Fortifying Data Integrity: Data Protection and Disaster Recovery Solutions

1. Cloud Backup and Data Protection for VMware Environments © 2023 StoneFly, Inc. | All rights reserved.

2. Introduction The rise of virtualization has enormously improved primary storage and ultimately server utilization. However, protecting the created virtualized environments as well as the ever growing amounts of structured and unstructured data being created, still requires a composite, on-premise secondary storage model that imposes high infrastructure costs and heavy administrative overhead. In many modern IT offices, the virtualization, storage and application teams have become frustrated with conventional backup and now use the native point products available to them. An organization’s data protection and disaster recovery (DR) strategy often consists of many disparate recovery and backup “solutions,” which may or may not be compatible with each other. As a result workloads are often isolated and it becomes difficult to be migrated across systems and geogra- phies, leaving organizations at risk of failing to meet data security needs and losing business continuity. 1

3. “Any legitimate data protection discussion should begin around busi- ness continuity or disaster recovery”. The Evolving Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Landscape, ESG Research Report, February 2016. Lack of proactive visibility in the virtual datacenter With the increasing difficulty comes a lack of visibility and control, conse- quently some IT teams end up not even knowing how much data is in store on their servers. Without the clear knowledge of the actual size of data, whether due to inadequate or disparate protection solutions, effective man- 2

4. agement becomes much more complex. Cloud backup and recovery for virtual environments The increasing pressure on IT operations team to maintain information governance and business continuity is changing how organizations are viewing long-term data retention and infrastructure resiliency. Organizations today are looking to the cloud as an alternative to traditional backup and disaster recovery strategies to provide a viable, cost-effective solution. The following defines five real-world business reasons why should IT teams and company leaders migrate their disaster recovery, archival data and backups to the cloud: 1. Off-site infrastructure One benefit of the cloud based backup and recovery is that the infrastructure is hosted completely offsite. This means there is no expensive hardware to acquire and no software to keep up to date. Cost effective, reliable, fast and durable data recovery can therefore be enabled to the enterprise through a multi-region cloud infrastructure. System downtime can be reduced to merely minutes with virtual machines (VMs) replicated offsite in the cloud. 3

5. 2. Enhanced business agility A cloud-based data management approach enables fast recovery in the case of disaster (otherwise know as failover) with recovery time and point objec- tives (RTPOs) in minutes. The cloud also enhances the speed as you replicate and move VMs across regions for development and testing (dev/test) and regulatory needs. Organizations can backup VMs from on-prem to the cloud and recover individual files or entire VMs as needed. Efficiency and cost-effec- tiveness are achieved by saving storage footprints, with no additional infra- structure required. 4

6. 3. Workload Mobility The cloud enables the VMs to be configured with immediate replication and failover for DR or dev and test needs. In the cloud, workloads can be geo- graphically spread for easy replication and recovery when disaster strikes. Disaster recovery in the cloud eliminates the need for businesses and organi-zations to store complete copies of their production systems in a secondary company managed datacenter. VMs can be geo-replicated to any global location and spun up any time for simple and efficient recovery. 4. Ease of management A cloud based backup strategy management is considerably easier than on-premise deployments: DR and server backup policies can be monitored globally from anywhere removing the complex burden of networking. Data tiering ensures efficient usage of resources. Based on the require- ment, data can be stored in the cold, hot or warm tiers - reducing expens- es and optimizing availability. Cloud native solutions provide VMware administrators analytical tools to better understand potential data and compliance risks across multiple data sources. 5

7. 5. Reduced CapEx and OpEx TBesides eliminating the costly hardware appliances, datacenters, reducing administration overheard, a cloud based model can provide a unified approach to analytics, archiving, backup, and disaster recovery, significantly reducing the costs created by data silos. Integrated with automation, the cloud provides an ever incremental data collection model, avoiding large information volumes stored on legacy models. Calculating the Return on Investment (ROI) Operationally, the data protection solution success is measured by how quickly the company can recover and by how little worker productivity is affected (also known as recovery time and point objectives, or RTPOs) following an outage. By analyzing, how an investment in a cloud native solution improves the profitability by reducing the capital expenditure (CapEx) and operational expenditure (OpEx) as compared to legacy backup, IT managers can make strong decisions that align with the business needs and resonate with the company leadership. By demonstrating the business benefits along with the “return on invest- ment or (ROI)” justification, you can be in a strong position to negotiate the budget necessary for the transition. 6

