Introduction

Windows Server System Reference Architecture (WSSRA) is an integrated set of service solutions based on architectural guidance for enterprise, corporate, and branch office scenarios. The Storage Architecture Blueprint introduced the requirement for backup and recovery services.

A reliable backup and recovery solution needs detailed planning and an effective design process. This blueprint addresses the key points in designing an effective backup and recovery solution, using the available technological options. For specific implementation details of backup and recovery, refer to the Backup and Recovery ServicesPlanning Guide.

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	Who Should Read This Blueprint
	Knowledge Prerequisites
	Business Need

Who Should Read This Blueprint

This blueprint is written for information technology (IT) professionals who are responsible for the design and deployment of backup and recovery solutions in the enterprise, corporate or branch office environment. The reader is expected to have an understanding of its technical details; however, service-level expertise is not required to follow the enterprise-level discussions and understand the decisions that are presented in this blueprint.

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Knowledge Prerequisites

The reader is expected to be familiar with the basic concepts of the following technologies:

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Business Need

Organizational applications can generate large amounts of electronic data, and the trend is towards a continued increase in data storage requirements. Organizations need to find ways to protect their data in the most effective manner without affecting the services provided by their data centers. Moreover, data retention, archiving, and vaulting requirements introduce new backup challenges because they often exceed the capabilities of conventional backup and recovery technologies. The data protection issue is further compounded by the move toward geographically dispersed data centers and the demand for uninterrupted application availability with little (if any) downtime allocated for backup.

An organization’s dependence on full-time availability of data calls for frequent backups to ensure protection of mission-critical data. These seemingly irreconcilable requirements place enormous pressure on IT departments of organizations; they must find ways to increase the speed of backups and at the same time reduce the degree to which backup procedures interfere with business-critical services provided by the data centers on a day-to-day basis. Equally important is the need to recover data quickly and efficiently.

The design of backup and recovery solutions needs to take into account business requirements of the organization as well as its operational environment. The backup and recovery solutions that are deployed must be predictable, reliable, and capable of processing data as quickly as possible.

Challenges that are faced by organizations in managing data include:

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