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Enterprise Desktop Laptop Backup – Backup Frequency

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This post is part of a Series on planning for Enterprise desktop laptop backup in your organization.  Whether you are considering software or online options for your enterprise PC backup solution there are several items that need to be considered and this series takes a look at those items.  In my last post, I explored whether scheduled backup can really work for your enterprise laptop and desktop population.  In this post, I'll share my thoughts on backup frequency i.e. how frequently the data on your enterprise laptop or desktop population should be backed up.

Choosing the appropriate backup frequency options for your laptop desktop data is quite important, because if done wrong, it can result in: too much data being backed up, end user impact and poor RPO (Recovery Point Objective).  Also, different classes of data need different backup frequencies based on the importance and change rate.  Broadly speaking, the following options exist:

• Backup every x interval: This option essentially means that the laptop desktop will be backed up every x units of time. The most basic form is the once a day backup, but other frequencies can also be specified. Choose this option for data that has the following characteristics:
• The RPO (Recovery Point Objective) requirements are not too stringent, i.e. it's OK to lose data generated in x/2 interval on an average in case of a disaster.
• The change rate is quite high and the incremental cost of backing up intermediate data is not justified by the additional coverage it may provide.
• Continuous backup: Conceptually, continuous backup or CDP of your desktop laptop data sounds perfect: there are no schedules to manage and you have continuous coverage, but there are some things to watch out here.
• Intermediate version proliferation: If a user is working on a document on their PC and they save it 20 times during the day, CDP ends up backing up 20 versions of that document, most of which the user is never going to go back to. Similarly, if you backup a PST file, every time Microsoft Outlook writes to the PST file, a backup is created. Proliferation of intermediate backup versions is a problem with CDP which increases storage and bandwidth footprint with arguably little added value.
• Impact to the end user: The other side of continuous backup is that it is well, continuous. It can impact the end user by performing ongoing backup on the PC exactly while the user is using the PC. Make sure that the disruption is worth the benefit of having access to every save event.
• Disconnected backup: A PC, especially a laptop, is frequently disconnected. Make sure the CDP solution you are looking at can backup PC data even when it is disconnected.
• Recovery experience: The recovery experience re: how the intermediate versions are accessed is equally important. If a user saved 20 versions of the document and CDP stored 20 backup versions - how does the user find what they are looking for? Do they have to recover all 20 files one by one and then find what they are looking for, or can they search for what they are looking for?
• Near continuous backup: In talking with several customers, near continuous backup seems to be the best option for most data for the enterprise laptop and desktop population, because it retains the best features of CDP but solves the issues listed above. Like CDP, there are no schedules to manage. But, near continuous backup prevents intermediate version proliferation by limiting the number of total backup versions for a file. A well-designed implementation also doesn't impact the end user and can handle lack of a connection. Make sure you understand the scaling capabilities of the near continuous backup implementation, specifically, how does the backup server handle a large number of enterprise desktop and laptop backup requests and what is the behavior when the peak load capacity is exceeded.

For desktop and laptop backup you need to have different options for different types of data.  For example, for your end user documents, near continuous backup may make the most sense, while for data like PST files, perhaps the option to backup every x interval makes most sense.  Look for a software or a solution that provides you flexibility to specify different frequency options for different types of data.