Some of the common causes of data loss are hardware failure, human error and natural calamities. Data loss due to a natural disaster can be recovered by storing backup data in a physically separate location. File system corruption can frequently be repaired by the system administrator with proper software tools. Deleted files in most occasions can be successfully recovered. Data loss due to hardware failure can never be foreseen and forestalled and can spell a major disaster for business continuity. The cost of a data loss event is directly proportional to the value of the data and the length of time of unavailability when required, and results in financial loss, tarnished business image and in an extreme case can stop all business activities. Businesses nowadays have to protect data at all costs.
When backing up data from a computer system, there are many different methods available, some more reliable than others. The most common method is to copy the files on the system, to the archive device, a file- backup. File-backup has many variations depending on the volume of backed up data, such as, incremental, differential, full, grandfather – father – child, etc. Another backup method is based on the process of mirroring the entire contents of a disk volume. This creates the backup by copying each sector on the disk volume as raw data, creating an Image of the entire disk. This last method is referred to as image-based backup.
Though both these backup processes have their pros and cons, image-based backups are the choice for businesses handling mission-critical data or for enterprise-level organizations. The image can actually be mounted as a virtual drive and can be used as a regular physical drive.
Another use of an image-based backup is while performing a bare-metal recovery. Bare Metal Recovery technology is able to quickly recover an unusable system. It can restore both system and data in a single pass, eliminating the need for multiple backups and significantly reducing downtimes. Bare-metal restore is a technique where the backed up data is available in a form which allows one to restore a computer system from “bare metal”, i.e. without any requirements as to previously installed software or operating system. For such restoration the image includes the necessary operating system, applications and data components to rebuild or restore the backed up system to an entirely separate piece of hardware. Image-based backup of servers or server imaging is an essential ingredient in a disaster recovery solution.
