Snapshots and Backups Are Better Together

rollback a patch, an upgrade, a test or any operation that might be deemed “unsafe.” Snapshots are also a great way to recover from cybersecurity attacks. With the right type of virtualized systems such as HC3, infected virtual machines can be reverted back to pre-ransomware snapshots and be up and running within minutes.

Destination storage flexibility is also part of the differentiation. Snapshots use the same storage stack as the primary runtime environment. Often, the primary system storage stack is very good, very fast and very expensive compared to off platform storage options. That is part of what makes snapshots not terribly practical for some backup use, especially for longer-term retention.

Backups, on the other hand, can take advantage of multiple storage media types ranging from inexpensive NAS, tape and cloud. In doing so, restoring from backups loses some of the immediacy of restore in favor of flexibility of placement and retention, which allows for much longer-term archival storage schemes. Additionally, depending on the media type used as a target, backups allow for air-gapping of the backed-up data away from runtime events. This acts as an additional layer of protection and isolation from some malware threats in today’s world.

In fact, Scale Computing HC3 provides the ability to protect every virtual workload with snapshots to quickly recover in case of an attack. If you’re hit by ransomware, you can simply revert to a previous snapshot and carry on. Of course, hyperconverged systems like HC3 are already well-suited to withstand attacks simply because they more tightly integrate servers, storage, virtualization and data protection features than traditional systems that combine these components from different vendors using open network protocols. This tight integration reduces the attack surface of the system.

So, hyperconvergence is an innovative way to simplify your IT operations and is more effective at protecting data than traditional systems.

The HC3 Data Protection Suite built into HC3 provides native backup and disaster recovery capabilities including replication, failover and failback, and flexible snapshot scheduling. As highly available clusters or more cost-effective single appliances, HC3 systems make ideal backup systems for your offsite disaster recovery.

For users whose requirements go beyond that, we provide Acronis Backup Advanced, expanding backup and recovery options as well as active malware and ransomware protection within and beyond their HC3 system. We also recently added support for Acronis SCS backup and recovery solutions on HC3, which provides a higher level of protection for U.S. public sector organizations including federal, state and local government, public utilities, and education, healthcare and nonprofit organizations.

Snapshots and backups are different, but they both serve a purpose. And they’re not an either/or proposition. There is nothing preventing you from using both, and you should.

This guest blog is part of a Channel Futures sponsorship.