The Importance of Off-site Backup via Physical Media in Large Enterprises Part 2
Hello everyone.
I am Murashima, in charge of off-site and cold backup operations at Kachika Co., Ltd.!
I skipped a day. It is because of the heat. I wonder if this will continue until the end of September. Not being able to sleep is honestly tough; for me, it is like I live to sleep.
Now, shall we get to that thing? It is quite math-heavy today, but...
Let a = b.
Multiply both sides by a.
a^2 = ab
This is the result. Just to be clear, a^2 refers to a squared in computer notation.
Subtract b^2 from both sides.
a^2-b^2 = ab-b^2
Factor both sides.
(a-b)(a+b) = b(a-b)
Simplify.
a+b = b
From the initial assumption, substitute b with a.
2a = a
Simplify.
2 = 1
In other words, 2=1 has been proven. That is correct, right?
Now, let us continue learning about security today.
The Importance of Off-site Data Storage (Geographic Dispersion)
Now, let us finally step into what can be called the main topic. It is the story that for large enterprises—no, the larger the enterprise, the more important it becomes to have off-site data storage, that is, storing data in geographically dispersed locations.
Protection against localized disasters: Ensuring business continuity
Storing backup data in a location different from the original data source is most critical to avoid "double loss." This means that even if the primary site is completely destroyed by a natural disaster (flood, fire, typhoon, etc.) or a widespread power outage, the off-site data remains safe and recoverable. Geographically dispersed data centers or off-site storage locations ensure that localized events do not affect both the primary and backup sites.
Mitigating single points of failure: Redundancy across geographic regions
Off-site backup is a critical component of a comprehensive disaster recovery plan that ensures data remains safe and recoverable in the event of physical or cyber incidents. Geo-Redundant Storage (GRS) automatically replicates data across multiple regions, ensuring data integrity and accessibility even if an outage occurs in one region. This multi-site redundancy guarantees high durability and availability.
High availability and disaster recovery: Rapid restoration capability
With a well-defined disaster recovery plan that incorporates off-site backups, organizations can minimize the impact of interruptions, achieve faster recovery times, and quickly resume core operations even if things take a turn for the worse. By storing copies of data in multiple regions, companies can reduce the risk of data loss and improve overall system reliability and uptime by enabling seamless failover between geographically dispersed storage sites. Because off-site backups can be accessed from anywhere, data retrieval and restoration are possible even if the primary server goes down. This ensures business resilience and helps maintain competitiveness by preventing customers from moving to competitors during downtime.
Off-site storage goes beyond simple data recovery and acts as a strategic driver for business continuity. The fact that off-site backup contributes directly to elements such as "business continuity," "competitive advantage," "customer satisfaction," and "reputation" indicates that it is not merely a technical recovery act, but a strategic investment in an organization's resilience when facing adversity, directly impacting market position and stakeholder trust.
The "distance and latency trade-off" in off-site strategy is also a point to consider. It is pointed out that the distance between geographically dispersed data centers should balance recovery and latency requirements. While greater distance enhances protection against disasters, it can affect the recovery performance of active data. In the case of physical off-site backups, the recovery process can be slow if physical media needs to be transported over long distances or if the recovery site itself is in a very remote location. Therefore, companies must strategically balance maximum geographic separation for disaster resilience with an acceptable Recovery Time Objective (RTO) for critical data. This might be achieved by considering multiple tiers of off-site storage or pre-positioned recovery infrastructure.
Physical off-site backup in hybrid data strategies
Let us perform a comparative analysis here.
(Click to enlarge)
On-premises/Physical Backup:Because it allows for complete control over data, infrastructure, and security measures, it is extremely important for companies dealing with strict compliance requirements or sensitive data. Extensive customization is possible, and local storage often eliminates reliance on internet connectivity, reducing recovery time during disasters. Magnetic tape is considered cost-effective, especially for long-term, large-capacity storage. However, these require significant initial investment and ongoing maintenance, and if not properly protected, they have the disadvantage of being susceptible to physical disasters and hardware failures. Manual processes can become cumbersome.
Cloud Backup:Provides unparalleled scalability that can easily accommodate data growth without additional hardware investment. It is ideal for distributed teams because it can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection. Cloud providers offer robust security features such as encryption and multi-factor authentication. However, ongoing costs are incurred, and because it is heavily dependent on internet connectivity (large-scale data recovery can be slow), vendor lock-in and privacy concerns may arise. Since data is stored online, the risk of data breaches still exists.
