CYBER RESILIENCY solutions

VM Replication vs Data Backup.

Virtual machine replication and data backup may appear to be interchangeable, but they have different goals and both approaches should be considered when designing a data recovery plan.

Virtual Machine Replication

Replication creates copies of a VM in native format. VM replicas are fully functional, so when a disaster strikes, restoring service is simply a matter of switching to the VM replicas.

Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) can be as low as a few minutes.

There is a Critical Difference.

Data Backup

Backups are used to create copies of data for compliance and long-term record keeping. To reduce the amount of data storage required, backup software often leverages compression and deduplication.

Data reduction lowers the cost of storage used but must be reversed before files can be restored.

In the event of multiple VM failures or the loss of an entire site, recovery from backups is slow and often not practical.

Helix Cyber Resiliency Service

Tectrade can enhance DR plans by protecting critical servers through virtual machine replication in addition to providing core backups.

Unlike backup files, replicas are stored in native format.

The Helix Cyber Resiliency Service uses the replication functionality within Veeam software to replicate snapshots of VMs from a primary cluster to replica VM instances in the IBM Cloud.

Once created these snapshots are stored as read-only immutable copies, enhancing the level of protection against the threat of ransomware and data corruption.

Service Tiers

Tectrade provides two tiers of service, Gold and Platinum.

VMs in the Platinum tier have CPU and memory resources reserved on the replica instances ensuring a production level of service in event of a failover. They are also included in an annual DR failover test to prove recoverability from the replicas.

A console gives you access to Tectrade’s Helix Cyber Resiliency service.

All registered virtual machines can be viewed and a daily report is made available showing the success of replication jobs over the past seven-day period.

Multiple restore points are visible within the environment.