Written by Steve Gruber

Throughout my 25 years in the Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery industry, I have never heard so much noise.  Talk about an information overload.  It seems that in the recent past, it was much easier to steer customers toward strategies and solutions that met their backup and recovery needs at an acceptable price tag.

Now, today – between the cloud buzz, software solutions, and various appliances being served up – the noise and confusion is heavily compounded.  Couple these offerings with the constant parade of disruptive technologies, and it’s enough to cause a headache.

Based on my experience, it’s time to revert back to the basics, especially for those organizations that have not yet begun to idealize or test their recovery strategy.  Today, many of our largest customers that perform their DR tests with us are still leveraging simple tape-based backup and recovery solutions.  Therefore, tape is not dead and, on the contrary, is very much alive.

Some of our customers have begun exploring other solutions; including cloud-based offerings and a hybrid approach to backup and recovery.  Others have jumped fully into the cloud, only to somewhat retreat when 1) they are hit with heavy data egress charges for pulling back their data, or 2) they have experienced the complexity of full-system restores in the cloud.

Realistically, there is no perfect solution for every computing platform you support today. Instead, there are many companies trying to convince you that they have perfected the latest and greatest solution to take care of your backup and recovery needs.

My advice – put your toe in the water with RES-Q™ Services and, based on our firsthand experience assisting clients with their DR testing, let us provide you with the opportunity to see firsthand, with no obligation, what technology could be the right choice for you.