Synergy of a hybrid approach: Combining strengths for ultimate resilience
A hybrid backup strategy that combines the security and control of on-premises/physical backup with the scalability and accessibility of cloud backup is the most robust approach for large enterprises. This approach allows for fast recovery from local servers while maintaining a highly protected second copy in the cloud or on physical off-site media. Even if one system fails, the other ensures continuity.
For example, high-performance physical storage systems such as all-flash arrays (storage infrastructure equipped only with flash memory instead of hard disk drives) can support critical applications that require high-speed access on-premises. On the other hand, for data that does not require immediate access, services like Amazon's AWS S3 can be used to seamlessly expand capacity to the cloud. This combination can also minimize the overall cost of managing big data.
This approach is based on the principle of "the right data in the right place." A comparison of physical storage and cloud storage shows that each has its own strengths. The optimal strategy involves intelligently classifying data based on its importance, access speed requirements, and compliance needs. This makes it possible to place different types of data on the most appropriate storage media and in the most appropriate locations. For example, high-transaction data can be placed on high-speed local physical storage with frequent backups, while archived data can be stored on cost-effective, long-term physical off-site media or cold cloud storage. This means strategically allocating resources based on the value of the data.
Optimizing Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO)
The choice of backup solution significantly impacts RTO (Recovery Time Objective: how quickly data can be restored) and RPO (Recovery Point Objective: how much data loss is acceptable). On-premises/physical backups often facilitate lower RTO for critical, frequently accessed data due to local access speeds. Cloud solutions can protect data from physical damage to user devices through multi-site backups and rapid recovery options, providing a good RPO for many datasets.
A hybrid strategy allows companies to adjust RTO and RPO across different data tiers. This ensures that the most critical data has the fastest recovery path (often physical/on-premises), while less critical data benefits from the scalability of the cloud and off-site resilience. This design considers the interaction between cost, performance, and risk. For large datasets (10-100TB), the cloud can become "very expensive," and NAS/physical storage may be more cost-effective. The point that combining both can "minimize costs" suggests that there is a complex optimization problem for large enterprises. It is a matter of how to achieve the desired RTO/RPO and security posture (risk mitigation) at the lowest possible cost. The use of physical off-site storage becomes a key element in optimizing the balance of cost, performance, and risk for resilience with long-term immutability.
I will stop here for today.
It will be quite short today, but I would like to end here. The topic changes from the next paragraph, and I think this is the best place to break.
Actually, the concept close to today's "backup" has existed since ancient times. It could be said that the idea of making multiple copies so that data written in characters would not be lost emerged at the same time that writing was invented and information was no longer necessarily tied to a human being. Even if we think of history as relatively shallow, the era of carving characters into stone with chisels and hammers ended in ancient Greece, and when a groundbreaking information revolution for that time occurred—writing characters with quill pens on thin wooden boards or papyrus—the ancient Romans desperately copied the literature of ancient Greece and their own time. I think this is a backup of that era, created with the purpose of "ensuring that at least one copy remains for future generations."
Since then, humanity has repeatedly devised rational methods for storing data. And it feels like we have reached today, but the ideal recording medium that is easy to read and write, resistant to alteration and erasure, easy to handle, and high-capacity has not yet been invented. Digitization is a wonderful invention, but just as paper media has its own unique risks, digital recording has its own unique risks. It is precisely because there is no definitive solution to all those risks that methods such as recording on multiple media or storing them physically apart even when saved on the same medium have been adopted.
The speed of development in digital recording is tremendous. Convenience is improving day by day. However, if we are so focused on convenience that we neglect backups as "things that must be used in an emergency," then we must ask the fundamental question of what the purpose of the development of digital recording is in the first place.
Backup is the act of planning in advance what to store where for a crisis that may come someday, and what to use and how when that crisis arrives. I believe that what supports the foundation of that is, after all, the static storage of physically recorded items. Thank you very much.
Now, shall we go to that thing?
This is the "Let's see how Gemini does" series. Last time, Gemini drew a picture like this for us.
This is Gemini's answer to the request, "Draw a picture of the 4th Katsura Beidanji." It feels like, even though there are photos of this person left.
