Continuous data protection (CDP) is a buzz-inspiring new technology. Because CDP captures all data write changes at a file or block level and provides running recovery journals for all historical data states, data protection shifts from a point in time to a vastly more flexible any-point-in-time framework.
The old methods of restoring individual backups from mirrors, synchronizing them in time against an archive log and then staging that data back to a live environment may soon be eclipsed by a more unified process comprising much fewer steps. For example, to execute a database recovery with CDP, you simply roll back to the correct time for the event, stage the CDP data set and allow the application to initiate its restore. Theoretically, IT managers could discard their traditional scheduled backups completely and reap significant savings in time, money and management efficiencies.
So far, CDP technology has been limited to a small niche of early adopter and specialty deployments (see "A tale of two applications," this page). But CDP has an immediate and far-ranging role to play in the enterprise because it has the ability to transform application recovery.
Many enterprises that are deploying CDP are attempting to remedy some pronounced pain or complexity that existed in their prior recovery processes. Those processes might involve a Microsoft Exchange environment that takes three days to recover, or a top-level application that spans multiple databases and requires massive scripting to juggle rotating mirror schedules. Most IT shops are comfortable with some level of recovery complexity, but beyond an acceptable threshold, a breaking point may be reached. This may be the limitations of a given technology or the inability of the management team to handle a certain level of complexity with reliable outcomes.
An IT executive at a major media services company is using Mendocino Software's CDP solution for database recovery, even though it's still using Veritas Software Corp.'s NetBackup for its main backup program. Mendocino's CDP solution is used as a rapid recovery platform that enables the firm's database managers to directly and easily control recovery operations. Rather than using "application blind" split-mirror or snapshot programs to support critical database recovery, this user wanted to bring the recovery operations directly under the control of database managers.
I also spoke with an IT manager at a leading nutritional product retailer who chose Storactive Inc.'s LiveServ for Exchange because he wanted greater application-level controls for Exchange-based recovery events. Storactive's ability to perform e-mail object-level recovery in seconds, or minutes, from any point in the protected history constituted a significant step ahead for this user because the recovery operation used to take days.
Most importantly, the new arrangement let the company's Exchange managers skip an entire range of recovery steps that used to heavily impact the storage team, while providing fast, incremental recovery services to business users. This company also retained its existing Veritas NetBackup program, with the Storactive product dedicated to application-specific recovery.
A healthcare management company uses Revivio Inc.'s Continuous Protection System (CPS) for application recovery across multiple Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server environments running in a 100TB-plus environment. This company selected Revivio because the existing hot backup architecture for its multiple databases was extremely failure-prone and often corrupted. Since deploying Revivio, the company has eliminated the complexity of its rotating mirrors for backups and allowed database administrators to take more control of the recovery process, which had been a long-term goal of the team.
