In the March 2011 issue of Storage Magazine there is an article by industry guru Curtis Preston on “mobile backup”. The scenarios outline data protection scenarios for laptops and ROBOs (remote offices branch offices). Preston nails the caveats associated with ROBO backup. He’s spot on and there’s little I’d add to his arguments, management suggestions and thought process. On the topic of protecting the mobile user specifically, he missed.

Preston correctly asserts, as users have become dispersed they’ve taken data with them on their laptops, away from the core. This (migration away from the corporate LAN) makes it difficult to backup and protect local data. A common and easy method for ensuring locally created data is saved back to a centrally backed-up file server is by mapping local directories to a central file server. The file server in this case is part of the enterprise backup scheme. This works brilliantly when the user is on the LAN but falls short when they’re disconnected or the file sever isn’t accessible. Moreover, if the user saves data to a local directory that isn’t mapped to a file server he might as well be on the moon.

To mitigate the risk of IP dying on mobile endpoints, there are products such as Carbonite, Mozy and SmartSync which backup local data to either the cloud or the data center. These products work well as tactical point-and-shoot solutions but this is 2011 and you can do so much better. Think strategically.

Enter the distributed desktop. This is not a conversation on desktop virtualization per se, however a core capability of the concept is enduser environment protection. Note, I’m saying “environment protection” opposed to “data protection”. “Data Protection” is what you’re used to. It’s synonymous with flat files, such as Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, images, pdf’s, etc. “Environment Protection” encompasses the aforementioned in addition to applications, end user customizations to the operating system, and the operating system itself. This is accomplished via block level snapshots which are then transmitted back to a centralized server at specified intervals. To preserve bandwidth on the WAN or LAN only the deltas are transferred.

Native user data backup and restore capabilities coupled with smarter, granular and faster provisioning, and enhanced security makes the distributed desktop the go to concept for “mobile backup”.