8. You need to outline each cost center in order to estimate the full CapEx and OpEx costs of continuing with the current data protection model as opposed to moving to a cloud model. Table 1 illustrates the cost differences between a cloud model and a legacy model. Additional cloud considerations 1. Development and testing Cloud storage enables instant spin up of dev/test systems with greater speed and flexibility, without the need for extra software or hardware. Test and validation operations can be run with no interference to ongoing production workloads by leveraging a VM copy in the cloud. Multiple VMs can be central- ly managed and replicated (locally or across geographies) as per the need, for dev/test operations around the clock. Furthermore, the cloud eliminates the need for separate dev/test systems, as the available VMs can be repurposed at any time. 2. Governance, Risk and Compliance Since data is stored in the cloud, it is readily available for legal, compliance and mining needs. Organizations can analyze backed-up data to understand the risks and challenges around archived data, data classification and storage 7

9. Table 1: Cloud model and legacy model cost comparison Legacy Model Software Agent Cost Cloud Model Cost No upfront CapEX for customer Monthly or annual subscription Service provider bears all costs Per Server No Cost Software Additional add-ons Storage hardware, network capacity, tape drives, autoloaders, & extra server memory Hardware maintenance costs Tape Media Server support Per Server Per User As No Cost Needed Hardware Service provider bears all costs Per Year No Cost Service provider bears all costs Immediate implementation if desired Service provider bears all costs Per Year Per Server No Cost As Needed hourly cost or contractor hourly rate Software maintenance costs costs during maintenance down time Hardware refresh, network capacity, tape drives autoloaders, & extra server memory Hardware maintenance fee Tape media hourly cost or contractor As Software Implementation, Maintenance, Technical support Needed No Cost Service provider bears all costs Per Year No Cost Service provider bears all costs (with high SLAs) Service provider bears all costs Varies No Cost Per Year No Cost Hardware Maintenance, support costs, media & shipping Service provider bears all costs Per Year No Cost Service provider bears all costs Service provider bears all costs Per Year As Needed No Cost No Cost Labor 8

10. Central auditability, legal admissibility, and long-term retention make com- pelling cases for easier governance and compliance around data within virtual images. The cloud storage model enhances existing data visibility, which can ultimately be used for increasing the business value. “An IT team spends over 70 percent of its time on day-to-day IT man- agement operations including: monitoring, troubleshooting, patching, updating, and configuring resources.” Converged and Integrated Data- center Systems: Creating Operational Efficiencies - IDC Conclusion Managing disparate virtual machine environments for backup and resto- ration involves an expensive and complex architecture that requires multi- ple staff members. Therefore, any reduction in hardware, software or admin- istrative overhead enhances business agility and significantly lowers the overall total cost of ownership or TCO. Adopting a cloud approach for archival, backup and DR needs provides organizations with many benefits, including eliminating the need for expen- sive on-premise hardware infrastructure and simplifies management as well as implementation of backup systems. It also ensures that mission critical 9

11. data and applications will always be available to meet legal and data reten- tion needs, for dev/test purposes and/or in the event of disaster. To learn more about how to achieve time and cost savings by managing your VMware environments from within a single, centralized pane, visit https://stonefly.com/cloud for complete backup and disaster recovery solu- tion of your physical and virtual environments in the cloud. 10

12. About StoneFly StoneFly™ is the innovator of powerful, cost-effective IP Storage products for departments, mid-tier workgroups, and enterprise organizations. StoneFly SAN appliances offer robust features such as Snapshot, Mirroring, Encryp- tion, Asynchronous Replication, Deduplication, and Thin Provisioning. The heart of StoneFly products is an award winning software called StoneFusion ™ Intelligent Network Platform. This platform includes advanced Storage Network Management, storage provisioning, centralized volume manage- ment, data migration and storage consolidation. All of StoneFly ‘s physical and virtual SAN appliances are protected by Stone- Fly ‘s Storage Virtualization Patents as certified by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (Patent #: 7302500, 7555586, 7558885, 8069292). In addition to iSCSI and Fibre Channel SAN Storage Solutions, StoneFly has created a series of Hyperconverged Unified Storage & Server™ appliances and gateways, Scale Out NAS products, an assortment of Backup and Disas- ter Recovery solutions, and a variety of Enterprise Cloud Storage solutions. StoneFly is a member of the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA), the founding member of the IP Storage Institute (IPSI), a VMware TAP Elite Partner, a VMware Professional Solution Provider Partner, a certi- fied Microsoft Azure Marketplace Partner, a Microsoft Cloud Solution Provid- er (CSP) Partner, and an Amazon AWS Technology Partner. 11

13. www.stonefly.com 2865, 2869 and 2879 Grove Way, Castro Valley, CA 94546 USA. +1 (510) 265-1616