Improving Data Protection Management Service Delivery

Meeting Data Protection Service Delivery Goals

Data Protection is a critical IT service that requires constant monitoring and management in order to ensure business objectives, including recoverability of critical data, adherence to SLA and compliance mandates, and lowering operational costs are consistently achieved. While ITIL and ITSM have been instrumental in helping organizations put processes in place to help IT meet critical business objectives, currently there is a gap in addressing process improvement for data protection.

Bocada has addressed this gap by developing the Data Protection Service Management model, an ITSM like actionable methodology targeted at enhancing the delivery of data protection services. The model outlines a multi-phased approach utilizing Bocada Enterprise to assess the overall data protection delivery infrastructure effectiveness, improve the ability to deliver quality data protection and recovery services, publish SLA results to customers and continuously advance the effectiveness of data protection operations while lowering costs.

Bocada Enterprise is a highly scalable, comprehensive backup reporting platform that delivers an instant picture of backup success and failures, root causes, and performance against recoverability and service level agreements (SLAs). When used in accordance with the DPSM model customers have increased backup success rates, improved recoverability, increased customer satisfaction and lowered operational costs.

Increase Success with Comprehensive Assessments

The first phase of the DPSM model outlines the steps required to assess the data protection environment. By using Bocada Enterprise to review the entire heterogeneous backup operation users can gain immediate visibility into success/failures, eliminate common problem areas, identify out of date or redundant policies, evaluate if policies are aligned with business goals, document data protection assets and begin collecting historical information for benchmarks & audits. The initial benefits of the audit phase are:

  • Reduced administrative costs through automation of tasks
  • Quick resolution of problems to ensure recoverability
  • Elimination of repetitive problems reduces trouble tickets
  • Increased ability to meet SLAs
  • Increase alignment with internal/external customers
  • Lay foundation for reducing risk and meeting compliance mandates
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Consistent Policy Management Improves Overall Results

Regular policy review is one of the key best practice processes recommended in the Bocada Data Protection Service Management model. With Bocada Enterprise, users can quickly view the various policies that have been created on all of their servers and review client policy configurations. Consistent policy review helps improve data protection results with the following benefits:

  • Reduce backup windows
  • Eliminate unnecessary backups
  • Better utilize resources
  • Negotiate achievable SLAs w/Business Owners
  • Begin to define standardized DPM services catalog
  • Align policies/processes to support regulatory requirements
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Meet Data Protection SLAs & Increase Customer Satisfaction

Once the initial assessment and policy pruning/modification has occurred, the organization is in a better position to deliver against SLAs. By publishing an SLA catalog to customers they can choose the right level of service for their business needs. Once SLAs are agreed to, in order to ensure customer satisfaction IT staff needs to communicate their level of service and success to data owners, management, operations, and sometimes external auditors.

Whether it is sharing success and failure data with data owners, or using the chargeback utility to track, assign and report consumption costs to end user departments, Bocada Enterprise provides a powerful medium to visualize activity and share those results on a tailored basis with other teams.

  1. Improved IT Credibility
  2. IT practices aligned with business priorities
  3. Customers self selecting data protection needs based on services cost
  4. Auditability improved
    • Audit controls documented & comparable against performance
  5. Optimize allocation of capital

  • Develop sound services practices and service level objectives
  • Demonstrate compliance with service level and regulatory goals
  • Validate activities and actual performance against SLAs
  • Maintain an auditable record of all backup activity and evaluate performance over time
    Bocada Enterprise communicates:
  • Clear visualization of backup performance, risk, and resource requirements
  • Performance of backup and specific and industry benchmark service level objectives
  • Consumption of data protection services by corresponding business units
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Reducing Data Protection Risk

Bocada Enterprise helps IT management to rapidly reduce the number of failed backups and reduce the risk of lost data. Bocada Enterprise supports established service level agreements, including error classification and sensitivity, as well as asset prioritization and data backup and protection levels. The net result is a vast improvement in overall data recoverability and improved system efficiency.

Bocada Enterprise reduces exposure to lost data by:

  • Quickly pinpointing chronic sources of error and orphaned assets
  • Modifying operations and procedures that negatively impact data protection
  • Troubleshooting infrastructure component bugs
  • Building and maintaining a historical track record of backup performance against recoverability objectives
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Achieving Data Protection Services Operational Excellence: Increased System Utilization, Staff Productivity, Lower Costs

IT staff are under pressure to reduce the cost per gigabyte of stored data, while still ensuring near 100% recoverability. To meet these goals, companies have three objectives they must achieve:

  • Ensure that their existing backup infrastructure is performing to spec--total system throughput, consumption of resources during the backup window, remedying bottlenecks.
  • Ensure full utilization of existing system assets--avoid overbuying capacity.
  • Improve the total volume and value of work done by operations

Bocada Enterprise gathers, organizes and presents key performance data that enables companies to meet these objectives. IT staff can quickly and easily understand true system performance and asset utilization including servers, network and media, as well as future resource requirements.

Bocada Enterprise leverages IT staff productivity by eliminating time wasted by combing cryptic log files for sources of error. Instead, Bocada Enterprise automates error identification and provides critical insight into sources of failure and performance problems, guiding staff on problem resolution versus simple problem identification.

Bocada Enterprise reduces the cost per gigabyte stored by:

  • Maximizing results accomplished with existing backup resources
  • Ensuring full utilization against current and future system resource requirements
  • Maximizing backup staff productivity
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