Flexible Backup: Pre- and Post-Commands
When I started writing this, I was typing the following
The most important thing to consider when you’re buying a backup system is flexibility…
But I had to stop typing. I’ve had a couple of issues with technology this week in my own environment, and I can’t say with a straight face that the most important thing about backup systems is flexibility. As we all know when we think about it, the most important thing to consider when you’re buying a backup system is support. The reason isn’t the quality of your backup system; the reason is that in IT something will always surprise you. User requests are constantly bombarding you and you’re constantly evolving your IT environment to better serve those users – and in the agile data center you have to make sure that someone “has your back” when there’s a problem.
However, let me try again. One thing that is incredibly important in a backup system is flexibility. There – that wording works – and now I can go on to the point of this post. 🙂
One thing to look for in a modern backup system is the inherent support of pre- and post-commands. The reason is that no single backup vendor supports everything – and the bigger vendors that support more things are pretty notorious about doing it badly (and for that matter, supporting it badly as well.) In addition, there are nuances associated with backing up some environments which are handled better by backup utilities associated with the environment.
That’s the reason that it’s important to make sure that the backup system you choose has a way of creating and executing ***ANY*** command or set of commands before and after a backup occurs. These are better known as pre- and post-commands, and these are critical for making sure that you support evolving requirements within your IT environment.
What a pre- and post-command typically does is run a command sequence before a backup which causes the native backup for an environment (most often a database or application) to be executed. That native backup typically generates some type of structured data contained in a file or another object. After that file or object is backed up, the post-command performs any release and/or cleanup of the environment.
Unitrends supports this backup flexibility. Unitrends isn’t the only vendor to do this – Symantec Backup Exec, Symantec NetVault, CommVault Simpana, IBM Tivoli, and other major enterprise-level backup vendors do this.
What you want to be careful of are vendors who don’t have file-level granularity in their system – those who just don’t have the flexibility needed for a pre- and post-command architecture. But even for those that do, to tie in with what I started this post with, make sure that their actually able and willing to support you.
