NAS Backup Strategy with NAKIVO Backup and Replication v10.6
Not long ago, I covered the beta release of NAKIVO Backup & Replication v10.6 with many new features. You can read my coverage of the beta release here. Now, NAKIVO Backup & Replication v10.6 has been released as GA. Let’s look at NAS Backup strategy with NAKIVO Backup and Replication v10.6, along with other new features that make this release the best NAKIVO release to date.
NAKIVO Backup & Replication v10.6 new features
To review the coverage of the NAKIVO Backup & Replication v10.6 release, let’s look at the new features found in the GA release of NBR v10.6. What are they?
- NAS Backup
- Hardened AMI
- Microsoft 365 Groups backup
- External database support
- Backup from HPE Nimble Storage Snapshots
1. NAS Backup
With the NAS Backup feature found in the NAKIVO Backup & Replication v10.6 release, you can back up file shares or specific share folders. You can also recover the entire share, granular folders within the share, or the files contained in the folders. NAKIVO Backup & Replication v10.6 bolsters your NAS backup strategy by offering backups and backup copies of file shares on NAS devices, Windows, and Linux file servers via NFS and SMB (CIFS) protocols.
2. Hardened AMI
Ransomware gangs and groups are going after backups that organizations have, so they have a better chance of collecting ransom payments. It is of utmost importance for organizations to protect their backup infrastructure. More businesses are taking advantage of cloud infrastructure for things like backups and other services. NAKIVO Backup & Replication v10.6 introduces a hardened AMI (Amazon Machine Image) that features robust protections against ransomware and accidental deletion. The solution is deployed from the Amazon Marketplace running Ubuntu Server. It makes backups immutable, which means they cannot be changed. Immutable backups are one of the new tools against ransomware that businesses are leveraging to ensure backup data is protected against the encrypting processes of ransomware.
3. Microsoft 365 Groups Backup
Microsoft 365 is one of the most popular Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) environments used by businesses worldwide. Protecting your Microsoft SaaS environment is critically important as many of the same data loss risks can threaten cloud data the same as on-premises. NAKIVO Backup & Replication v10.6 introduces Microsoft 365 Groups backup. It allows protecting Exchange Online and SharePoint Online groups against data loss and downtime as a result. You can back up and restore group mailboxes, including mail, files, OneNote folders, and group sites (document libraries, lists, and subsites).
4. External Database Support
In the NAKIVO Backup & Replication v10.6, NAKIVO has introduced expanded configuration options for NAKIVO itself, providing more flexible options for businesses configuring their NAKIVO deployments. In particular, the built-in database in NAKIVO can get overloaded in extremely large environments. In NAKIVO Backup & Replication v10.6, you can now use an external database. This new option offers more robust database support to allow pointing NAKIVO to an external database for better performance and scalability.
5. Backup from HPE Nimble Storage Snapshots
Using regular virtual machine snapshots for backups in a virtualized environment is not the most efficient way to backup the VMs and their data. They can also impact the performance of the solution. With NAKIVO Backup & Replication v10.6, IT admins can now back up and replicate VMware virtual machines residing on Nimble storage devices using storage snapshots instead of VMware virtual machine snapshots. This is a much more performant and efficient backup method, saving time and system resources.
NAS Backup Strategy with NAKIVO Backup and Replication v10.6
With the new NAS Backup feature found in NAKIVO Backup and Replication v10.6, organizations have the tools needed to create a robust NAS backup strategy, including backups and backup copies. Many organizations use NAS devices to house file shares hosting business-critical file resources in a cost-effective and resilient way.
What part of your NAS backup strategy comes from the backups and backup copies?
- Backups – Backups provide the means to back up your data using fully versioned backups of your production data contained on your NAS device. With NAKIVO, you are getting back up versioning when you backup NFS and SMB file shares using the new capability found in NAKIVO Backup & Replication v10.6. This means you can save multiple copies or versions of your data to select from, allowing you to choose which version of the data you want to restore. This is important as you may need to roll back in time to a particular version of data.
- Backup copies allow you to create an exact copy of your backups in another completely different NAKIVO Backup repository. This helps organizations to successfully implement the 3-2-1 backup strategy to protect their NAS storage, bolstering their NAS backup strategy.
- Backups to tape – You can use backup to tape to have an additional offline copy of your backups to tape, even further bolstering your NAS backup strategy and allowing you to meet the different storage media types and offsite backups.
The 3-2-1 backup best practice recommends having (3) copies of your data stored on at least (2) different types of media, with at least (1) copy stored offsite. Using the combination of backups, backup copies, and backups to tape, the 3-2-1 backup best practice can be met to protect your NAS-backed data.
NAS Backup Strategy FAQs
- What is a NAS device? NAS stands for Network Attached Storage and is a standalone appliance containing a processor, memory, and storage that acts as an easy-to-manage storage device that does not require an enterprise server to attach to the storage. Instead, clients can connect to the NFS and SMB storage shares directly. NAS devices are cost-effective and provide many great features for the enterprise. They are especially desirable in ROBO or edge environments with little physical room for servers or the existing infrastructure needed to set up a traditional file share.
- What is the 3-2-1 backup best practice? The 3-2-1 backup best practice recommends having (3) copies of your data stored on (2) different media types, with at least (1) stored offsite.
- What NAS Backup Strategy works best to protect data? The NAS backup strategy that works best may vary between organizations. However, NAKIVO Backup & Replication v10.6 provides robust backup capabilities that allow protecting NAS devices. The backups, backup copies, and backups to tape allow organizations to protect their data contained in NFS and SMB shares housed on NAS devices. The capabilities contained in this release allow businesses to align their NAS backup strategy with the 3-2-1 backup best practice methodology.
- What are NAS backups? NAS backups can refer to two different things. There are backups that target a NAS device. NAKIVO provides a great solution that runs on your NAS as an app, then is able to act as a dedicated backup appliance to backup your business-critical data and virtualization environment. Read my post here showcasing running NAKIVO on a Synology NAS device as a backup appliance. The functionality now introduced in NAKIVO Backup & Replication v10.6 is the ability to backup your NAS device by backing up the file shares that exist on the NAS itself.
Wrapping Up
When thinking about your NAS backup strategy, organizations need to think about the same things they think about with other types of data to protect it in a way that is resilient and allows recovering data effectively. NAKIVO Backup & Replication v10.6 adds many great features, including NAS backups. Another great feature is the hardened AMI which provides a ransomware-proof Amazon image allowing organizations resiliency against malicious ransomware threats.
Read more about NAKIVO Backup & Replication v10.6 and download a trial version here:
