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Data Repository Models

Any backup strategy starts with a concept of a data repository. The backup data needs to be stored, and probably should be organized to a degree. The organization could be as simple as a sheet of paper with a list of all backup media (CDs etc.) and the dates they were produced. A more sophisticated setup could include a computerized index, catalog, or relational database. Different approaches have different advantages. Part of the model is the backup rotation scheme.

Unstructured

An unstructured repository may simply be a stack of or CD-Rs or DVD-Rs with minimal information about what was backed up and when. This is the easiest to implement, but probably the least likely to achieve a high level of recoverability.

Full only / System imaging

A repository of this type contains complete system images taken at one or more specific points in time. This technology is frequently used by computer technicians to record known good configurations. Imaging is generally more useful for deploying a standard configuration to many systems rather than as a tool for making ongoing backups of diverse systems.

BACKUP

Backups have two distinct purposes. The primary purpose is to recover data after its loss, be it by data deletion or corruption. Data loss can be a common experience of computer users. A 2008 survey found that 66% of respondents had lost files on their home PC.

The secondary purpose of backups is to recover data from an earliertime, according to a user-defined data retention policy, typically configured within a backup application for how long copies of data are required. Though backups popularly represent a simple form of disaster recovery, and should be part of a disaster recovery plan, by themselves, backups should not alone be considered disaster recovery.

One reason for this is that not all backup systems or backup applications are able to reconstitute a computer system or other complex configurations such as a computer cluster, active directory servers, or a database server, by restoring only data from a backup.

Since a backup system contains at least one copy of all data worth saving, the data storage requirements can be significant. Organizing this storage space and managing the backup process can be a complicated undertaking. A data repository model can be used to provide structure to the storage. Nowadays, there are many different types of data storage devices that are useful for making backups. There are also many different ways in which these devices can be arranged to provide geographic redundancy, data security, and portability.

Before data are sent to their storage locations, they are selected, extracted, and manipulated. Many different techniques have been developed to optimize the backup procedure. These include optimizations for dealing with open files and live data sources as well as compression, encryption, and de-duplication, among others. Every backup scheme should include dry runs that validate the reliability of the data being backed up. It is important to recognize the limitations and human factors involved in any backup scheme.

Incremental

An incremental style repository aims to make it more feasible to store backups from more points in time by organizing the data into increments of change between points in time. This eliminates the need to store duplicate copies of unchanged data: with full backups a lot of the data will be unchanged from what has been backed up previously. Typically, a full backup (of all files) is made on one occasion (or at infrequent intervals) and serves as the reference point for an incremental backup set. After that, a number of incremental backups are made after successive time periods. Restoring the whole system to the date of the last incremental backup would require starting from the last full backup taken before the data loss, and then applying in turn each of the incremental backups since then.[4] Additionally, some backup systems can reorganize the repository to synthesize full backups from a series of incrementals.

Differential

Each differential backup saves the data that has changed since the last full backup. It has the advantage that only a maximum of two data sets are needed to restore the data. One disadvantage, compared to the incremental backup method, is that as time from the last full backup (and thus the accumulated changes in data) increases, so does the time to perform the differential backup. Restoring an entire system would require starting from the most recent full backup and then applying just the last differential backup since the last full backup.

Note: Vendors have standardized on the meaning of the terms “incremental backup” and “differential backup”. However, there have been cases where conflicting definitions of these terms have been used. The most relevant characteristic of an incremental backup is which reference point it uses to check for changes. By standard definition, a differential backup copies files that have been created or changed since the last full backup, regardless of whether any other differential backups have been made since then, whereas an incremental backup copies files that have been created or changed since the most recent backup of any type (full or incremental). Other variations of incremental backup include multi-level incrementals and incremental backups that compare parts of files instead of just the whole file.

Reverse Delta

A reverse delta type repository stores a recent “mirror” of the source data and a series of differences between the mirror in its current state and its previous states. A reverse delta backup will start with a normal full backup. After the full backup is performed, the system will periodically synchronize the full backup with the live copy, while storing the data necessary to reconstruct older versions. This can either be done using hard links,or using binary diffs. This system works particularly well for large, slowly changing, data sets. Examples of programs that use this method are rdiff-backup and Time Machine.

Storage Media

Regardless of the repository model that is used, the data has to be stored on some data storage medium.

Continuous Data Protection

Instead of scheduling periodic backups, the system immediately logs every change on the host system. This is generally done by saving byte or block-level differences rather than file-level differences.[5] It differs from simple disk mirroring in that it enables a roll-back of the log and thus restoration of old image of data.

Magnetic Tape

Magnetic tape has long been the most commonly used medium for bulk data storage, backup, archiving, and interchange. Tape has typically had an order of magnitude better capacity/price ratio when compared to hard disk, but recently the ratios for tape and hard disk have become a lot closer. There are many formats, many of which are proprietary or specific to certain markets like mainframes or a particular brand of personal computer. Tape is a sequential[clarification needed] access medium, so even though access times may be poor, the rate of continuously writing or reading data can actually be very fast. Some new tape drives are even faster than modern hard disks.

Hard Disk

The capacity/price ratio of hard disk has been rapidly improving for many years. This is making it more competitive with magnetic tape as a bulk storage medium. The main advantages of hard disk storage are low access times, availability, capacity and ease of use. External disks can be connected via local interfaces like SCSI, USB, FireWire, or eSATA, or via longer distance technologies like Ethernet, iSCSI, or Fibre Channel. Some disk-based backup systems, such as Virtual Tape Libraries, support data deduplication which can dramatically reduce the amount of disk storage capacity consumed by daily and weekly backup data. The main disadvantages of hard disk backups are that they are easily damaged, especially while being transported (e.g., for off-site backups), and that their stability over periods of years is a relative unknown.

Optical Storage

Recordable CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray Discs are commonly used with personal computers and generally have low media unit costs. However, the capacities and speeds of these and other optical discs are typically an order of magnitude lower than hard disk or tape. Many optical disk formats are WORM (Write Once Read Many) type, which makes them useful for archival purposes since the data cannot be changed. The use of an auto-changer or jukebox can make optical discs a feasible option for larger-scale backup systems. Some optical storage systems allow for cataloged data backups without human contact with the discs, allowing for longer data integrity.

Solid State Storage

Also known as flash memory, thumb drives, USB flash drives, CompactFlash, SmartMedia, Memory Stick, Secure Digital cards, etc., these devices are relatively expensive for their low capacity, but are very convenient for backing up relatively low data volumes. A solid-state drive does not contain any movable parts unlike its magnetic drive counterpart and can have huge throughput in the order of 500Mbit/s to 6Gbit/s. SSD drives are now available in the order of 500GB to TBs.

Remote backup service

As broadband Internet access becomes more widespread, remote backup services are gaining in popularity. Backing up via the Internet to a remote location can protect against some worst-case scenarios such as fires, floods, or earthquakes which would destroy any backups in the immediate vicinity along with everything else. There are, however, a number of drawbacks to remote backup services. First, Internet connections are usually slower than local data storage devices. Residential broadband is especially problematic as routine backups must use an upstream link that’s usually much slower than the downstream link used only occasionally to retrieve a file from backup. This tends to limit the use of such services to relatively small amounts of high value data. Secondly, users must trust a third party service provider to maintain the privacy and integrity of their data, although confidentiality can be assured by encrypting the data before transmission to the backup service with an encryption key known only to the user. Ultimately the backup service must itself use one of the above methods so this could be seen as a more complex way of doing traditional backups.