Increasing Operational Efficiency With Kasten K10 V6.0

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We are excited to announce the release of Kasten K10 version 6.0, the latest and most advanced version of our industry-leading platform that provides enterprise-grade Kubernetes data protection and application mobility. This release helps customers scale their cloud native data protection efficiently. Kubernetes deployments are growing at an unprecedented rate. Gartner predicts that by 2027, more than 90% of global organizations will be running containerized applications in production. However, today’s market conditions are scarred with financial uncertainty and a shortage of cloud native skills. Therefore, you must ensure operational efficiencies are in place to unleash the full potential of your cloud native environments while protecting your data. Additionally, security remains an imperative as organizations focus on keeping their businesses running. With this release, we also continue to innovate in this growing ecosystem, so that you can take advantage of the best-of-breed inn
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What is the 3-2-1 backup rule?

The 3-2-1 Rule is a rule to live by. Here at Veeam, we have been advocating this rule for many years to help organizations ensure recoverability when it is needed most. In this blog post I’m going to explain the 3-2-1 Rule and show you the way to upgrade it to a more modern and resilient way of thinking!

What is the 3-2-1 Rule?

The 3-2-1 Rule was first concepted by U.S. photographer Peter Krogh. This was a rather important innovation for the photography world and has deep implications into other technology disciplines and stays timeless to this day. Even though this rule is flexible and timeless, I reached out to Peter for a quote on the 3-2-1 Rule nowadays and he offered this:

“While my focus has been primarily on digital media, the 3-2-1 principles are pretty universal. In fact, the “rule” itself was simply a synopsis of the practices that I found among IT professionals, as I was writing my first book. I just gave it a catchy name.

Over nearly 20 years, 3-2-1 has been a great tool to evaluate data risk exposure. It started in an era of 30GB hard drives and CD backups and has scaled nicely to a world of 18TB drives and ubiquitous cloud storage. With so much of our life and livelihood stored in digital form, and with the threats of malware increasing, it’s important for everyone to have a framework for assessing vulnerabilities.“

Peter Krogh

The 3-2-1 Rule, as I like to explain it, states the following:

  • There should be 3 copies of data
  • On 2 different media
  • With 1 copy being off site

With this base rule outline, now we can upgrade it to work with modern critical data. However, let’s not forget the base rule’s best attributes:

  • It does not have any specific technology or hardware requirement
  • It can address nearly any failure scenario

Using the 3-2-1 Rule with Veeam

In the scope of Veeam and backup data, this is a great starting point. I’d argue this starting point is a requirement to have the resiliency you need nowadays. And in today’s world, there may be more than 3 copies in the mix. For some data, I’ve personally managed 5 copies!

Some of the most primitive implementations would have the 3-2-1 Rule as follows:

  • Production data (Copy 1, media 1)
  • Backup data on a Veeam repository (Copy 2, media 2)
  • Disaster recovery off site (Copy 3, media 3)

This has 3 different media, so it actually exceeds the criteria. Some people don’t like to include the production data as a copy in the 3-2-1 Rule, and it’s worth bringing that up. This means of the 2 other copies, the different media is a must-have and the versatility to restore needs to be considered.

For the organizations I talk to nowadays, I see the most critical data sets having 4 copies when the production data is also included.

So many ways to achieve the 3-2-1 Rule

In the scope of Veeam, one of the things I love about being a software provider with a strong lineup of partnerships is that Veeam can dial up so many combinations of the 3-2-1 Rule. This is very versatile nowadays and each of the following implementations would count towards a 3-2-1 Rule configuration:

  • Backups on disk (DAS, SAN, NAS and appliances)
  • Backups on tape
  • Backups on removable storage
  • Storage snapshots (caution on separate media from production)
  • Backups in object storage such as in the public cloud with the Scale-out Backup Repository’s capacity tier
  • Backups in cold archive storage in the public cloud with the Scale-out Backup Repository’s archive tier
  • Backups hosted or managed by a service provider, including Veeam Cloud Connect
  • Replication to another host or site with Veeam replication
  • Backup copy jobs to another storage location

I have even had some organizations over the years do some interesting things in having systems backed up multiple times with Veeam. A VM backup, an agent-based backup, a file-based backup and even an application plug-in backup can be used in conjunction with each other. This isn’t a common practice, but for absolutely critical datasets, it is an attractive option.

Analytics business benefits with copies

I have spoken to a number of organizations who have had more than 3 copies in flight for some of their critical collections of backup data or disaster recovery (DR) infrastructure. One of the surprise use cases is the ability to have additional analytics on the data. This can be testing with SureBackup or more specific line of business analytics with the data in the backup or DR infrastructure. Additional use cases like this bolster the value of a backup solution in organizations like this.

Upgraded 3-2-1 Rule: The Veeam 3-2-1-1-0 Rule!

I have two distinct goals in this blog:

  1. Convince the world that the 3-2-1 Rule is a necessary starting point
  2. Show the world that the 3-2-1-1-0 Rule with Veeam is great for today

The 3-2-1-1-0 Rule is the way forward today. It helps ensure recovery with the many types of incidents that can occur. The figure below is our 3-2-1-1-0 Rule visualized:

The differences are the 1 and 0 at the end, the Veeam difference. This upgraded rule gives incredible versatility by going the extra mile:

  • There should be 3 copies of data
  • On 2 different media
  • With 1 copy being off site
  • With 1 copy being offline, air-gapped or immutable
  • And 0 errors with SureBackup recovery verification

These two additions are critically important today. Having a copy of backup data that is either offline, air-gapped or immutable is an incredibly resilient specimen to help ensure data recovery in a ransomware event. There are some scenarios where a copy can have multiple characteristics, such as WORM tape media removed from the tape library device. This would be offline, immutable and air-gapped all at once. I collectively refer to the phrase “ultra-resilient” for a copy of data that is either offline, air-gapped or immutable.

Having 0 surprises upon restore is a big benefit today, but not for the reasons you may think. SureBackup recovery verification by Veeam is a great way to confidently know that you can restore data. This isn’t because a Veeam backup isn’t “good” it is just that certain behaviors are only manifested on restores or reboots that may inhibit a restore going as planned.

The 3-2-1-1-0 Rule with Veeam

The 3-2-1-1-0 Rule according to Veeam is the way to proceed today. I have nothing but evidence in the form of customer stories at the Veeam website that bad things happen to good servers, storage and data. Now, more than ever, we need to be able to have the control over our data to ensure recoverability. The 3-2-1 Rule is a great start, and with Veeam, you can take it to the next level! How do you use the 3-2-1 Rule? Are you using the 3-2-1-1-0 Rule? Share your configuration below.

The post What is the 3-2-1 backup rule? appeared first on Veeam Software Official Blog.



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