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The idea of data loss is so frightening that it often keeps information technology managers awake well beyond the witching hour. Costing as much as $10,000 a megabyte lost, data loss is as much a commercial issue as it is a security one. With more than 72 million personal computers buzzing away in American companies and with laptops representing 1 in 5 business computers, data loss is a large scale worry. More than 40 percent of data loss comes from hardware failure, which is understandable and probably preventable but another 30 percent of data loss comes from human error, something not so easily combated. Only 13 percent of data loss comes from largely preventable means such as software corruption, viruses (6 percent), theft (9 percent) or natural disasters (3 percent). So unless you locate your virtual machines on the moon where nothing can touch it, including humans, then your only answer is to routinely conduct a virtual backup on your virtual machines.

Virtual Backup Is Relatively New Science

The need for virtual backup has created new avenues for companies like PHD Virtual who have created bridge products as well as support for major players like VMware to assist technology directors and computer systems managers with their virtual backup needs. The history of virtual backup has been rocky. It idea of virtualization became real just over 10 years ago when VMware released its first virtualization product. The California based-VMware is the 800-pound gorilla when it comes to virtualization but advancement in technology has humbled the dominant company a bit. Still, even with the advancement of technology opening the world of virtual machines, the world of virtual backup has advanced relatively slowly. Enterprising technology directors, knowing that prevention loss is too horrible to contemplate, began to do back up virtual machines like they back up physical machines. But this presented some problems including not being able to back up virtual machines when are powered off as well as the laborious task of creating backup agents for the machines.

Virtual Backup Evolves with Enterprising Products

Seeing the cumbersome problems with treating virtual machines as if they were physical servers and decided to treat them more like what they really were – a clustered group of files stored virtually. Companies began releasing products that took into account the actual make up of virtual machines. Leading the way was the pioneer of the virtualization market is VMware but there were other software downloads from other companies that provide an easy backup solution. If you’re looking for a good virtual backup solution try going to a vender like PHD Virtual and they can help you navigate this new and emerging market.