Data Protection

Data protection is the process of safeguarding data throughout its lifecycle, from collection and dissemination, all the way to archiving and storage.

It relates to data integrity, corruption protection, and overall security of the data. Data protection should always serve as the default policy, in both personal and corporate environments.

In the United States, data privacy is not strictly regulated, so there isn’t a system of laws in place that apply. However, in recent years this has started to change, as people become aware of the value of both their privacy and how they can guarantee that privacy.

Key parts of data protection

Any data protection strategy includes a number of core components:

• Data restoration: In case of catastrophic system failure, restoration is possible with provided backup infrastructure
• Protecting data from criminal endangerment: through encryption and other forms of security, data is kept guarded from unwanted contact.
• Overall data privacy: data is kept confidential and out of the way of misuse.
• Data backup/mirroring: continuous data protection backs up everything whenever a change is made. Cloud backup, in particular, is becoming a prevalent method.

Data protection developments

As technology has advanced, backup, indexing, and archiving have transformed into three separate functions interconnected through automation. Today, functionality for each aspect can be provided without managing redundant stores of data. This approach saves organizations time and cuts down on the amount of data in long-term storage.

Another focal point where data protection technology is coming together is in the merging of both backup and DR functionality. Virtualization has been a huge factor with this, shifting the focus from copying data at static points in time, to constant and continuous data protection. Historically, data backup has been built on making repeated copies of data at controlled points in time. On the other hand, disaster recovery has concentrated on how backups are used when a failure occurs.

Snapshots and replication have allowed much faster recovery speeds. After server failure, data from a backup array is used in place of basic local storage, but only if an effort is taken to prevent that backup from being adjusted. Those steps start with a snapshot of the data from the backup. The original data from the backup array is then used solely for read operations, while write operations are done on a new disk.

Enterprise data protection strategies

Modern data protection for primary storage involves using a built-in system that supplements or replaces backups and protects against potential problems. Here are some examples of strategies that are used.

• RAID: Physical drives are combined into a programmed unit that presents as a single drive to the OS
• Synchronous mirroring: Data is written to local disk and remote site simultaneously
• Replication: Data mirrored from one node to another, or across multiple
• Erasure coding: Parity based data protection system, with data broken into pieces and stored in multiple locations

Challenges in data protection

A number of difficulties crop up when dealing with data protection:

• Data corruption: When data is corrupted or accidentally deleted, snapshots can be used to set things right. Most storage systems today can track hundreds of snapshots without any significant effect on performance.
• Storage system failure: To protect against multiple drive failures or some other major event, data centers rely on replication technology built on top of snapshots.
• Full-on data center failure: Protection against the loss of a data center requires a full disaster recovery plan. As with the other failure scenarios, there are multiple options. Cloud services are another alternative. Replication and cloud backup products and services can be used to store the most recent copies of data that is most likely to be needed.