Immutable Backup

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Overview

Immutable backup describes a type of data backup where the data is unchangeable and cannot be deleted. Data has become a rich target for attackers, and even your backups can be encrypted or deleted during attacks. Immutable data is critical when you are creating a backup or disaster recovery plan, particularly when ransomware strikes.

What Is an Immutable Backup ?

An immutable backup features immutable data, meaning data that is an unalterable state. Data is said to be in WORM format (write once, read many).

Traditional data backups are not always effective when you are trying to restore data that has been attacked (since the backups may have been attacked as well). Immutable backups can protect from various planned and unplanned events:

Viruses
Ransomware
Planned outages
Natural disasters
Accidental or planned deletion

What Is Backup Immutability?

Backup immutability is about securely storing data that cannot be modified or deleted for a set period. Once past that retention period, the immutable backup can be replaced.

This characteristic provides the ability to manage the backup infrastructure, in terms of storage volume and cost, while ensuring the integrity of the data, making it an effective defense against ransomware and malicious tampering, as attackers can't alter the backups to compromise data recovery processes.

Achieving Data Immutability with Zerto

Your organization will inevitably be hit by ransomware, so you need to be prepared. Ransomware attackers are hoping that you are unprepared: they hope that your legacy recovery solutions are still in place and inadequate to the task of recovery.

As mentioned above, it is possible that even remote recovery data could be targeted by ransomware. Zerto provides the option for immutable replicas that cannot be encrypted or corrupted by ransomware and are always available for recovery. This option, combined with Zerto’s continuous data protection, can help you prepare for a ransomware attack in the future.

Zerto offers an extended journal copy on AWS S3 storage or on Azure blob storage, that includes immutability.

You can also achieve data immutability with Zerto Cyber Resilience Vault, an offline, locked-down vault that combines Zerto’s recovery software with the power of HPE Alletra Storage MP, HPE ProLiant servers, and HPE Aruba Networking.