All business processes of the company are being transferred to information technology, and the paper primary (copies and originals of documents, reports, scans, etc.) is disappearing (1, 2). Everything revolves around IT systems, and data loss literally means losing everything (3). There is no more room for error. In the cases we presented, all the time, companies were unable to function due to the unavailability of data due to various circumstances (4, 5). This led to direct and indirect losses, for example, reputational losses, when the company could not carry out its main business process, which is not easy to measure in monetary terms but in the long run does not cause less damage to the company (6–8). We have reflected on our observations regarding recovery time objective. As your data grow, the actual recovery time must also grow, and the SLA requirements become stricter (9). The point where the actual graph time equals the required time has already been sent to most clients (10). In fact, most errors are associated with the loss of some part of the data. At the same time, traditional backup tools allow you to restore data directly from the backup, but often you need to restore the entire system (11–13). If your database is 15 TB, this will take several days (14). In a world where the master sheet disappears and everything is stored in IT systems, every second creates data that we want to protect immediately, the moment it is created. But this cannot be done using classic backup systems (15, 16). Each data have a certain length of time, and these data exist all over the world in one copy (17).

The customers want to continue to protect their data from the moment it appears (18). When you decide to restore from a backup, you often need to restore a day earlier and then have the data retrieved somewhere else a day later (19, 20). As a rule, this is a long task for administrators that take several days (21). With a very negative development of events, it can lead to the loss of very important information (22). Of course, the problem is not limited to backup; it is about the construction of the IT system as a whole, and the title in this case is so important that it cannot be ignored (23, 24). Unfortunately, there are no cheap and quick options to check how well the backup was done (25). Of course, this can be done with periodic test recoveries, but this is a very expensive operation in terms of human effort and IT resources (26). It is the work of a separate team on a separate hardware (27). Most of the customers do not do this. It often happens that everyone creates backups, but during restoration, it turns out that they could not have been done – despite the outwardly correct operation of RMS, they cannot be restored (28, 29). This happens for various reasons. This is best explained with an example (30). A backup system is a service subsystem of a data center and has the following features:

Naturally, it was forgotten in the maintenance industry for many years. Thus, a part of the data is completely lost (33, 34). It took several more days to completely recreate the infrastructure services – no backups of operating systems, binaries, configurations, etc. (35). All the missing information was collected from primary documents (36). One of our customers used a SAP system with an Oracle database. The backup was carried out by inbuilt SAP tools with the help of huge vendors (37, 38). Two different backup policies were configured: the first was file-based and copied the data of operating and software systems, and the second was the database itself (39). Since they were sent to the same system, an exclusion list was constructed and entered into the database (40). The file policy takes this list into account and does not allocate directories in the database (41). Due to the uniqueness of the architecture, the database backup policy ignored the list of exclusions and correctly copied the required data (42).

An improper approach to the problem of backup is a critical problem. Historically, the company or an integrator built it. At the time of construction, it certainly met all the requirements and performed its function perfectly (43). Over the years, the enterprise IT landscape has changed. At the same time, the backup system was simply adjusted as the system evolved, and often no systematic approach was followed, which would take into account the importance of system compliance with initial indicators in all subsequent phases (44). When developing a data protection system in your organization, you should take into account that this is only one part of your data protection strategy (45). A reserve parachute is not a silver bullet, as many case studies prove that the approach to data protection must be comprehensive, so when developing it, we must consider where it will fit in the global strategy for data protection (46).

A system administrator maintains an inventory of backup client computers, recording devices, and backup storage media and schedules backups. All this information is contained in a special database stored on the backup management server (47). The management server instructs the agent program installed on the client computer to start backing up data according to the selected policy in accordance with the schedule or according to the operator’s command (48). The agent program collects and transfers the data to be backed up to the copy server specified by the management server (49). The mechanism of action of “snapshots” is different and can be implemented both in software on a production server and in hardware within the array (50). At the moment when the backup needs to be started, the agent program instructs the application to complete all transactions and save the cache memory (51). A fundamental challenge for any data center is implementing a service level agreement between the IT department and the business (52). A key aspect of meeting business needs is the assurance of data security, so a data backup and recovery system is an integrated infrastructure unit of a properly organized data center’s data storage subsystem (53). This type of backup and recovery actually takes a few seconds, which distinguishes this technology from classical systems with foreign media (54). The issues in the existing systems and the proposed solutions are shown in Table 1.

