Windows Azure Data Storage

Chapter 8

Data Backup and Archiving

IN THIS CHAPTER

• How StorSimple can help address storage issues
• Configuring StorSimple to work in your environment
• Backup strategies for Azure SQL Database

If you spend more time wiring up event handlers than wiring up hard drives, then the idea of backing up and restoring data more than likely falls into the category of Other People’s Problems. If, on the other hand, your title includes the phrase Administrator then not only are you the Other People, but backing up and restoring data is one of the most critical aspects of your role.

For many years, the technological push in the world of data recovery was for larger, faster storage; bigger disks to store more data; faster access times so that users wouldn’t have to wait to get their data back. Now however, multi-terabyte, Solid State Drive (SSD) devices are commonplace. And yet, it is still not possible to ensure that data can be quickly and easily recovered; at least, not to everyone’s satisfaction. SSDs are expensive (even more so at large sizes) and they are a capital cost that most companies would like to minimize. Once you have purchased the disk space, you can’t get the money back, regardless of whether every TB of storage is needed or not. This combination of expensive and inflexible makes storage (and, by extension, data recovery) a great target for innovation.

In this section you will look at how Azure can allow you to improve on the sunk costs associated with data storage. You will ...