Uni Vault An Introduction to Uni Systems Hybrid Cloud Data Protection as a Service White Paper Solution Brief
Contents The Challenges of Traditional Backup... 3 The Uni Systems Data Protection as a Service Answer... 3 Choose what works best for you... 4 Why Uni Vault Hybrid Data Protection as a Service by Uni Systems... 4 Uni Vault Hybrid Comprehensive Data Protection... 4 The Value of Uni Systems Integration... 6 Data Security... 6 Bandwidth Efficiency... 7 Peace of mind... 7 Data Protection as a Service use case... 7 Why switch from traditional IT to the cloud?... 8 2
The Challenges of Traditional Backup Unprecedented data growth is challenging companies data protection infrastructure and processes. Remote offices are often left unprotected. Important data stored on desktops or laptops place an additional burden to the information protection strategy. A significant number of companies don t keep a copy of their tape backups off-site. The restore from tape failure rate approaches 40 percent due to a combination of media failure and human error. Backup is the most inefficient IT process. Full backups result in the same files being stored to tape again and again. Small and medium size companies straggle with the maintenance, media management and daily backup administration. The risk of data loss or downtime has led to complex and costly backup implementations. At the same time, the excessively high total cost of backup is prime target for cost reduction. The Uni Systems Data Protection as a Service Answer Uni Vault Hybrid Data Protection, powered by Asigra, is a credible solution to all this. This hybrid, cloud enabled Data Protection as a Service offering allows companies to optimize, automate and reduce the cost of backup processes. Leveraging the power of the cloud, Uni Vault Hybrid Data Protection provides companies the flexibility to either administer the backup environment with their own means or let Uni Systems experts to deliver it as a managed service. Backup is nothing, restore is everything. Leveraging backup to disk and self-healing technologies, Uni Vault Hybrid Backup ensures unrivalled availability of backed up data, compared to tape. A copy of the backup may even be securely and automatically replicated, over low bandwidth WAN and stored off-site. Not only servers, but smart phones, tablets, desktops and laptops, even for users on the move, may be protected over the same backup platform. Backup data is compressed, deduplicated and encrypted before it s securely transmitted to Uni Systems Data Centre facilities. Optionally, they may be kept only on-site, at the customer premises. All this without a need for complex IT infrastructure. Without upfront investment and cash outflow. Leveraging the Data Protection as a Service model, companies pay only for the capacity stored, on a term basis. Leveraging Uni Systems ISO 9001 (Quality Management System) and 27001 (Information Security Management Systems) certified facilities and a platform used in over 400.000 sites worldwide, Uni Systems delivers a robust, secure, affordable and flexible data protection service to both end users and resellers. 3
Choose what works best for you Hybrid on-site and off-site backup: backup data is stored locally at the customer premises while an additional copy is stored at a customer s remote site or at Uni Systems Data Centre. Offsite backup: backup data is stored only at a customer s remote site or at Uni Systems Data Centre. Onsite Backup: backup data is kept at the customer site only. Managed Service: the entire administration of the backup environment, based on agreed SLAs, is operated by Uni Systems. Why Uni Vault Hybrid Data Protection as a Service by Uni Systems With Uni Vault, a company pays only for the capacity consumed, on a term basis. Fast and non-intrusive operation since no agents need to be installed on protected servers and devises thanks to the application s agentless architecture. Disk-based backup solution delivering 100 percent successful restores. Data at-rest and in-flight AES 256-bit encryption secures data from being compromised. Efficient use of storage, LAN and WAN resources leveraging compression, delta blocking and single instancing technologies. Protection for a company s main site and remote offices. Trusted Gartner referenced backup platform which operates for more than 26 years on over 400.000 protected customer sites Uni Vault Hybrid Comprehensive Data Protection Uni Vault Backup Client: Installed at the end customer s premises and collects data from all servers, desktops, laptops, network or local drives, structured applications and raw files on the LAN. The Uni Vault Client software is agentless - it does not need to be installed on every machine or application it backs up. It is designed to accommodate a range of heterogeneous network backup requirements and transmits data securely to the Uni Vault Backup Server over the WAN to Uni Systems Data Centre. Uni Vault Mobile Client: Installed on the remote laptops where it collects and securely sends data to the Uni Vault Server at the end customer private cloud or Uni Systems data centre. The client has a very light foot print and can be centrally configured and mass deployed to any number of laptops within minutes. 4
