By: Arunvijay Mohan, Associate Principle, Systems Management, Cloud and Infrastructure Services

In the current digital era, businesses are largely data-driven and leverage various technologies to store and manage data. The increasing amount of data being generated and managing application and workload silos pose complex challenges. Besides, the traditional methods of backup, such as tape storage are becoming obsolete. This is where backup modernization comes into play. Organizations need to simplify backup and recovery as they strive to achieve infrastructure modernization goals. They need a simple, cost-effective, and modern backup and recovery solution.

LTIMindtree VAULT, powered by Rubrik, can help modernize backups, protect data where it resides, and instantly recover it anywhere. It is designed to aid with the transformation of a traditional and complex backup and recovery solution into a modernized and secure cyber recovery solution.

Our goals are straightforward – Simplified Operations, Immutable Architecture, Rapid Recovery, and Workload Automation. With these at the core, we have devised a secure, modern, and simple solution, LTIMindtree VAULT.

Let’s go through the steps associated with backup modernization, which prepare the organization to counter threats posed by ransomware attacks and other security risks.

The program is divided into four phases – Discovery, Analysis, Planning, and Implementation. Let’s look at each of these phases to understand how Rubrik can be used to uncomplicate the backup modernization journey.

The primary stage of the plan is discovery and analysis, where the current infrastructure is analyzed end to end. Understanding the landscape of the backup infrastructure and assessing the process and requirements are also done at this stage.

Typically, it takes 3-6 weeks to cover the first two phases of the program, depending on the size of the environment.

We then move to the specifics of the planning, which include:

• Finalizing the best technical approach for each stream – We ensure that the approach is well-defined and flexible enough to adapt to changing requirements.
• Plan a phased rollout – We plan to roll out the Rubrik backup solution across the enterprise gradually, based on application tiers and priorities, using a phased deployment strategy.
• Resource requirement and planning – We estimate the resources required, identify the right resources, and develop a resource plan. The plan outlines how resources will be deployed throughout the project, when they will be released, and what are the contingency plans.

We also identify potential risks that may impact the project. Based on that we develop a plan that outlines how these risks will be managed throughout the project.

The next phase is the implementation of the Rubrik solution. The timelines for the implementation plan rely on the workloads to be inducted into the Rubrik backup solution. This phase can also be divided into two sub-phases, to cater to the needs of the cloud and on-prem workloads. While implementing the Rubrik solution in the cloud, there are no dependencies on hardware, which saves a considerable amount of time during the implementation phase. A list of activities covered during the implementation phase of the project is mentioned in the table below.

Switch the current backup process to the selected technology – The migration of workloads from the existing backup solution to the Rubrik solution will be performed in a phased approach ensuring the change management processes are followed.

The following are the various stages of workload migration.

Rubrik’s solution offers a wide variety of features, which makes it a complete cyber resilience solution. In partnership with Rubrik, we have devised a service offering, the LTIMindtree VAULT^1. The innovative offering combines Rubrik’s state-of-the-art technology, intelligent data management and LTIMindtree’s visionary approach to provide a complete cyber recovery solution. To ensure the immutability of backup data, it utilizes secure access controls, end-to-end encryption, and retention lock technology. The zero-trust data security of Rubrik along with the Rubrik Security Cloud, enables ransomware investigations and anomaly detection. This feature, along with LTIMindtree’s expertise, ensures that a clean copy of data is instantly available from air-gapped storage in case of an attack. The solution also guarantees a near-instant restoration of business-critical apps.

Automation of the process – We believe automation can do much more than just save costs. In addition to integrating Rubrik’s API and built-in functionality, we also seek to align with our customers’ goals by offering them tools and automation that are simple to use. We do that by –

• Defining an automated backup workflow in Rubrik, including standard RESTful APIs
• Creating an automated process with the PowerShell orchestration engine
• Including automated restoration operations in a Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipeline
• Integrating the Rubrik backup solution with an ITSM tool or service portal like ServiceNow.

Rubrik’s ease of automation helps simplify the management of large enterprises with a choice of tools such as Chef, Ansible, or SaltStack. Its open-source ecosystem can be leveraged to integrate services on top of the Rubrik platform.

Build/configure/integrate a centralized alert and monitoring interface – We typically start with identifying the operational metrics an organization needs to track. This may include metrics like backup success and failure rates, storage capacity utilization, network throughput, and CPU utilization.

In the final phase of the program, we ensure a seamless transition of the environment to the operations team. We provide standard SOPs and runbooks, which include the design diagram and other vital information required for managing operations.

It’s been rightly said, “The best time to start was yesterday. The next best time is now.” The evolution of the digital ecosystem has a direct impact on the backup infrastructure. The need of the hour is an effective backup and restore strategy. LTIMindtree along with Rubrik is poised to help you with this transformational journey. Our in-depth expertise and Rubrik’s zero-trust data protection platform brings LTIMindtree VAULT, which provides a complete cyber recovery solution, developed considering the diverse portfolio of workloads and for organizations of all sizes.

1 – LTIMindtree VAULT – https://www.ltimindtree.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Rubrik-LTIMindtree-VAULT-brochure.pdf?pdf=download