On Dinosaurs, Hand-Crank Record Players and Backup Appliances

By Zetta.net Guest Blog 2

Once upon a time, it took a hand crank to be able to play a song recording. And you needed a laptop-sized unit in your car to be able to make a phone call. But technology evolves, and all that extra gear eventually (or inevitably) became unnecessary.

It’s the same with backup appliances. These clunky add-ons were once an essential part of online backup. However, their time has long passed.

Of course, some vendors will tell you how necessary they still are today. In reality, they are as outmoded as the brick-sized mobile phone and the old-fashioned hand-crank record player — and are surely destined to join the dinosaur in extinction. 

The business case alone should convince anyone of their inapplicability:

Hardware Costs

If you go with the appliance model, you have to install a backup appliance in every office you want to protect. For those with multiple offices or remote sites, this can get pretty expensive. But if you are a managed service provider, it could mean an additional piece of hardware at hundreds of customer locations.

Upgrade Costs

Suppose you go to the expense of adding this equipment at every site. After a while, you are faced with having to upgrade it. Once you go a generation or two down the product development line, vendors might be inclined to discontinue support for your “ancient gear.” In that case, you often have no choice but to pony up for the latest and greatest hardware. To keep costs low, it’s smart to have as few hardware elements as possible in your infrastructure.

How about the scenario in which you run out of space or bandwidth on that appliance? You have to then cobble together another appliance or two, adding yet again to costs. There is no stopping the data growth juggernaut, after all. The volume of data is just going to keep on growing. So, if you limit yourself to a fixed-size appliance, you will inevitably run out of capacity. What can you do? Some buy an appliance much bigger than what they currently need, while others add more units as their needs expand. Either way, it’s another expensive item to pile onto the budget.

Downtime Costs

What many don’t realize about a backup appliance is that it adds another point of failure that can delay recovery in the event of a disaster. If you lose your servers and backup appliance during a major event, you are left hanging until you get a replacement backup appliance sent to you. Even when you have everything else in place to return operations back to normal, the restore might have to wait a few more days while the needed equipment arrives. Unfortunately, loss of business for days can be a death blow for some companies.

Hidden Costs

Don’t forget about the personnel costs of having to manage that piece of equipment, maintain it, license it and more — expenses mount up quickly. Any time you put another physical box into your system, it’s going to make life more complicated. You can’t just plug it in and play like some promotional materials suggest. Any responsible IT department will first test it, integrate it, troubleshoot any issues and keep a close eye on it, so that it is properly maintained. These hidden costs are rarely taken into account when considering the value equation of implementing yet another appliance into your system. 

To learn how Zetta accomplishes direct-to-cloud backups without the need for an appliance or a local staging drive, click here.

Art Ledbetter is director of channels at Zetta. Guest blogs such as this one are published monthly, and are part of MSPmentor’s annual platinum sponsorship.