Effectively Manage Capacity and Reduce Costs
One of the biggest “hidden” costs in IT is the amount of capacity used for data protection; significant amounts of data are stored every time a backup, replication or snap is created. The costs can be “hidden” because it is often difficult to track exactly how much data is being stored, and more importantly how long that data is being stored. The Bocada DPSM Model outlines a number of best practices to help evaluate how much capacity is being used and how to ensure storage resources are optimized in the backup environment.
Often, when administrators do capacity planning, they track trends that show much backup data is being transferred and stored, which of course is critical. However what is often overlooked is a review of the retention policies. Regular reviews of policies are critical for multiple reasons, and one of the most important is ensuring resources are optimized.
Benefits of Backup Policy Management
Bocada Prism enables users to view backup trends that show the amount of data being transferred and how much data is stored on disk or tape over time, which can help determine the amount of growth in data being backed up and stored. Prism also provides the ability to review policies, which enable users to see retention rates for different assets, and will also show if assets are “over–protected” (being covered by more than one backup policy). If retention rates are set the same across the board, then some older backup data may be saved far too long, using up valuable storage resources. Capacity is also wasted if assets are overprotected, which often happens if multiple users set up replications and backups on the same asset.
The key to effective capacity management is to looks at both angles, policy and trends in order to ensure resources are being optimized.
Depicts Amount of Backup Data Stored on Disk and Tape - Click to enlarge
Provides View Into Policies Across All Servers - Click to enlarge
For more information on Prism go to our Prism product page.
For more info on Policy Management go to our DPSM Policy module.
