is not always stored securely, and in the event of a malware attack or hardware malfunction, hours of work, if not more, can be lost. This is where continuous data protection comes in.
With continuous data protection, you can ensure that your business’ data is always safe and accessible. Of course, this form of protection necessitates unique software solutions. That is why we have compiled this list of the 5 best software that offer continuous data protection for businesses.
In this article, we will first define continuous data protection and discuss both its benefits and drawbacks. Then, we will provide a list of 5 software solutions that offer continuous protection. By the end of this article, you will know how to integrate continuous data protection into your business’ operations and which software solution works best for your organization.
What is Continuous Data Protection?
Continuous data protection (CDP) is a system that backs up all data on a device or series of devices whenever a change is made. This means that any previous version of the system can be accessed and restored and old data recovered. Additionally, continuous data protection ensures that no system data is lost. Businesses can install CDP software on all employee and company devices to ensure that no data, from customer files to database, is susceptible to loss and that any previous version of the data is recoverable.
There are actually two forms of continuous data protection: true continuous data protection and near continuous data protection. Near CDP backs-up data on frequent scheduled backups. Microsoft Office is an example of near CDP as it backs up your files every few seconds; however, it does not record every change as a separate version.
On the other hand, true CDP backs up your data with every single change, no matter how miniscule or frequent. As such, you can restore data to any previous state. True CDP allows companies to achieve a Recovery Point Object (RPO) of zero, which means that 0 seconds of data is lost during recovery after a data-loss incident. Near CDP can achieve a low RPO, but never zero.
Benefits of Continuous Data Protection
There are both benefits and drawbacks to continuous data protection. Benefits include:
- Records every change: CDP records every change in a log, allowing you to restore your data to any previous version. This applies to both systems as a whole and individual files.
- Disaster recovery: During a data-loss incident, CDP ensures that your company’s RPO is zero and that all lost data is recoverable. In this event, you will not lose a single second of work.
- Data monitoring: Because every change is saved, data is continuously monitored to ensure compliance.
- Simplified data protection: Because data protection is continuous, you never have to take the time to make a physical backup or schedule timed backups.
Drawbacks of Continuous Data Protection
Nonetheless, there are drawbacks of continuous data protection. These include:
- Cost: CDP requires fast disk drives, which are costly.
- Disk-based: Because CDP is disk-based, it requires physical disk storage. You cannot store all data on the cloud. This makes it difficult for companies with remote workers to utilize CDP.
- Performance issues: Because every data transaction is saved immediately to a backup, CDP uses a high amount of computing power. As such, it may cause performance or stability issues.
- Single point of failure: If you store your CDP back-up data on only one server, then a failure of this server could be catastrophic. Because of this, some companies choose to store backups in two locations, one on-site and easily accessible and another off-site in case of failure.
Best Solutions for Continuous Data Protection
If you want continuous data protection on your software and devices, you can integrate them with a CDP provider. The solutions below provide the best continuous data protection for businesses. For more information on each solution and how to integrate it with your current systems, contact their provider from the website.
DataCore’s SANsymphony software offers an automated storage management system that you can use across various hardware vendors and models. SANsymphony lets you easily manage data placement across a diverse storage environment so you can integrate different technologies and ensure that your fastest storage contains your most critical data. The software also offers CDP with zero RPO and multi-site back-ups. Overall, SANsymphony promises to boost your application speed by 5x, reduce storage-related downtime by 100%, and decrease your storage costs by 50%.
Bacula Systems offers enterprises data backup and recovery for physical, virtual, container, and hybrid cloud systems. The software integrates with AWS, Azure, Glacier, Google Cloud, and Oracle Cloud. It also has the ability to back up Microsoft 365 files, Linux and Windows devices, virtual environments, and database systems. Bacula includes both near and true CDP in its software at no additional cost. Best of all, Bacula offers a wide set of webinars, templates, guides, and checklists that will teach you how to use the product and implement the best data protection strategies.
Cloudian specializes in hybrid cloud data management with military-grade security and scalability for businesses of any size. You can use Cloudian with any S3 application to consolidate data, build a hybrid cloud system, secure your data from bad actors, and achieve near CDP. Additionally, you can use Cloudian to back up data on-site for true CDP. Because of its hybrid cloud options, Cloudian is the ideal data protection solution for businesses that have remote workers or use cloud technology.
Zerto provides data recovery software for disaster recovery and backup both on-site and on the cloud. You can automate backups, disaster recovery, and migration operations with Zerto. Zerto also lets you test migrations to new systems and check for continued compliance. The software-only solution integrates with existing infrastructure and requires no additional hardware. Depending on whether you host backups on-site or on the cloud, Zerto offers either near or true CDP.
Rubrik specializes in both data protection and data security for businesses. The solution securely backs up cloud data, virtual machines, databases, applications, and physical hosts. Once the software secures the data, you can use Rubrik to classify data types and check for compliance with regulatory bodies such as GDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and GLBA. Rubrik continuously monitors backups so you’re notified immediately if there is a ransomware attack. For all of these services, Rubrik ensures continuous data protection and 0% data loss in the event of an attack.
More Software for Enterprises
Now that you’ve selected the best data protection solution for your business, it’s time to update your other enterprise applications. Check out our articles on the best enterprise software for 2022, top enterprise architecture systems, content management software, and risk management technology.