As the volume of data generated in organizations continues to increase, the time available for data backup continues to shrink. But it’s not just the amount of data that’s expanding. The manner in which organizations must deal with data is rapidly growing broader and more complex as well. Companies across industries are required to comply with standards and regulations that now dictate continuous availability of a wider range of data over longer periods of time. Additionally, with mobile computing becoming normal working practice, the luxury of having assets permanently connected to the corporate backup environment has all but disappeared. IBM’s Laptop and Desktop Recovery service helps companies address these issues by combining operations, data backup, retrieval and recovery processes into an online, disk-based solution.

Ensures mobile and desktop data is backed up in line with corporate policies

Enables secure backups from distributed mobile users

Reduces data storage and recovery costs

Increases operational efficiency of IT staff

Improves data security

Allows rapid recovery of data in the event of failures.

Historically, the responsibility for backing up mobile data when away from the office has been focused very much on the employee, generally in an unstructured fashion using removable media, CD/ DVD or most common, not at all.  These practices can result in non-compliance with corporate data security policies and even more importantly, risk the loss of critical data.    Reliance on traditional, ad-hock solutions can also make regulatory compliance more difficult as backup dates and contents are not catalogued and as such are not easy to audit.  Version control also tends to be non-existent allowing assess to only the most recent versions of files . Security can be compromised because data is usually not encrypted during these backups, and the type of media used is vulnerable to loss, damage or theft.

To address these challenges, businesses now are moving to formalise backup processes that no longer exclude mobile and desktop data. They’re looking for more effective and less expensive ways to help ensure that:

		Mobile data is backed up in line with corporate policy
		Mobile data can be backed up via a multitude of differing connections, irrespective of location.
		Backups from distributed mobile users are secure
		Mobile workers are able to recover files without the need to contact or visit support staff based at a fixed site.
		Data is rapidly recoverable in the event of failures.