Where Traditional Vendors are Missing the Mark on NAS and Object Protection

With the rise in cyberattacks, it is now more critical than ever to seek out those agile solutions available which will enable your organization to once again focus on protecting your NAS and object data affordably and at scale. Michael Jack, CRO, Datadobi shares how enterprises can choose cost-effective backup solutions.

Protecting your organization’s most business-critical network-attached storage (NAS) or object storage data, whether in the data center or the cloud, requires a solution that grasps the complexity and scale of unstructured data. Unfortunately, traditional backup solutions just aren’t designed to support NAS and object data and, more often than not, are expensive, complicated technologies.

Cyber adversaries also frequently target NAS backup datasets with malware and ransomware, threatening to halt business operations if an attack attempt is successful. On top of that, traditional anti-malware solutions also tend to be fundamentally reactive to known threats so, where does that leave fears of the unknown threats? All of these factors have the makings of a potentially serious headache for enterprises.

An Air-Gapped ‘Golden Copy’ Shouldn’t Cost a Pocket Full of Gold

Many organizations are simply looking to attain a ‘golden copy’ of their data, whether on another NAS or in the cloud that is accessible in the event of an emergency. But why should they have to hand over a fist full of gold for a traditional backup solution still incapable of scaling to any size environment no matter what you pay for it? 

The answer? They shouldn’t. Unfortunately, using traditional backup solutions can put an organization’s storage and cloud teams in exactly that predicament faced with paying exorbitant costs for traditional ‘solutions’ when most simply don’t work at scale. 

Backup and disaster recovery has become a very mature, competitive, extremely crowded market built on a world of virtual machines, applications, and databases. So, while traditional enterprise backup companies are successful in their own right, what most all of them have in common is that they’re continuing to treat the backup of unstructured data in the very same way, choosing to either quietly ignore the customer’s need for comprehensive NAS and object data backup and recovery or simply using their old technologies that can’t fully meet the complex, demands of today’s market.

However, some leading traditional vendors are pursuing buy or build solutions to plug up their capability holes. Realistically, every traditional solution should be viewed with a jaundiced eye, particularly solutions using nascent NAS data protection technologies tacked onto their existing in-house backup solution being used for other requirements to address what customers now demand as a strategic organizational need. Sadly, customers are finding that buying one of these solutions purely for NAS backup is both cost-prohibitive and ineffective.

See More: Maximizing Return On Investment With Your Security Budget

Giving Up on NAS Backup Isn’t the Solution

Research firm Gartner states, “Digital business means factoring the latest cybersecurity threats, risks and solutions into every initiative.”  In light of ever-increasing cyber and ransomware attacks paralyzing businesses and governments, it is now more critical than ever to seek out those agile solutions available which will enable your organization to once again focus on protecting your NAS and object data affordably and at scale. Afterall, ransomware was never a design criterion when traditional data protection was being created to protect against hardware/software failures or accidental misconfigurations. Proof again, traditional data protection  isn’t enough.

While snapshots and data replication are solid pieces of the NAS data protection puzzle, they are far from a complete solution. Adding additional layers of data protection is an undeniable necessity. Capabilities such as the following provide those layers: 

• Ransomware-proof point-in-time/versioned backups that are stored on separate media, a separate device, in an immutable form, and can be restored to any system
• Verifiable protected data
• Quick and easy granular recovery to any NAS or S3 platform
• Built-in ability to recreate shares and exports with ACLs upon restore
• Scheduling and load balancing for maximum flexibility
• Scalability to any size environment

See More: How Has Ransomware Attacks Impacted Manufacturing Industry

Choose Carefully. Spend Wisely 

Enabling enterprises to meticulously safeguard their data between any heterogeneous system, either on-premises or in the cloud, isn’t a fantasy. Likewise, the option to source a software solution that’s fundamentally designed at the core to manage unstructured data in the simplest, safest, and most cost-effective way to protect NAS and object data should not be considered optional. Rather it is a must-have for every organization. By design, such an enterprise-class type of software won’t burden customers with large infrastructure investment because it is purpose-built to be an agile, intelligent, highly adaptable software solution to tackle the complexity of all NAS and object storage systems.

Gartner forecasts worldwide spending on information security and risk management technology and services to hit $150.4 billion in 2021. Organizations who choose to consider software-only solutions in place of traditional backup vendors to marry their NAS protection and recovery objectives with their performance needs just may find they can happily do so without having to resort to the traditional over-specified and expensive solutions that give them a quick option, rather than a purpose-built foundation. What will your organization choose?

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