Uni Vault SmartPhone Client: Installed on the smart phone. The client collects data from the smart phones and securely sends it to the Uni Vault Server at Uni Systems Data Centre facilities or the end customer s private cloud data center. The client for Apple ios can be downloaded from Apple s App Store. The client for Google can be downloaded from Android Market. Uni Vault Tablet Client: Installed on the tablet. The Tablet client collects data from the tablet and securely sends it to the Uni Vault server at Uni Systems Data Centre facilities or the end customer s private cloud data center. The client for Apple ios can be downloaded from Apple App Store. The client for Google Android can be downloaded from Android Market. Uni Vault Consumer Client: Installed on the consumer desktop or laptop. The Consumer client collects data from the consumer desktops or laptops and securely sends it to the Uni Vault Server at Uni Systems Data Centre premises. The Consumer Client can be downloaded from Uni Systems web site (www.uni Systems.com). Uni Vault Server: Installed at designated Uni Systems facilities. The Uni Vault Server aggregates data from all remote Uni Vault Clients. Uni Vault server maintains, manages and validates the online storage repository where the backed up data transmitted by the Clients is stored. The Uni Vault Server is typically located in a secure offsite hosting facility. Uni Vault Consumer Cloud Server: It maintains, manages and validates the online storage repository where the backed up data transmitted by the Consumer clients, Tablet clients and SmartPhone clients is saved. Uni Vault Consumer Cloud Server may be used to provide backup/restore services to one or more Consumer clients. The Consumer Cloud Server is typically located in a secure off-site hosting facility. 5
Uni Vault Mobile Cloud Server: It maintains, manages and validates the online storage repository where the backed up data is securely transmitted by the Mobile clients residing on remote laptops in the field is saved. Uni Vault Mobile Cloud Server is located in a secure off-site hosting facility. Uni Vault Backup Lifecycle Management: Every business stores data of varying importance. Mission-critical data required for day-to-day operations must be immediately accessible and stored on the Uni Vault Server. However, less important data or dormant files for significant periods of time occupy premium storage on the Uni Vault Server and should be saved to less expensive storage and optionally deleted to ensure compliance. The Uni Vault Server online disk-based storage maintains critical data. Uni Vault BLM allows you to archive Uni Vault Server data for long term, either for cost or for regulatory compliance reasons. The Value of Uni Systems Integration In order to make the most of your existing IT provision, the cloud computing services you decide to subscribe to should be able to integrate easily with your current infrastructure. Key to Uni Systems' enterprise offerings is being able to easily integrate with customers' existing systems and network resources, so that our services become a seamless extension of those already provided by in-house IT departments. Cloud computing infrastructure should allow enterprises to achieve more efficient use of their existing IT hardware and software investments. Uni Systems works with many channel partners to provide an end-to-end solution to small businesses, so if a company wishes to evaluate, plan migrations and move towards cloud computing, this can be done quickly and simply, hand in hand. Data Security Security is every company s paramount concern. Uni Vault demonstrates a zero breach record in over 20 years. Backup data is Sarbanes Oxley compliant and fully encrypted both at-rest and in-flight. Each customer may choose up to AES 256-bit encryption. Optionally, it allows the automatic generation of passwords that may change at random for added protection. Furthermore, the solution s agentless architecture removes the security threat posed by the open ports requirement associated with traditional agent based alternatives. Uni Vault leverages Uni Systems Data Centre premises which are ISO 9001 and 27000 compliant for Data Centre security. Uni Systems ISO certification was necessary since it hosts the DR infrastructure of some financial institutions and major enterprises. 6
