What is a backup window, anyway? If you’ve spent any time managing backups, you’ve probably heard people obsessing over backup speeds. But here’s the thing – no one actually cares about your backup speed. What they care about is how quickly you can get their data back when things go wrong. This blog post summarizes…
AI isn’t just for chatbots and image generation – it’s making real changes in how we handle backups. The combination of AI and backups brings practical improvements to data protection that go way beyond marketing buzzwords. This blog post summarizes the main points of my latest podcast episode. If you’d like, you can listen to…
Let’s talk about executing your disaster recovery test plan. After decades in the backup and recovery world, I’ve seen plenty of DR tests succeed and fail – and honestly, the failures often teach us more than the successes. This blog post summarizes the main points of my latest podcast episode. If you’d like, you can…
Choosing the best cloud backup requires more than just picking the first solution you find with good marketing. After decades in the backup business, I can tell you that getting this decision right matters more than ever, especially with today’s cybersecurity threats. This blog post summarizes the main points of my latest podcast episode. If…
When your laptop restore stretches from hours into days into weeks, you start questioning every life decision that led you to this moment. That’s exactly what happened to my friend Stuart, a retired IT pro who recently spent 16 days – yes, you read that right – restoring 900GB of data from Carbonite. This blog…
Let’s face it – nobody dreams of becoming a backup administrator. While other IT specialties get the glory and the budget, backup teams often get the leftovers. But getting backup into the IT budget isn’t just about having nice tools – it’s about business survival. This blog post summarizes the main points of my latest…
What happens when a hurricane completely wipes out your data center? Not just any data center – one on an island, cut off from the mainland, with no power, limited communications, and even stolen generator fuel. This disaster recovery case study reveals what DR really looks like when everything goes wrong. This blog post summarizes…
There’s nothing quite like hearing disaster recovery stories from someone who’s been in the trenches. A few years ago I spoke with a backup administrator who faced every IT pro’s nightmare – a hurricane that flooded their data center and their Iron Mountain facility simultaneously. This blog post summarizes the main points of my latest…
S2|DATA has released a free NetBackup reader that gives users complete access to their backup data without maintaining a NetBackup environment. This standalone application helps organizations catalog and restore from NetBackup disk images quickly and efficiently. (We’ve written about S2|DATA before. Check it out.) This blog post summarizes the main points of my latest podcast…
Sometimes a DR test goes wrong for no reason; sometimes it’s because of our own actions. Just ask Paul Van Dyke, the IT supervisor at Kodiak Island Borough in Alaska, who decided to perform what might be the boldest storage reorganization project I’ve ever heard of. This blog post summarizes the main points of my…