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Optimizing File Sharing and Data
Backup over Wide Area Networkst is 2:00 AM at
your Chicago Iapartment. Your
phone rings. The
panicked voice on
the other end reports
that your London
facility was con-
sumed by ? re while you were sleeping. Thankfully, nobody was hurt. However,
the server was destroyed and all the ? les-including the entire day's work-are
unrecoverable. With a network containing dozens of sites, each thousands of
miles from the next, and sharing hundreds of gigabytes of project data, how do
you ensure that no data was lost? No deadlines were missed? And everyone
was able to collaborate, real-time, on projects just as they had before the ? re?With the growing need for remote, multi-site project collaboration in our increasingly global econ-omy, it is not too dif? cult to imagine this frightening scenario. In fact, this is an actual account of a customer's predicament. Whether it's a ? re, a ? ood, a hurricane, a tornado, a mudslide, or an industrial accident, the challenge remains the same. Two of the most critical IT processes, data access and data back-up have been made signi? cantly more complex because project collabora-tion today often includes multiple sites separated by oceans and thousands of miles.
However, these-and nearly every IT-related challenge-share the same limiting factor: the cumulative costs of implementing a solution. The most ef? cient way to reduce costs is to con-solidate processes using multi-faceted technologies that address a range of critical needs in a single solution.
In this whitepaper, we will see how the overlapping requirements of both data access and data back-up solutions make the two processes ideal for optimization through consolidation.
Vendors
Remote PartnersSites
IInternet CCoollllaabboration
Headquarters Back-up VaultDaDtaata A Acccceessss
The challenge of data access is far more complicated than simply providing access to ? les for all users. Throughout the many approaches to this critical business need, there are a number of complications that arise: bandwidth usage, ? le coherence, version consistency, and ? le latency which can result in lost pro-ductivity.
One of the most commonly used solutions for data access revolves around WAN acceleration technology. This technology is favored for its ability to centralize data, which improves ? le coherence and simpli? es back-up procedures. Unfortunately, limitations relating to bandwidth and ? le latency-the speed at which data travels across a WAN-ultimately cause delays in data access that are unacceptable for productiv-ity.
Several technologies today seek to address these limitations and reduce delays. Technologies have been developed to accelerate transfer speeds, decrease the size of ? les shared, and reduce application chat-ter. However, despite these improvements, the number of remote locations and the volume of data being shared among today's fast-growing companies are still exceeding the capability of these advanced WAN technologies.
Some methods that have been introduced to address these limitations actually result in more complicated business processes. For example, the copying of key ? les from a central source to local servers in order to work on them can speed data access for users, but it creates new management tasks such as oversight, synchronization and ? le back-up at multiple sites to avoid work being incorrectly overwritten. Today it is becoming evident that the answer will not be found in an evolution of WAN acceleration technology, but by looking to a fundamentally different approach.
On the simplest level, the effectiveness of any data access solution revolves around its ability to reduce delays. The more capable a technology is at reducing delays, the more capable it becomes at handling large volumes of data and increasing numbers of sites.
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DaDtaata B Baacckk--UUpp
Back-up copies of data that exist in one location, or in multiple locations, are critical to a company's ability to survive catastrophic loss of data due to technology failure, ? re, ? ood, or any other natural disaster. The same challenges that affect data access-the dispersion of data among multiple locations and the increasing volume of data-are also the very same challenges that com... [download for more]
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