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back to article There's more than one way to back up your data

In the world of data protection you don't get fired for losing money, you get fired for losing data. Companies tend to make many copies of data, some of which hang around, zombie-like, for years. Data protection is without question critically important and we need to understand how it has evolved if we are to decide which …

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  1. MrT

    Looking forward to the next installment...

    ... the latest DfE guidance for schools on cloud storage and the Data Protection Act has just landed on my desk, so it seems a good point to review what we do. Timely as ever, Trevor - nearly up to Dilbert levels of prescience ;-).

    4 1 Reply
    1. Lee D Silver badge
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      Re: Looking forward to the next installment...

      Hint: Last time I checked for our ISI-inspected school, Apple had not provided guarantees that data on iCloud would be held within the EU. Google, Microsoft had, but not the other major players.

      This is a pretty big roadblock. If you're doing cloud backups at any point, it's a good question to GET IN WRITING, especially with personal liability for some DPA offences now.

      2 0 Reply
  2. lansalot

    MPIO?

    MPIO has nothing particularly to do with Multiple Switches. You can configure it that way, but it's not dependent in the manner you've described it.

    1 0 Reply
    1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge
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      Re: MPIO?

      That's a fair enough statement...but why would you configure MPIO without multiple switches? The ability to support multiple paths through mutiple switches is pretty much the selling feature of MPIO...

      0 1 Reply
      1. lansalot
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        Re: MPIO?

        Yes, you may well employ different switches. It's not just to guide against switch failure - MPIO is multiple path to storage, such as in the case of failed SAN-controller or host nic - these are also in the mix as well as the switch.

        You don't /need/ or have to rely on multiple switches - which is what you'd explicitly stated MPIO was. And as the other guy said, some systems will boost performance when they detect multiple paths.

        0 0 Reply
        1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge
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          Re: MPIO?

          Which is usually when you combine MPIO with other protocols. Like link aggregation. MPIO + LACP can mean "more speed", even with multiple switches...but that's LACP/LA that is providing the speed, not MPIO per se.

          0 1 Reply
          1. Anonymous Coward
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            Pint

            Re: MPIO?

            MPIO - more "angels dancing on the point of a needle" (in more than one meaning even) kind of debate. Tangentially, I was going to call you out on the SMB comment about designing infrastructure then realized what you actually meant: That critical data loss was the issue even for a SMB.

            I'm currently doing a rethink, again!, on data protection here. So timely as always, and notes the finer issues despite brevity.

            0 0 Reply
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I think the author is applying MPIO exclusively to data store here, not redundancy for speed assurances. It does look odd though to have MPIO grouped together with RAID while referring to switches with MPIO (this caught my eye too). Dunno, never used MPIO with switches :-/ (unless "switches" encompasses controllers). Guess if I keep Hadoop'n, I'll eventually find out.

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