Backup in a network environment: A window of vulnerability and opportunity

As the amount of data held on networks has increased, the need for effective backup strategies has grown also. The earliest network backups consisted of simply copying data to floppy disk or tape cassette. These backups were isolated and often haphazard. Later, network backups became more formalized. Sophisticated strategies from mainframe backups were adapted for network backups. Control was centralized as were the storage devices that held the backup images. Unfortunately, the amount of data held on networks continued to grow, leading to increased network traffic and bandwidth problems during backup processing. In addition, sensitive data held on the network is vulnerable to tampering as the data passes over the network to the centralized storage devices. The proposed solution to these problems is a return to distributed storage devices but with centralized control. Read how this strategy would improve both performance and security and lead to reliable, efficient and scalable network backups.