At the start of the year, the news that Symantec's Backup Exec.cloud offering had been removed from the market left customers just one year to migrate to an alternative solution.
This generous window of opportunity is not indicative of the cloud industry in general, with companies typically leaving a much smaller migration window. So what do you do if your backup provider pulls its product from the market?
Started over 10 years ago, Databarracks, based in Clapham, South London, provides secure, Infrastructure as a Service, Backup as a Service and Disaster Recovery as a Service from UK-based, ex-military data centres.
Oscar Arean, Technical Operations Manager at Databarracks, discusses what you should do if your cloud provider is forced pull out of the market, what it means for your data and how you can retrieve your data.
TechRadar Pro: What is the difference between retrieving my backups from a cloud service provider compared to regular data storage?
Oscar Arean: Retrieving backup data is a far more complex process than when working with normal production data. Unfortunately it's not as simple as collecting your disks from the data centre and extracting the data straight from them.
Due to the nature of backups, they are usually encrypted, compressed and stored in a way very specific to your provider's software. The process of extracting this data, in a readable state, is far more time consuming in comparison to application or file data.
TRP: How can I keep all the different generations of my backups?
OA: Good providers will do this for you, and export the data in a way that allows your next provider to set up your new backup service without losing any historical data. Not all providers do this as standard, however, and can charge a premium when it is required.
While not always possible, it's useful to have this conversation with your CSP before committing, to ensure you both understand the expectations and restrictions on the relationship.
Ideally your new provider will use the same technology as your previous one, making the transition as smooth as possible. You can transfer historical data to a different system if necessary but you need to bear in mind the extra time, storage and essentially money that this requires because you will be the one doing the work to convert it.
Check for additional charges from either provider that may be incurred. It may also be possible to export configuration settings which can reduce setup times, although at this stage it is recommended to review backup settings to ensure that they meet your requirements and are actually protecting all of your essential servers.
TRP: How fast can I get my data back from my CSP's environment?
OA: This is dependent on the amount of data you have and the speed of transfer. It is important to note that although you may have a very fast internet connection, some service providers to impose restrictions on the speed of transfer.
Unless you are only storing a very small volume of data and have a large internet connection, the most sensible method to retrieve your data is to have it physically sent to you.
To ensure fast delivery, negotiate an SLA into your contract that guarantees the couriered delivery of your data. For added security, the delivery can be tracked in transit from the data centre to your site.
TRP: Can I transfer directly to another provider?
OA: Sometimes, but there are four main things to take into account:
Are you happy for a complete refresh with no historical data? How will you get your historical data to another service provider? Have you considered the costs in exporting and importing historical data?
Does the historical data get de-duplicated or does it add to the overall storage which increases the cost of the solution?
TRP: Is there a cost for me to transfer my data?
OA: As I said, the process of transferring backup data can be a complicated one. If you just want your data back – this is quite simple, but if you want to keep the structure of your backups so you can continue with the same strategy, this can increase your costs.
Some CSPs will provide this as part of their service but at an additional cost, due to the amount of extra storage it requires in the short term, as well as the number of man hours.
If you'd rather not pay for the service, it is possible to perform the transfer yourself – if you have the available time, storage and know-how to do so. We don't usually recommend this though - imagine a company with 100s of servers, how do you guarantee that data has been transferred correctly?
TRP: Does it actually matter what country my Cloud Service Provider (CSP) is located in?
OA: The nationality of your service provider is usually brought into question in terms of security, but these worries are often unfounded. Backup is one of the more secure cloud services because backups are encrypted in transit and at rest. As this is the case, the location of your backup service provider is less significant than for instance your CRM or IaaS service provider.
Nationality becomes very important, however, when you have to deal with something like getting your data back from a provider if they pull out of your market.
The risk and complexity in resolving that kind of issue is far less with a domestic provider than it would be when dealing with a big international conglomerate.
For example, does the service provider have the option to store your encryption key? What's to stop them from restoring/assisting in restoring your data if requested by government agencies in the US? Really, in any situation where you need to recover significant volumes of data – having a service provider in your own country is preferable.
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