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Effective SharePoint 2010 data storage and backupSuccessful SharePoint 2010 deployments require effective management, data and content protection, compliance protocols and continuous availability. As companies increasingly rely on SharePoint to store business-critical information, this is a crucial catalyst to maintain optimal information management and minimised exposure to costly downtime and data loss. With a complex and distributed SharePoint deployment model, and with IT resources increasingly constrained, organisations need an efficient and comprehensive data storage strategy. Your storage methodology needs to ensure that all relevant all users have rapid and uninterrupted access to the information and data they need to make effective day to day business decisions.SharePoint backups Key to a successful SharePoint backup plan is reducing backup windows. With the escalating amount of data being stored within the SharePoint repository of most organisations, getting backups to complete in a timely manner has become an ongoing challenge. Long running backups often have serious ramifications, including performance loss, inefficient use of system resources and increased likelihood of data loss as fewer recovery points are taken. Additionally, because ‘open’ files will likely be excluded from backups, elevated levels of data inconsistency are a consequence of long running backup processes. In order to reduce backup windows, there are several tactics that can be implemented, either independently or collectively, and most organisations use a combination of all these: 1) Reduce the volume of data being backed up. 2) Perform backups incrementally. 3) Execute backup jobs based on the most suitable schedule for your organisation. SharePoint storage Whilst much of the content accessed through SharePoint 2010 will be structured data, such as a relational database, a key challenge for most organisations is managing high volumes of unstructured data such as Microsoft Office document file formats, video, audio and related file types. Unstructured data is often referred to as a ‘BLOB’. To help speed data access and storage there is a new approach, called the Remote BLOB Storage (RBS) that works with SharePoint 2010 and SQL Server 2008 database storage. RBS is a feature in SharePoint 2010 that allows SharePoint to take advantage of the new FileStream facility in SQL Server 2008 for storing Blob data outside the database in the file system. In addition, larger organisations may need a robust disaster recovery solution to protect the wide variety of data and components that constitute their SharePoint investment. This solution must not only be able to satisfy the most stringent business and client requirements and service level agreements, but also have the capacity to scale effectively to maintain performance as SharePoint server farms and stored data expands. To find out more about Ballard Chalmers SharePoint 2010 and SQL 2008 storage solutions please email us or call Andrew Chalmers on 01342 410223. Related links
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