Bandwidth Efficiency To minimize the cost for offsite vaulting over WAN, Uni Vault employs advanced data reduction technologies. These include: - Deduplication at the source, thus transferring only changed blocks - Backup and transit only new or changed data (incremental forever) - Compression In addition, bandwidth throttling enables companies to specify max bandwidth allowed for off-site vaulting, thus efficiently managing the available bandwidth. Peace of mind Backup does not empower IT to deliver value added services inside the organization. On the contrary, data loss, potentially, may threaten the continued operation of a company not to mention the backup administrator s job. Uni Vault Hybrid Data Protection may be delivered by Uni Systems as a managed service. In other words, Uni Systems engineers will take the burden of daily administration of a company s backups. At the same time Uni Systems utilizes leading technology expertise and best practices in order to take the responsibility for its customers data. Uni Vault takes away IT administrators potentially number one concern and allows them to focus on other value added IT fields. Data Protection as a Service use case An established publishing organisation operates its Data Centre in Attica. It also maintains a retail shop in Athens and has embarked on a strategy to expand its operations abroad. To protect its intellectual property and corporate data, the company was presented Uni Vault Data Protection as a Service as a means of consolidating its backup from all sites. Recent backup copies are kept locally on disk to facilitate fast operational restores. Backups for an extended period are encrypted and automatically replicated over Ethernet to Uni Systems Data Centre infrastructure. The company evaluated the solution s agentless, nonintrusive functionality. Embedded deduplication and compression was also evaluated for the efficient use of bandwidth and storage footprint it delivers. The day-to-day backup administration becomes the responsibility of Uni Systems engineers, based on agreed service levels. Unlike traditional applications, Uni Vault is provided to the customer for monthly fee, based only on consumed capacity. 7
Finally, not only may backup data stored in Uni Systems cloud facilities be recovered. In case of major disruption in the customer s Data Centre, it may be used to enable the company s personnel to continue their work, leveraging Uni Systems hosted virtual desktop cloud service. Uni Vault Hybrid provides agentless backup and recovery support for: VMware Oracle Windows XenServer DB2 Linux Hyper-V PostgreSQL Unix MS SharePoint Sybase AIX MS Exchange Server Lotus Notes and Domino Novell Netware, OES MS Outlook MySQL Mac OS X MS SQL Server Anroid Tablets System i/power 6 SAP Smart Phones Apple ios 4 & up Why switch from traditional IT to the cloud? The cloud is already with us and is here to stay. Increasingly, organisations of all sizes are adopting the cloud model as a means of reducing their IT budgets while sustaining their service levels. Scrutiny of IT expenditure reveals extensive infrastructure underutilization. Furthermore, hidden costs such as maintenance and support, power and cooling in the past went unnoticed. Not any longer. Companies leveraging the cloud, benefit from economies of scale associated with Uni Systems large-scale Data Centres. It employs a multi-tenant architecture to allow sharing resources between its customers. The scale of infrastructure and optimised operations allows Uni Systems to pass on savings to its cloud customers. Equally important, Uni Systems cloud customers take advantage of utility computing: they pay only for what they actually use for as long as they use it. Budgeting becomes easier and more accurate. No longer do companies have to commit capital to sustain core, let alone seasonal operations. By moving applications, infrastructure and even support to Uni Systems cloud, IT department s role becomes instrumental in freeing up invaluable capital for the most critical investment priorities. Uni Systems cloud infrastructure and services is the way forward to small and medium size companies. They are empowered to counter-balance the competitive advantage that comes from state-of-the-art IT infrastructure only their biggest competitors can accord. Uni Systems delivers affordable, state-of-the art Data Centre infrastructure and application services to those small companies for a monthly fee. Uni Systems Cloud customers enjoy unprecedented flexibility too. The infrastructure can scale up or down to adapt to growing operations or seasonal peeks. They don t need to invest on hardware and software or implementation and support services. At the same time, 8
provisioning new services or extra capacity can be a matter of minutes. Systems and applications get properly patched and upgraded. Expert administration and top class technical support is available round the clock at no extra cost, thus making Uni Systems and extension of each customer s IT team. Two geographically distant Uni Systems Data Centres are designed to deliver uninterrupted operations to its cloud customers even after major catastrophic events. As a result small and medium size companies get service levels normally banks and telcos enjoy. Customers designated personnel gains secure access to applications and data stored in Uni Systems cloud infrastructure from any location via an internet connection any time. 9