If a backup system consistently copies your data and retrieves it when called upon, is that sufficient evidence your backup “works”?
If you consider backup as an expensive insurance policy, then the answer should be a definite “yes”.
The dying role of ‘backup administrator’
In today’s hypercompetitive world every asset, be it capital or human, must be accountable and deliver a return on investment. An asset that delivers minimal value for 99% of the time is right not to be considered a jewel in the crown of a CIO’s IT infrastructure. Not surprising then that the role of “Backup Administrator” no longer graces the job boards on LinkedIn.
Whilst no CIO or CISO is rushing to remove their backup safety net, it rarely makes top billing at team meetings. The largest Security companies like Palo Alto, and until very recently, Crowdstrike, are worth $100 Billion. The largest pure play backup vendors are worth less than a tenth of that, and yet, companies are still getting attacked.
Security vendors are investing billions in artificial intelligence to eke out marginal gains in the efficacy of their products. Meanwhile, the largest data lake in most organisations – backup – sits idle. It’s time to put your backup to work. Here’s how…
The application of AI in backup
If there was ever a perfect use case for the application of artificial intelligence, surely backup would be right up there. Unlocking the hidden value in Backup is no longer constrained by the cost. Once trained, AI is ridiculously cheap. Is this why Gartner positioned AIOps for Backup as the fastest technology to reach maturity in its 2024 Hype Cycle for Storage? The properties which make it such a foundational technology are:
- Endurance – AI algorithms do not rest and do not lose focus. Spotting anomalies in backup systems is a repetitive and boring task best left to robots.
- Speed – AI has the ability to spot small, seemingly insignificant statistical aberrations at orders of magnitude faster than humans.
- Recitation – imagine a human being capable of memorising all the support manuals and knowledge base articles for a backup application? Now add in the ability to cross-reference with every known security vulnerability, error message and backup command.
Complementing the raw analytical power and speed of AI with the contextual understanding of humans we think will help unlock the intrinsic value of the data stored in enterprise backup systems. From spotting security threats, to helping administrators expedite incident resolution and meeting requests for ad-hoc reports from regulator, AI promises to be an IT administrator’s best friend.
Where does Predatar come in?
At Predatar, we are just getting started with the application of AI in Backup. Currently in Beta, we are using AI to uncover the hidden recovery risks for customers who have deployed IBM Storage Protect (TSM) backup software. We are now able to do this at a fraction of the cost of more traditional methods. For examples of this exciting application of AI, go to https://predatar.com/rrr and sign up to be an early adopter.
