Every business needs to back up and protect data and manage its available data storage, but many don't have a good system for doing so. However, when it comes time to choose a storage option, many companies are not sure what to look for. Here are some of the things to consider when deciding what type of recovery and backup is right for your business.

The system should . . .

• Provide all-in-one storage management – Many growing businesses rely on a number of different products, storage methods, and vendors to build their data storage infrastructure. That can be a real headache to manage, especially when some systems are on Linux/Unix and others are not. The best program works across all kinds of machines and operating systems to unify your storage management. That gives you a greater level of control and confidence in your backup and recovery methods.

• Reduce costs – Efficient management of storage infrastructure reduces the costs of operating, backing up and restoring that infrastructure. Without unified storage management software, data gets duplicated and multiple backup methods and services add up to bloated costs. A quality system allows you to hone down your backup and recovery infrastructure without sacrificing effectiveness.

• Protect more data – Backup and recovery should work fast. It should create backups as often as possible each day, on multiple servers. That means less data loss in the event of a system crash and recovery.

• Offer Intuitive display – Effective storage solutions should monitor all systems from a single administrative point of access, and the display for that point of access should be intuitive and clear. That means you will be able to see, at a single glance, exactly how much of your infrastructure is backed up and whether everything is working normally. Tivoli Storage Manager is one of several solutions that offers this option.

• Make backups easy – The most valuable system will consolidate a number of disparate administrative processes into a single easy interface, meaning that creating backups is easier and takes less time and employee expertise. That translates to more reliability and less time (and money) spent on each backup.

• Allow You to Back up anything – With a good infrastructure, you can back up anything that connects to your network: that means individual user accounts, laptops, servers, file systems, databases, even complex entities like virtual machines. It can all be backed up – and the right system may enable you to back up in the cloud, as well.

• Make Recovery pain free – If something damages your business's data infrastructure, whether it is a cyber-attack or a natural disaster, recovery should be quick and painless—and include the option of bare machine recovery.

What's making you consider a new backup and recovery system?

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