(Image from Wikipedia)
He is the master of Katsura Beicho, who would later become a Living National Treasure. It is said that he passed away only about four years after taking young Kiyoshi Nakagawa (later Katsura Beicho) as his apprentice.
Katsura Beicho used to say on occasion that while he was good at storytelling, he was a very gloomy person, and he was perfect for the night of a wake.
And then, that Mr. Beicho's son also became a storyteller and took the name of the 5th Katsura Beidanji, and that is how the lineage flows.
Well, I suppose Gemini mistook him for a stage name in Kabuki or something similar. I also feel like there is a mix of various performing arts from East to Southeast Asia in there.
Well then, let's ask for one today as well.
Shall I give you a hint?
He was a person who was active around the time of the Meiji Restoration.
I am visiting the United States
I was also a Shogunate retainer
If I were to give one more hint, it is said that the stage name of that person we haven't seen lately was chosen with the sound of this person's name vaguely in mind. I wonder how that person is doing.
With that said, I would like to end here for this time.
We look forward to your continued support. Furthermore, a proper website introducing our company's services is currently under development. Please wait a little longer.
Table of Contents
Unique Vulnerabilities of Cloud Storage
Mutual Complementarity of Cloud Storage and Remote Backups
Where Responsibility Lies for Data Loss in Cloud Storage
Reasons Why Disaster Recovery Procedures Should Be Decided in Advance
Regarding the Data and OS We Handle at Our Company
Pros and Cons of Cloud Storage
Microsoft, you can't be serious
How to Create a Business Continuity Plan Part 1
Will They Be Alternatives to Windows? Linux Mint and Chrome OS Flex
How to Create a Business Continuity Plan Part 2
Notes on How to Create a Business Continuity Plan Part 2
How to Create a Business Continuity Plan Part 3
I Tried Using BitLocker in Various Ways
How to Create a Business Continuity Plan Part 4
On the State of Backups in the Cloud-Native Era
On Backups as a Countermeasure Against Ransomware
Introducing recommended backup media for small and medium-sized enterprises
Data backup methods for small and medium-sized enterprises: Cloud is recommended
Problems and solutions when small and medium-sized enterprises perform backups
A light personal information security memoir for today
Information threats that can be handled with backups
Information threats that cannot be handled with backups
Backup methods: What are offline and online backups?
Data backup: What is the appropriate approach for small and medium-sized enterprises?
Recent incidents related to data backup
Let's look at the basics of security measures as stated by the IPA! Part 1
Let's look at the basics of security measures as stated by the IPA! Part 2
Let's look at the basics of security measures as stated by the IPA! Part 3
Let's look at the basics of security measures as stated by the IPA! Part 4
Let's look at the basics of security measures as stated by the IPA! Part 5
Let's look at the basics of security measures as stated by the IPA! Part 6
The difference between online backup and offline backup
Let's look at the basics of security measures as stated by the IPA! Part 7
Let's look at the basics of security measures as defined by the IPA! Part 8
Personal Restore Incident Files (T△T)
Let's look at the basics of security measures as defined by the IPA! Part 9
Companies that back up and companies that don't
Let's look at the basics of security measures as defined by the IPA! Final
The 3-2-1 Backup Rule: Evolving
Let's look at the documents released by the police!
Let's look at the documents released by the police! Part 2
Let's look at the National Center of Incident Readiness and Strategy for Cybersecurity (NISC)!
Various things regarding hardware and backups
Let's look at the guidance for organizations in the event of a ransomware incident! Part 1
Let's look at the guidance for organizations in the event of a ransomware incident! Part 2
Traps hidden in commercially available USB cables
Let's look at the guidance for organizations in the event of a ransomware incident! Part 3
Does the world's No. 1 market share router have security issues?
Let's look at the guidance for organizations in the event of a ransomware incident! Part 4
Crises in Network Equipment One After Another
Let's Look at Guidance for Organizations in the Event of a Ransomware Incident! Part 5
On Malware Trends from 2024 to the Present
Let's Look at Guidance for Organizations in the Event of a Ransomware Incident! Part 6
Can Cloud Services Be Trusted?
