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AS OF 11/22/2008 6:18AM EST

Building a Remote Office Data Protection Strategy
By Jennifer deJong

April 15, 2008 — 1.   Be pragmatic. If you are starting from the ground floor, as many companies are, don’t lead with long-term deliverables and five-year plans. Instead, do the best you can to specify backup, restore and storage management policies that be implemented quickly and followed consistently, said John Sing, a senior consultant for IBM Systems and Technology Group.

2.   A remote site with more than 100 employees needs its own IT staff, said Forrester analyst Stephanie Balaouras. Automated solutions, including backing up directly to the corporate WAN, or running local backups and replicating the data back to headquarters IT, work fine for smaller offices.

3.   Keep in mind that specifying backup standards and tools is not the same thing as devising a strategy, said Sing. A strategy stipulates what data will be backed up when, and how that information is made available to headquarters, providing central IT with the ability to restore data at the remote site.

4.   Figure out how to get started, even if there is not mandate from above. Most data protection strategies are driven from the top down. But lack of support from headquarters isn’t license to ignore the issue. Instead, look for other technology shifts happening around you and attach the data protection initiative to that, said EMC senior director of product management Gail Greener. For example, if the company is looking at server consolidation, and virtualization, you can say: “Let’s not just think about virtualization, let’s factor in remote data protection, too.”

5.   Avoid unproven tools and technologies. Don’t worry about being part of the early adoption curve for new storage technologies, said Sing. Be sure to go with those that have gained momentum.

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