Backup technology explained: The fundamentals of enterprise backup | Computer Weekly
Summary
Effective backup has also become more complex as IT departments deal with a variety of systems – including virtual servers and desktops, and containerised applications – as well as multiple datacentres and cloud locations. Snapshots are built of numerous pointers to the state of data at a point in time, but which could be created from information assembled over a long period when parts of files, directories, underwent changes. Snapshots are another popular method of data protection, but are more likely to be compromised by being taken during ransomware dwell periods, as they generally don’t date back as far as backups. This became a prominent issue in the wake of Broadcom’s 2023 acquisition of VMware and changes in the virtualisation provider’s licence model that left some enterprises facing higher costs. It provides cluster-level recovery and free snapshots, retained for 30 days, along with a range of paid-for options including Kubernetes Persistent Volume backups.