Modern Data Protection

Preface

This is the book I’ve wanted to write for over 10 years. The commercial data protection space is a complicated one, and I know of no other book that covers it at this scale. I tried very hard to cover all the things you need to back up, archive, restore and retrieve; all the methods, software, and services you could use to do so; and all the hardware you’ll use to store those backups and archives.

The fact that the coverage is so broad does mean that I can’t cover each topic that deeply. It would have been easy to write a separate book on each of these chapters. In fact, when the folks at O’Reilly first saw my outline, their first comment was that this looked like a 2000-page book!

Even so, I guarantee that there are topics covered in this book that are found nowhere else. I also settle a lot of arguments that come up in this space: like the real place for tape, the difference between backup and archive, and whether or not you need to back up software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings like Microsoft 365 and Salesforce. The book covers important foundational concepts that you can use to make your own decisions. A perfect example is how the 3-2-1 rule can be used to determine whether something is being properly protected or not. (If you’re not familiar with this rule, trust me. You will be by the time you finish this book.)

I also help you understand all of the various backup methods and technologies, along with the pros and cons of each. I tried really hard to be evenhanded ...