What is the 3-2-1 Rule?
We live by the 3-2-1 backup rule. This is an industry standard backup methodology to ensure your company data is securely backed up and available no matter what happens.
To put the 3-2-1 rule very simply:
- 3 copies of your data
- 2 different media types
- 1 copy should be off-site
What does this mean?
For the majority of enterprise businesses, you will have many Servers, potentially in your office(s) or within a Data Centre. Your production data will typically sit very close to these Servers. Your first backup of your production data will sit close-by as well . Then you’ll simply house a second backup/disaster recovery off-site.
Let’s put it into practice
In these example scenarios we’ll discuss the solutions that we implement with Private Cloud Co.
Scenario 1 – Onsite Servers:
Your production infrastructure runs on-premise, with your primary production data on-site. Using Veeam, you back up this data to an on-site repository (example, a NAS or a SAN). Then using Veeam Cloud Connect, a copy of this backup data will push to an off-site location in one of our Data Centres.
In the situation of a file restore, the IT manager will look to the local copy first. If this fails, the off-site storage is called upon.
In the event of a disaster (eg. building flood) the off-site backup can be spun up into production using our Hosted Servers or Hosted Virtual Machines. The speed in which this can happen is all dependent on the Veeam licensing and storage you pay for.
Scenario 2 – Cloud Servers:
Your production infrastructure is running in a Data Centre on managed hardware. Your primary production data sits on the fast SAN storage located in the same rack. The initial backup data is pushed to the backup/archive SAN storage, with the second backup being pushed to another SAN in another Data Centre.
In the situation of a file restore, the IT manager will look to the primary backup copy. If this fails, the off-site storage is called upon.
In the event of a disaster (cryptolocker) the off-site backup can be spun up into production using our Hosted Servers or Hosted Virtual Machines. The speed in which this can happen is all dependent on the Veeam licensing and storage you pay for.
But wait, there's more!
Veeam work on the principles of an upgraded rule, the Veeam 3-2-1-1-0 rule, where this happens:
- 3 copies of your data
- 2 different media types
- 1 copy should be off-site
- 1 of which is air-gapped/immutable
- 0 Error-checked and verified for recovery
All our backup/disaster recovery solutions use this upgraded rule to ensure our customers are safe and able to continue business.
