One of the biggest challenges associated with backing up any application is that most organizations are not really sure that the data they need will really be available when it comes time to recover it. The reason for this is that most organizations don’t do a whole lot of testing when it comes to backup and recovery. This isn’t because they’re lazy; it’s just that the testing process is actually too cumbersome to execute and besides, the test was probably executed against a version of the application that is now long since out of date.
In recognition of that simple fact, the folks at storage vendor FalconStor Software released today an upgrade to RecoverTrac, the software it bundles with its storage systems to automate the backup and recovery process. According to Darrell Riddle, senior director of product marketing for FalconStor, the new release adds among others things an extended testing facility that allows IT organizations to test with the push of a single button whether a particular recovery operation is actually going to work.
Riddle says that capability is critical on two levels. The first is that it can be done without interfering with existing operations and, second, it gives IT an easy way to test the disaster recovery process every time a new patch or update is applied to the environment. Patches and updates these days are coming with greater frequency than ever thanks to the rise of agile development methodologies. That inadvertently winds up putting a lot of pressure on the backup process, especially when the latest version of an application may not actually have been backed up before the latest disaster hit.
FalconStor has also extended RecoverTrac, which can be used to recover specific sets of data or entire applications, to include support for virtual machines from both VMware and Microsoft, the ability to recover multiple machines simultaneously and the ability to recover to any physical or virtual target.
Of course, somebody still has to remember to test the actual recoverability of the applications in question. But from a time perspective Riddle says FalconStor is trying to make it so that from now on there really is no excuse for forgoing backup and recovery testing.
