Data protection is quite simple in concept: take everything you have and copy it somewhere far enough away to be there in an emergency. The trick is in how to do this most efficiently and reliably. You might have a very labor intensive approach today, but with WAN optimization you can protect more, recover faster, and save money in the bargain.
Replicate, replicate, replicate
Replication has emerged as a preferred choice for more frequent and seamless protection of storage between data centers. The challenge is whether or not your WAN can keep up with the volumes of data you need to cover. You may not have the luxury of upgrading the WAN or putting in a dedicated link for DR. Riverbed helps you replicate data by taking out all the redundant data and tuning the WAN for the high volume traffic, even in the most intensive environments. You can also choose to reserve bandwidth with QoS for other business applications so their performance doesn't suffer on a shared network.
Eliminate backups in your branch offices
Most organizations have used local backup operations to copy data where it resides, but this is a very expensive and risky approach, especially if tapes are being shipped offsite to get the separation needed. Recovery success rates are low, and security breaches can occur. With Riverbed you can get rid of all those tape stackers and optimize backup across the current WAN to your datacenter for a fast, simple, and reliable approach.
Consolidate storage into the data center
You might ask, why do I have storage in the branches in the first place? If the answer is "for local performance", you might consider consolidation to the data center. Riverbed can deliver the data and applications back to the end users with LAN-like speeds over the WAN, and you can centralize all your data protection operations for better cost efficiency and control.
Protect laptops everywhere
Are you backing up your end users' laptops and desktops? Why not? Users can't be relied on to keep all critical data on file servers and are at risk of downtime when their hardware fails or is stolen. Steelhead Mobile can be deployed across your enterprise to optimize the backup of end user equipment across the WAN or VPN connections, providing protection to everyone, everywhere.
Working with your preferred storage vendor
Rest assured, Riverbed can optimize data protection utilities from most major storage vendors. Follow these links to learn more:
EMC
NetApp
Symantec/Veritas
HDS
IBM/Tivoli
Microsoft
Commvault
DoubleTake
CA
WAN optimization for your network: Application acceleration, WAN bandwidth optimization, and IT consolidation
