What is BDR?

There’s a pretty good chance that you’ve seen us throw the term BDR around quite a bit, or reference what we have in place as far as a Backup and DIsaster Recovery solution is concerned. However, do you know what we’re really talking about when we toss out this industry jargon?

When we reference BDR and how great it can be, we’re really referring to the implementation of a backup and disaster recovery device. This device serves the purpose that’s printed right on the box - it’s a means of preserving your data in case there is ever a need to restore it, especially in the case of some disastrous event that would otherwise destroy every bit of data you had. In order to achieve this goal, a BDR must incorporate two of the following features.

Offsite
This is perhaps the most key feature of a well-thought out BDR approach. Think about it: what good is a backup that’s destroyed by the same disaster that eliminated the rest of your data? Absolutely none. Therefore, it is considered best practice to keep an incrementally updated copy of your infrastructure and data environment preserved in an isolated, offsite location. This will help to ensure that your data will survive the disaster even if your office doesn’t, allowing you to restore it later.

Incremental
An incremental backup can be a real lifesaver in a case of emergency. Rather than going through the long process of backing up your entire data stores each and every time there is a change made to some part of it, an incremental backup takes a more utilitarian approach of simply backing up any changes that were made since the last backup cycle. As a result, this kind of backup is much, much easier to take numerous times throughout the day--which means that if a data restoration is required, it will take a much shorter time to sort out.

A BDR solution is a critically important feature that your IT plan must include in order for you to stand a chance against any kind of data loss incident. After all, it isn’t unheard of for a piece of hardware to fail, and if that machine just happened to be your sole source of data storage, you’ve just lost all your data. Also worthy of mention is the fact that nature is unpredictable, with a strong enough weather event very able to cause a data loss incident, and that human nature is even more unpredictable. It’s incredibly possible that some key piece of data could be deleted accidentally, and without a backup, that key piece of data is as good as gone.

This has been a very basic overview of what makes up a BDR solution. Feel free to reach out to us if you have any more questions, or to have one implemented properly, by calling 607.433.2200.