How to Ensure Operational Resilience and Continuous Data Security

Data backup and recovery (backup/restore) form the foundation of data protection and business continuity, as well as a key tool for resilience against sophisticated ransomware attacks.

We all know that IT leaders are responsible for cybersecurity and, as a result, among the most exposed managers in today’s digital business environment. They directly share responsibility for implementing measures that ensure the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of data.

It is widely known that data is the lifeblood of business and therefore the biggest target of increasingly sophisticated cyber threats and operational challenges. In this context, data backup is the basic level of protection against data compromise or loss. It is the only solution that enables us to recover deleted or damaged data. We rely on this protection to avoid paying high ransom demands in the event of a ransomware attack and to quickly restore our IT services in case of business interruptions or potential disasters. However, the backup must survive the attack, which is why it is crucial that it becomes part of every company’s strategy.

“Traditional approaches to data backup and storage are insufficient from a cybersecurity perspective and create critical risks. In addition, they often generate overlooked yet significant costs resulting from the architecture of the backup and storage system itself,” said Matej Felle, Head of System Integration at ADD.

The backup must survive the attack, which is why it is crucial that it becomes part of every company’s strategy.

Advanced data backup storage solutions (target) such as dedicated backup disk systems from ExaGrid address the requirements facing IT leaders and those responsible for cybersecurity: they represent a strategic, multilayered defense that resolves critical operational and security challenges while delivering measurable benefits essential for a modern, secure, and resilient IT environment.

Optimization of Operations, Workflows, and Costs

The ExaGrid system, with its scale-out architecture, directly addresses the problem of data growth and the associated unpredictable costs. This architecture allows you to add disk capacity as well as necessary resources when expanding the system. This means system growth is not limited. IT budget owners can say goodbye to expensive equipment replacement upgrades (so-called forklift upgrades). We can speak of a “pay-as-you-grow” model, expanding the ExaGrid system only when needed. Different ExaGrid models — of various ages and sizes — can be connected within the same environment.

Matej Felle, Head of System Integration at ADD

Even the obsolescence model is different: ExaGrid ensures support for appliances for at least seven years from purchase, even if the specific model is no longer manufactured. All of this provides more predictable investment and operational costs and significantly simplifies long-term budget planning. Data deduplication technology further reduces OPEX by delivering excellent storage efficiency for long-term retention of backup data. To top it off, even in these unpredictable times, ExaGrid offers five-year price protection from the date of purchase for all future expansions of the ExaGrid system and support renewals.

All of this offers more predictable investment and operational costs and significantly simplifies long-term budget planning.

Another major advantage is lightning-fast data recovery. Data is instantly accessible in its native form, which significantly reduces downtime and ensures compliance with strict RTO (Recovery Time Objective) and RPO (Recovery Point Objective) requirements. In this way, IT leaders contribute to business continuity and help prevent financial losses due to prolonged service interruptions.

Uncompromising Security, Resilience, and Compliance

For cybersecurity leaders, ExaGrid provides a key answer to the risks posed by ransomware attacks. The system creates immutable and cyberattack-protected backup copies stored on disk space that is isolated from the network (AIR-GAP). This means the organization always has a clean, uncompromised copy of its data — critical for fast and successful recovery after an attack, enabling the company to avoid paying ransom.

As Matej Felle further noted, ExaGrid significantly contributes to compliance with regulations such as DORA, ZInfV‑1, and ZVOP‑2. In addition to operational resilience, it enables the preservation of data integrity and provides robust and rapid recovery processes, which are essential for passing regular audits and avoiding substantial penalties.

With ExaGrid, IT and cybersecurity managers gain the essential tool needed to protect digital assets and ensure continuous, compliant, and resilient business operations. Its impenetrable and isolated backup protection reduces concerns about cyberattacks using ransomware tactics.

Link to the published article: https://kibernitje.si/index.php/tehnologije/kako-zagotovite-operativno-odpornost-in-neprekinjeno-varnost-podatkov