By Chris Anderson, Lead Solutions Architect, Waterstons
We all know that putting space between your data and cyber criminals is vital but there has never been more discussion around the security (or lack thereof) of data so are organisations doing everything they can to protect it?
That’s where immutable backup storage comes in to support your business.
What does immutable mean?
The definition of immutable is ‘unable to be changed’; immutable backups therefore cannot be altered – they are safe from unauthorised change or deletion. Ultimately, your data is as safe as it can be from human error or malicious intent from unauthorised users.
Why is it crucial to backup infrastructure?
The standard approach to backing up data observes the 3-2-1 backup rule:
3 copies of production data are maintained across
2 different types of media with
1 copy offsite.
This has recently been developed to 3-2- 1-1-0 (snappy, we know), incorporating 1 immutable copy of data and 0 errors throughout the backup environment.
With the continued increase in ransomware attacks, and cyber criminals actively targeting backup data, the integrity of this backup data is critical for recovery.
How can I achieve backup immutability?
Introducing immutable cloud storage satisfies this requirement and provides a ‘last line of defence’ mechanism in the event of malicious cyber activity.
We recently announced a partnership with Wasabi to do just that – offering offsite and immutable data backup (two birds, one stone) using Wasabi, with Veeam Backup and Replication.
The low cost with cloud storage also enables a suitable repository for long-term GFS (grandfather-father-son) data retention.
As Wasabi does not charge for data ingress or egress, it provides a predictable, costeffective cloud storage platform.
What else can be leveraged?
As Veeam VASP, our go-to backup product is Veeam Backup and Replication, which also supports the Linux Hardened Repository. Veeam’s technology leverages the XFS file system to facilitate backup immutability, but – as we’ve said before – tape is not dead yet!
To find out more about data and storage backups, get in touch with chris.anderson@waterstons.com
