What Is Continuous Data Protection?
Continuous data protection is needed these days. Continuous data protection is also called continuous back up. Continuous data protection (CDP) will automatically save of copy of every change that is made to the data. With traditional back up a user would have to specify the point in which they would want to recover data. Being allowed to restore only at the point where back up was done. With continuous data protection (CDP) there are no back up schedules, it is constantly done.
Most businesses can not afford to not use Continuous Data Protection. It allows for quicker data retrieval and restoring. This in turn saves a business money. Studies show that between 60 percent and 70 percent of a companies data can be found in employee's personal computer, laptops and file servers. Now even though these are the most popular areas for data to be, they are also the most unprotected. When continuous data protection is implemented you can easily see the security factors.
By using continuous data protection, businesses can save their data every hour. Allowing administrators to obtain the cleanest version of a document if a virus has infected the system. This is much more time effective than with a tape version of back up or archives. The old back ups would store perhaps once a day, leaving you with maybe not the most updated of data.
There are a few characteristics that would say a company would benefit from using continuous data protection. First if the company has a high rate of data change. If the company runs at the enterprise level. If a loss of twenty-four hour of data could destroy the company. Data takes up a large amount of storage. A business can look at those facts and decide if continuous data protection is right for them. There are many types of continuous data protection systems. A company would have to decide what type would work best for them. They range in price and also data retention. Some products such as Microsoft DPM, LiveVault InControl and FilesX moved data to back up periodically and others moved it continuously like Symantec Backup Exec. There are many to choose from. The more sophisticated of a product the more data it will hold. Continuous Data Protection (CDP) could be extremely important to a business. Companies should decide for themselves if this system would be best for their data. A continuous snap shot of data seems to have what most larger companies need. The more data they process the more storage space they would need. Why would they want to have a back up that is only every twenty four hours as opposed to a system that would give them a continuous point of retrieval.
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