Let's Look at Guidance for Organizations in the Event of a Ransomware Incident! Part 7
A Story About When Backups Were Useful
When Your Daily-Use HDD Breaks
Let's Look at Guidance for Organizations in the Event of a Ransomware Incident! Part 8
On Irregular Ways to Use Backups
Regarding the Details of Our Services
Recent Topics Regarding Ransomware and Backups
Let's Look at Guidance for Organizations in the Event of a Ransomware Incident! Part 9
Please Allow Me Some Small Talk Today
Let's Look at Guidance for Organizations in the Event of a Ransomware Incident! Part 10
The Past and Future of Backups
- Solve the Case - CASE 1: Opening Folders is Slow
Let's Look at Guidance for Organizations in the Event of a Ransomware Incident! Part 11
- Solve the Case - CASE 2: Website Data Disappeared Part 1
—Solve the Case— CASE 2: Website Data Disappeared Part 2
Today, I would like to ramble on about recent topics regarding backups.
Let's look at the guidance for organizations in the event of a ransomware incident! Part 12
—Solve the Case— CASE 3: Office Destroyed by Fire Part 1
—Solve the Case— CASE 3: Office Destroyed by Fire Part 2
Let's look at the guidance for organizations in the event of a ransomware incident! Part 13 (Final)
Regarding Data Recovery Operations Part 1
Regarding Data Recovery Operations Part 2
Regarding Data Recovery Operations Part 3
Data Recovery Operations: Music CD Edition
Data Recovery Operations: Game CD Edition & Next-Generation Audio Edition
Data Recovery Operations: Other Edition
Better Late Than Never: About Who I Am Part 1
Better Late Than Never: About Who I Am Part 2
Better Late Than Never: About Who I Am Part 3
Better Late Than Never: About Who I Am Part 4
Better Late Than Never: About Who I Am Part 5
On Server Types and Their Backup Methods
Things That Might Be the End for Someone Who Handles Information if They Say Them
Today, I would like to ramble on about recent topics related to backups, Part 2
On the history of computers and backups
I would like to ramble on about recent topics related to off-site backups
Some of the latest topics regarding off-site backups, Part 1
Some of the latest topics regarding off-site backups, Part 2
Information incidents that would not have occurred if backups had been done properly, Part 1
Information incidents that would not have occurred if backups had been done properly, Part 2
On the accounting treatment of backup costs
On the cost-effectiveness of backups, Part 1
On the cost-effectiveness of backups, Part 2
The impact of backup strategies on mitigating damage from information incidents, Part 1
The impact of backup strategies on mitigating damage from information incidents, Part 2
On off-site backup strategies, Part 1
On off-site backup strategies, Part 2
On the latest technological trends in off-site backups, Part 1
On the latest technological trends in off-site backups, Part 2
On the latest technological trends in off-site backups, Part 3
On the latest technological trends in off-site backups, Part 4
On the latest technological trends in off-site backups, Part 5
Latest Trends in Air-Gap Backups Part 1
Latest Trends in Air-Gap Backups Part 2
Latest Trends in Air-Gap Backups Part 3
Latest Trends in Air-Gap Backups Part 4
Latest Trends in Air-Gap Backups Part 5
Latest Trends in Air-Gap Backups Part 6
Latest Trends in Air-Gap Backups Part 7
Simple and Inexpensive Data Backup Strategies for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Part 1
Simple and Inexpensive Data Backup Strategies for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Part 2
Simple and Inexpensive Data Backup Strategies for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Part 3
Simple and Inexpensive Data Backup Strategies for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Part 4
Simple and Inexpensive Data Backup Strategies for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Part 5
Simple and Inexpensive Data Backup Strategies for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Part 6
Simple and Inexpensive Data Backup Strategies for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Part 7
Simple and Inexpensive Data Backup Strategies for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Part 8
Today is an Extra Edition: Feeling Like Satchmo
Simple and Inexpensive Data Backup Strategies for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Part 9
Simple and Inexpensive Data Backup Strategies for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Part 10
The Importance of Off-site Backups via Physical Media in Large Enterprises Part 1
The Importance of Off-site Backups via Physical Media in Large Enterprises Part 3
Practical Backup Strategies Under Time and Budget Constraints Part 1
Practical Backup Strategies Under Time and Budget Constraints Part 2
Practical Backup Strategies Under Time and Budget Constraints Part 3
Practical Backup Strategies Under Time and Budget Constraints Part 4
Practical Backup Strategies Under Time and Budget Constraints Part 5
Backup Software by OS and Its Features: Windows Edition Part 1
Backup Software by OS and Its Features: Windows Edition Part 2