First, it is necessary to disconnect the backup and recovery speed from the computer volume. Data storage systems, application software, and RMS manufacturers recommend using some tools that can be used to solve this problem. Snapshots allow you to back up and restore data in seconds with little or no impact on performance. This is done through sequence, while being able to control SRK, and should be part of its policy. Another solution may be to use various utility tools like Oracle Standby, DB2 HADR, and MS SQL Always On. All of these tools allow you to have a working copy of the production system, separated from the original, which can be deployed immediately. It allows you to work immediately after failures. The second is to make it possible to restore only the data you need. Our approach takes into account that when restoring a part of the data, there is no need to copy the entire system, we can restore the data we need at this time. This is achieved by the ability to quickly deploy or use existing systems that contain this data. As in the first case, the snapshot allows you to solve this problem (you can quickly open a snapshot on a neighboring server and extract the necessary data). It also includes continuous data protection technologies, for example, Oracle Standby with Flashback. They allow you to quickly deploy a working copy of your data in a timely manner.

If you need to get a logical volume, for example, a row or a database table, these tools greatly simplify the task, allowing you to restore the necessary data without restoring the entire copy. The third is to reduce the gap between the origin of data and its protection. This can be achieved in several ways, depending on the specifics of a particular case and the degree of importance of the data. For example, for less critical systems, the time interval for backups can be reduced to a few hours. In this case, we use snapshots. They can act as a restore point that can be done once per hour. Some modern arrays handle these processes very well and can store large numbers of system snapshots. This is a great way out of a situation where you need to step back for a while. For more critical systems, there may be no time interval, and data must be protected continuously. There are many solutions of this class, for example, Oracle Standby with Flash Back, which allows you to roll back the database for a while by recording all changes. You can use Oracle ZDLRA PAK, which will receive almost synchronously all changes in database, or general purpose software and hardware systems. They record all changes and allow you to restore to any point in time. Regular backups can be an indispensable tool in the event of major disasters or the need to recover data from long ago. However, in the present situation, it is only a reserve parachute, used at the last moment. The proposed model has the following important blocks (Figure 1):

The fourth is to reduce hidden errors. There is only one way to make sure that the backup is working correctly – try to restore it. This is the most perfect and rarely used method by our clients. But we offer a way out of this situation. First, have easily recoverable instances of computers. This is again a story about snapshot and standby systems that can be quickly deployed and tested. It takes incomparably less time and effort than “unpacking” an entire backup. Of course, this does not always help; but in case of an emergency, at least it gives a little more confidence that the data can be recovered by these means. Second, some SRCs allow automated testing. At a specific point in time on a schedule, you can run virtual machines in an isolated environment and use predefined algorithms to verify that data have actually been retrieved, that the application is available, that it is consistent, and that it is responding to the necessary requests. In this way, administrators can be relieved of long, routine tasks. A centralized backup system has a multi-layered architecture, which includes the following, as shown in Figure 2:

The fifth was the backup system’s transparency. The described integrated approach involves creating a complex system using different technologies from different manufacturers. The task of making this system actually work, with further changes and scaling possible, is not trivial and can be tackled in two ways:

Unfortunately, there is still no universal recipe for solving the problem of data recovery under the current conditions of constant system development and problems. Only a combination of the above solutions and a systematic approach will allow organizations to recover data at the point of business need. Backup systems ensure the continuity of business processes.

The proposed database monitoring method (DMM) was compared with the existing storage backup and recovery strategy (SBRS), Distributed Data Backup and Recovery Method (DDBRM), Automation of Disaster Recovery and Security (ADRS), and control and communication management (CCM)

To automate backup processes, special software is used that controls the process of creating backups and the recovery process and allows you to work with various data carriers, including tape devices. What data should be stored, where, and on which bandwidth? Additional features of centralized backup software allow you to restore individual characters and database tables without restoring the entire volume of data. Writing backups to tape allows you to organize remote storage of backups and the protection of critical data in the event of a disaster. Using tape media to store archival copies allows data to be read 50 years after it was written. It will only be effective if done regularly. If data change frequently, replication should also be frequent. Therefore, rather than copying data manually, many prefer to use specialized software to automate this process. Any computer has many risks that can lead to hardware failure and loss of important data. In the business sector, this is even worse because the loss of business data results in huge losses and lost customers. When choosing a backup program, it wants to make sure that you can easily restore the data it wants.