Losing critical business or customer data can be catastrophic. As an online betting exchange, BetPro processes financial transactions and stores sensitive user information daily. Having a solid backup and recovery system in place is essential to avoid data loss and ensure business continuity when disaster strikes.
Assessing Your Current Backup Infrastructure
The first step is taking stock of your existing data protection. This includes reviewing:
On-site Backup Hardware and Software
- What devices do you use? Tape drives, disk-based backups, cloud gateways, etc.
- Backup software – is it up to date and still supported? Version, compatibility, features.
- Backup schedule – how often and what gets backed up? Frequency, full vs incremental, retention policies.
Off-site and Cloud-based Backup
- Do you store any backups offsite or in the cloud? Which provider/location?
- Security of cloud backups – encryption, access controls, multi-factor authentication.
Backup and Restore Testing
- When were backup restores last tested? Recovery time/point objectives?
- Were tests successful? If not, what failed and requires improvement?
Documenting this information will reveal gaps that need to be addressed in your data protection strategy.
Establishing Recovery Goals
The main objective of backups is being able to successfully restore data when needed. Therefore, you need to establish clear recovery goals, including:
Recovery Point Objective (RPO)
The maximum acceptable amount of data loss in case of disruption. For instance, an RPO of 24 hours means losing up to 1 day of data is acceptable during restores.
Recovery Time Objective (RTO)
The maximum tolerable time to fully restore systems and data access after an outage. Example: RTO of 6 hours means systems and complete data access must be restored within 6 hours.
The costs of meeting more aggressive RPOs and RTOs are higher – evaluate your risk tolerance and budget to balance data protection needs with expenses.
Selecting Your Backup Targets
To meet defined RPO and RTO objectives, the specific data sets requiring protection must be determined. For BetPro, priority targets include:
Transactional Databases
This includes databases supporting trades, account records, financial transactions, etc. Extremely low RPO and RTO.
File Storage Repositories
File servers containing essential documents, configuration data, logs, email repositories, etc.
Business-Critical Servers
Application servers, hosting virtual machines, DNS servers, mail servers, etc that keep the business functioning.
User Endpoints
Protect laptops, desktops and mobile devices belonging to employees and contractors holding sensitive information.
Choosing Backup Infrastructure Components
With goals set and targets identified, robust backup infrastructure is required combining multiple layers of data protection both on-prem and off-site:
Local Backup
Onsite backup is the foundation, providing rapid restores. Components include:
Backup Software
Manages backup jobs and schedules. Enterprise-grade options offer compression, deduplication, broad platform support. Examples include Veeam, CommVault, Veritas NetBackup.
Backup Target Device(s)
Stores backup data onsite. Options:
- Direct Attached Storage (DAS) – external hard drives
- Network Attached Storage (NAS) – centralized backup appliance
- Storage Area Network (SAN) – dedicated high-speed network storage
Media
Tape drives, removable disk drives, and virtual tape libraries to handle larger backup volumes with archiving capabilities.
Off-Site Backup
Complement onsite protection by copying key backups to alternate locations to assist with RPOs and rapid disaster recovery:
Replication
Continuously copy onsite backup data to offsite servers in near real-time to achieve low RPO. Allows fast failover. Options include SAN-to-SAN or server-based replication.
External Data Centers
Store backup data in secured, hardened facilities away from your main site. Tape rotation or private network connections allow retrieval.
Cloud Storage
Utilize large public cloud providers like AWS, Azure or Google Cloud. Balance costs with features like global redundancy and security controls.
Securing Your Backups
Backup infrastructure and media must be secured through:
Physical Security
Controls physical access to onsite backup systems like door access controls, cameras, entry logs. Make tape backups tamper-evident.
Network Security
Isolate backup systems from primary networks and limit access points. Requires VPN to access cloud gateways, storage buckets. Enable firewalls.
Access Controls
Authentication plus role-based access limits backup access to qualified staff. Control privileged actions like deletion with multi-factor authentication.
Encryption
Encrypts backup data in transit and at rest, preventing unauthorized access. Use public key infrastructure (PKI) managing keys.
Monitoring Your Backup Environment
Actively monitoring backup systems ensures continued protection aligned to RPO/RTO:
Job Status Alerts
Get notified if a backup job fails or completes with errors to take corrective action.
Capacity Monitoring
Get ahead of capacity limits that put data at risk. Add storage before maximums are hit.
System Health Checks
Get early warning on issues like lagging performance, component failures, configuration drift.
Audit Logging
Essential for security compliance. Records privileged actions taken within backup system.
Validating Recoverability via Testing
The best practice for ensuring your backup capability meets requirements is periodic testing by:
Backup Test Restores
Recover sample files or subsets of data from backups across multiple target systems. Confirms readability.
Secondary Site Testing
Fail systems over to a secondary site to validate business continuity plans. Useful for public cloud.
Full Recovery Tests
Simulates worse-case large-scale restoration across infrastructure annually. Highlights gaps.
Testing should address defined RTO/RPOs. Each test provides learnings to further strengthen environments.
Conclusion
Protecting business-critical BetPro Exchange infrastructure requires rethinking legacy assumptions around backups. By assessing your current data protection, setting clear goals for restoration, standardizing secure backup infrastructure across on-prem and cloud sites, implementing monitoring for awareness, and validating recoverability through testing, you can ensure your most important digital assets remain resilient when disaster strikes.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the consequences of inadequate data backup?
Losing access to critical data assets can mean prolonged downtime, permanent loss of essential records, regulatory non-compliance, reputation damage, and ultimately impact revenue and customer retention.
How often should you test restoring from backups?
Most experts recommend full recovery testing annually at minimum, with more frequent testing of sample backup restores across major systems on a quarterly or monthly basis.
What typically causes backup jobs to fail?
Common factors include outdated or improperly configured backup software, lack of maintenance causing capacity limits to be hit, aged hardware, network issues interrupting jobs, limiting backups to peak hours, and inadequate credentials or permissions.
Should you hire a managed service provider to handle backups?
Managed backup services transfer responsibility onto specialized providers who maintain your infrastructure. This option offers expertise lacking internally but forgoes full control and increases vendor dependencies.
How long do you need to retain backup data?
Retention duration depends on recovery objectives, restoration needs and also legal obligations to preserve data for compliance requirements. Referencing retention policies while crafting backup strategy is essential.
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