Joe Garber walks through four types of Analysis that can be applied to backup and disaster recovery (DR) in a recent article for NetworkWorld.  He writes, “Data is the DNA of the modern organization and found in the cloud, behind four walls and at the network’s edge.  Data is also growing at a greater speed than ever before.  This unique combination of growing data complexity, sprawl and volume is forcing IT to rethink traditional approaches to backup and recovery.”

Today let’s take a look at the four types of analysis that he describes as giving back up and disaster recovery “brains”. The analysis types include:

• Environmental
• Retrospective
• Predictive
• Prescriptive

Each provide a different look into your network and when combined Mr. Garber writes, “they allow enterprises to be proactive in prioritizing data, predicting resource utilization, mitigating risk and optimizing infrastructure in order to reduce the burden on resources and manage the costs.”  Here are the definitions of each:

Environmental – with data spread inside and outside of the company environmental analysis allows IT to determine how to manage back up and delivery of information.

Retrospective – this analysis takes into account historical back up and recovery success and failures. It also can be used to determine how resources are best utilized and used to prioritize data so back up can be optimized to meet service levels.

Predictive  – as the name implies, this type of analysis can help IT plan for future capacity needs. Using historical patterns it can also help to identify potential back up and DR  crunch points that need to be resolved.

Prescriptive – this analysis looks at what is happening now and provides steps to solve problems when they occur.

In closing Mr. Garber adds, “As organizations adjust to the reality of a changing IT world — with increasing volume, variety, and velocity of information sources, which have expanded beyond the four corporate walls — they must also expand their information management practices to keep pace with the increasing demands.  In short, they need to move from defense to offense.”

Share how your DR is moving from defense to offense this year.