It’s that time again to explore common data protection themes through memes! This time, I’m looking at some animated GIFs.
We’ll fix it in production
“We’ll fix it in production” is one of the most terrifying things you can say in IT. I know, sometimes there’s no choice, but I’ll bet $100 that there’s a choice a lot more often than people say there’s no choice. I’ve got one key tip to offer whenever anyone says we’ll fix it in production: make sure your backups are primed – you’re probably going to need them.
Single Pane of Glass
OK, here’s a controversial topic: there’s no such thing as a single pane of glass. Or rather, here’s the real crux of the matter: your single pane of glass is waiting for you to write it. Why do I say this? Because data protection is never the only infrastructure thing your business does.
Automation is just part of where infrastructure is headed. Orchestration is the Next Big Thing. Your infrastructure single pane of glass does not come in the form of Data Protection Central (DPC), or CommVault’s management interface, or Veritas’s, and so on. I’m not dissing DPC, it really is a single pane of glass, but it’s not the single pane of glass for your business infrastructure. It never will be.
Your single pane of glass exists as a concept, waiting for you to write it. It may be that you start with a particular tool, like the vRealize/vCloud suite, or even ServiceNow, or you might literally roll your own, building your entire infrastructure operations and monitoring portal from scratch.
That portal is built around orchestration — around digging into each of the products (storage, data protection, compute, network, virtualisation, etc.) using their REST APIs and other hooks to build up a complete stack control system. In an optimum infrastructure environment, your teams don’t need to use a vendor GUI at all: they have everything embedded via APIs into a true single pane of glass portal.
I’ll be honest: whenever I see the requirement in an RFP, “Must have a single pane of glass”, I do a pretty epic eye-roll. It’s not the right question. It never has been. It never will be. The right question is always: Tell us how to integrate this product into OUR single pane of glass.
Your backup software has more functionality than you think
This sort of carries on from my previous point: your backup software (and further, your data protection software) is full of surprising functionality. I’ve been told NetWorker Can’t Do X quite a few times over the years, and most of the time I’ve been told that it’s been wrong. Usually what it’s actually meant was there’s no GUI option for X.
The start of the explanation is: just because the functionality isn’t embedded into the product GUI doesn’t mean it’s not there. Here’s something else to consider though: just because the functionality isn’t documented doesn’t mean you can’t do it. That’s what a framework based data protection system is premised on: use pre and post scripts to perform additional functions to enable backups. Use NetWorker OAP to protect databases for which there’s no module. Use scripting and other forms of automation to provide outcomes like initiating multi-host consistent backups of any complex system you need.
Think outside the square: you’d be impressed with what you can achieve.
OK, that’s it for Meme Monday this month. But be sure to check back on the blog soon — there’s a really big announcement coming this week. And this announcement has been in development for a year.