Backup Virtual machine

Nowadays, the IT industry’s prime focus is recovery and business continuity, better cloud services, and cost management. All of the three focuses are connected with virtual machines. The first task for a business is choosing from a physical server or a virtual machine. It is not at all simple to choose, you have to study the merits and demerits of both the type of machines. Along with this, you need to know the management, backup, and recovery procedures of the machines. How the physical servers are backed up? What is the process to back up a virtual machine? Answers to these questions will help you in selecting the right machine for your business. Let’s explore more about VM backup. 

What is a virtual machine?

A virtual machine is computer software that makes an emulation of the physical server. It can be used for server applications, data storage applications, and others. A virtual server/machine functions in a multi-tenant environment. A single host machine (physical hardware) can host multiple VMs. This is all possible with the help of a special program designed for virtualization, called hypervisor. 

Virtualization is a new and evolving technology. So, for a non-technical individual, it is a little time-consuming process. Generally, all the businesses have server administrators and experts to assist them with the technicalities of the virtual machines. As we know, this is an evolving technology, various challenges and problems might arise. The might be related to performance, virtualization, network, costs, and storage space.

Some of the common challenges are:

• Resource depletion: A virtual machine is hosted on the physical hardware if the hardware resources deplete then the performance of the VM suffers. Simple I/O operations start malfunctioning and the data may get lost.
• Application awareness: When you are migrating a VM instance to another physical or virtual machine, the running applications may fail. It can occur due to a lack of app availability. The data related to that application is lost in this process.
• VM management: Virtual machine management includes various tasks. It includes managing the VM, data center, and all the constituents of it. The data center management tool does not include the hypervisor and host system solutions. A person with adequate knowledge of Virtualization and the VMs should be employed. 
• Congested network: A physical machine hosts multiple VM instances, so when there is data transfer happening on all of the virtual machines, then it can get congested. Congestion, bottlenecks, and flooding bring the network to an unprecedented halt.

To overcome this common and some dangerous challenges, you have to create a backup virtual machine. A backup machine is a copy of your machine which acts as a spare in the time of attacks, failures, losses, etc. So, creating a backup machine is a crucial task. It makes migration easier if you have created a backup. The process is cost-effective and permanent data loss is prevented. You can save the backup file on an external pen-drive, on a cloud platform, tape drive, etc. You would want to include the most important data in your backups.

Importance of backup virtual machine:

• Averting Cyber-threats: Cyber-threats are consistently evolving and it will become fatal in the coming years. With the Artificial Intelligence market booming, attackers are using AI-powered hacking. One of the most terrifying attacks was Ransomware and there are more coming. Businesses with sensitive data are the primary targets but are not the least. As the doctors say “Prevention is better than cure”, creating a backup copy will help you combat.
• Cost-saving: The importance of data is increasing with time. The unplanned disrupted systems, server downtime; VM failure will only cost you more. Also, the consumer base will decrease. Thus, creating a backup will protect your aspirations against any disruptions. Also, backup and recovery will save the downtime cost. 
• Reputation: Running a business means gaining the trust and support of the customers. What will happen if you are unable to serve them because you have not created a backup and recovery solution? The reputation of the company will come down like rain. 
• Protection against physical damage: It is easy to ignore traditional measures of physical damage in this Cyber-attack environment. Hard-drive failures and hardware accidents are rare but you have to be prepared for the worst. Even if the probability is very low, you have to address it. Also, you should keep in mind the physical disasters like – fire, flood, earthquake, etc. It is impossible to restore the machine in such instances.
• Application data protection: The backup and recovery solutions also include data from the running applications. The running application encompasses the VM so backing up the application data becomes important. Data from emails, database system, internal files, etc are protected in backup and recovery.

While choosing a company, you have to analyze them on several accounts which will be helpful in determining who the perfect fit is for you. You can analyze the simpler things like – the storage volume required, downtime tolerance, and budget. The storage volume required for the backup can affect the decision and the cost. 

Also, your budget plays an important role in the selection process. NAKIVO Backup and replication is one of the best products available in the market. They have a special blog dedicated to spreading the awareness on backup and recovery. The support team is pro-active and response time is 30 seconds. If you browse their webpage, you will see the demo link which is very instructive. 

The demo helps in understanding the solution in detail and if you want the company provides 15-day trial software with full features. The pricing of the products is competitive. You can see the mapping of the features with the charges. To implement a strong backup solution, you have to communicate with the software company. Communication will solve half of your problems. Design a rough model of your dream backup and recovery solution. Look for the features which best describe your model and accordingly select the company.

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