ITDMs: Does Your Backup Solution Support Your Outdated Software and Systems?

By Vineesh Ganapathy, Principal Product Marketing Manager, Arcserve

Many organizations’ applications, software, and systems that are critical for their operations run on legacy operating systems like Windows 2008 or even Windows 2003. 

Organizations build custom applications or systems that are very closely tied to these legacy operating systems to serve a variety of business needs. 

Upgrading Isn’t Possible

Upgrading to a newer OS has a high likelihood of dismantling the entire ecosystem built to serve the organization’s custom requirements. A system update or upgrade could cause severe damage to the existing integration, and the legacy app may not function in a new operating system environment. Given that these apps often adequately serve their purpose, many organizations are unwilling to upgrade quickly and take that risk. 

Even organizations that want to upgrade to newer operating systems are forced to undergo a detailed and often complicated process where data, workflows, and systems must be carefully mapped and verified, with cutovers defined. Any missed or skipped detail could lead to operations being paralyzed.

App modernization projects can take years to implement and heavily burden IT teams. Meanwhile, the data in the legacy apps must still be protected until they are decommissioned. That’s why IT decision-makers must ensure that their older applications and systems are completely protected for however long the business needs these systems to be available. 

Vulnerabilities Abound

Microsoft has stopped supporting Windows Server 2008, leaving organizations that rely on the software without a way to patch flaws and vulnerabilities. And plenty of other legacy software and hardware technologies are suffering a similar fate.

Often, legacy applications and systems aren’t updated to address security vulnerabilities. And that makes them an easier target for hackers. Aging hardware could also fail. And older applications may contain critical data that can’t be replaced easily, if at all. 

Add it up, and organizations without proper backup solutions and procedures that take these older technologies into account could face data loss, downtime, and other business impacts. 

Data Protection Shouldn’t Disrupt Operations 

Some backup solutions can’t operate without forcing downtime. That can spell big problems for organizations that rely on these applications to keep things moving. The best backup solutions don’t disrupt normal operations, working seamlessly in the background. 

If your company relies on an effective mix of legacy and new systems, you need a backup and recovery solution that is: 

• Flexible enough to support a wide range of both legacy and modern operating systems
• Secures backups of legacy systems while ensuring the backups are easily restored if needed
• Offers a complete range of restore options that allows data from legacy or modern systems to be recovered swiftly
• Lets you easily comply with regulations such as GDPR, meet RPO and RTO goals, and other SLAs defined by the organization to support business continuity requirements

The Unified Data Resilience Platform for Legacy and Modern Applications

When you choose Arcserve, you benefit from an unmatched set of data resilience features, including:

• Proactive response to ransomware attacks on backup data thanks to our partnership with Sophos  
• Multilayered defenses with military-grade encryption that protects data at rest and in transit
• Immutable storage on-premises, in the cloud, and on tape, with complete support for logical and physical air-gapping strategies
• High availability for modern or legacy data and applications using cluster-like capabilities
• Deep data reduction using advanced data compression and deduplication technologies to reduce storage requirements
• Recovery-oriented approach that offers full or granular recovery of data and applications
• Support for the 3-2-1-1 backup strategy while ensuring compliance with regulatory and company requirements 

Broad Support for Legacy Technologies 

Arcserve solutions support a wide range of modern and legacy technologies, including:

• Arcserve Unified Data Protection (UDP) support goes back to Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2. 
• Arcserve ShadowProtect SPX support goes back to Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2
• Arcserve ShadowProtect 5 support goes back to Windows 2003 and Windows XP

Don’t let your legacy technologies open the door to data loss and downtime. Contact us to learn more about Arcserve data resilience, backup, and disaster recovery solutions for older software and hardware.