DevOps.com

  • Latest
    • Articles
    • Features
    • Most Read
    • News
    • News Releases
  • Topics
    • AI
    • Continuous Delivery
    • Continuous Testing
    • Cloud
    • Culture
    • DevSecOps
    • Enterprise DevOps
    • Leadership Suite
    • DevOps Practice
    • ROELBOB
    • DevOps Toolbox
    • IT as Code
  • Videos/Podcasts
    • DevOps Chats
    • DevOps Unbound
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming
    • On-Demand Webinars
  • Library
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • On-Demand Events
  • Sponsored Communities
    • AWS Community Hub
    • CloudBees
    • IT as Code
    • Rocket on DevOps.com
    • Traceable on DevOps.com
    • Quali on DevOps.com
  • Related Sites
    • Techstrong Group
    • Container Journal
    • Security Boulevard
    • Techstrong Research
    • DevOps Chat
    • DevOps Dozen
    • DevOps TV
    • Digital Anarchist
  • Media Kit
  • About
  • AI
  • Cloud
  • Continuous Delivery
  • Continuous Testing
  • DevSecOps
  • Leadership Suite
  • Practices
  • ROELBOB
  • Low-Code/No-Code
  • IT as Code
  • More
    • Application Performance Management/Monitoring
    • Culture
    • Enterprise DevOps

Home » Blogs » That Other Continuous: Data Protection

CDP continuous Data Linux Foundation

That Other Continuous: Data Protection

By: Don Macvittie on September 1, 2021 Leave a Comment

Looking around at things to add to our current project’s toolchain (that is one of the reasons we do these side projects; to check out all sorts of new ideas/tools/etc), and researching the company where a former coworker is the CMO, I was drawn into the resurgent world of continuous data protection (CDP). It is interesting that we could end up adding CDP to the list of ‘continuous’ activities, like CI/CD/… CDP, even though CDP was named long before any of our DevOps or Agile terms were born.

The whole idea of CDP is that it is always backed up, so you are continuously protected. It largely failed when first introduced because it massively increased both the cost and complexity of your storage environment. Essentially, it required a hot copy of all of your storage. Not something most enterprises were willing to invest in. I mean, it was friggin’ expensive. And it used virtualized storage, which no one wanted to mess with. Long story short, at the time, virtualized storage introduced issues no one wanted to deal with.

DevOps Connect:DevSecOps @ RSAC 2022

But several things have changed over the years, and it is interesting to see where CDP concepts have cropped up. You see, today it is being used to protect companies from ransomware. It’s still a bit of complexity, but we’ve become experts at hiding complexity. It still requires a lot of storage (I would argue that the current versions I’m seeing require more storage than the original CDP solutions did), but when your environment is taken over by ransomware, a clean machine can be used to restore data to a point before the ransomware took over. From a “continuous protection” standpoint—giving it a modern meaning along the lines of “continuous testing”—that is an astounding feat.

The way it works—at least the way that the current implementations I’ve looked at work—is pretty simple at heart, though as my former coworker likes to say, “Easy in concept, difficult in implementation.” It keeps every write ever made to storage, with time and currency markers. So it knows what the disk currently looks like, but it can also get to what the disk looked like at 12:33 am yesterday. Or January first, or a year ago… You get the idea.

It uses a ton of space because there is an implied truth here—nothing is destroyed. In traditional storage, if you change a document and hit save, the document is written over. In the new iteration of CDP, if you change a document and hit save, the changes are recorded, but the original is not altered. Call it “non-destructive writes,” if you will.

It is worth checking out. The concepts are huge, and offer protection that is otherwise in short supply. If you have a dedicated DevSecOps team, they’re the ones I’d point at it, since the big reason for using this is a security reason at heart (though there are other uses; I’m currently gushing about security because this is a big deal).

I’ll get back on track and report back about things directly in the toolchain for our newest DevOps project next week. I thought this was worth writing about, since most of you all could use the concept, even if only for peace of mind. You’re rocking it! Protecting your work against the newest range of attackers is just common sense. It’s worth seeing if the modern iteration of CDP is for you.

Recent Posts By Don Macvittie
  • At Some Point, We’ve Shifted Too Far Left
  • Let Me Reiterate – Don’t Rush to Iterate
  • There are Few Enough Silver Bullets
More from Don Macvittie
Related Posts
  • That Other Continuous: Data Protection
  • MDR for DevSecOps: How Managed Security Can Help You Shift Left
  • DevSecOps: Realities of Policy Management
    Related Categories
  • Blogs
  • DevOps in the Cloud
  • DevSecOps
  • Enterprise DevOps
  • Features
    Related Topics
  • CDP
  • cloud-based storage
  • container storage interface
  • devsecops
  • Ransomware
Show more
Show less

Filed Under: Blogs, DevOps in the Cloud, DevSecOps, Enterprise DevOps, Features Tagged With: CDP, cloud-based storage, container storage interface, devsecops, Ransomware

Sponsored Content
Featured eBook
The Automated Enterprise

The Automated Enterprise

“The Automated Enterprise” e-book shows the important role IT automation plays in business today. Optimize resources and speed development with Red Hat® management solutions, powered by Red Hat Ansible® Automation. IT automation helps your business better serve your customers, so you can be successful as you: Optimize resources by automating ... Read More
« CNCF Advances OpenTelemetry Initiative
Career Alternatives »

TechStrong TV – Live

Click full-screen to enable volume control
Watch latest episodes and shows

Upcoming Webinars

Deploying Microservices With Pulumi & AWS Lambda
Tuesday, June 28, 2022 - 3:00 pm EDT
Boost Your Java/JavaScript Skills With a Multi-Experience Platform
Wednesday, June 29, 2022 - 3:30 pm EDT
Closing the Gap: Reducing Enterprise AppSec Risks Without Disrupting Deadlines
Thursday, June 30, 2022 - 11:00 am EDT

Latest from DevOps.com

DevOps Connect: DevSecOps — Building a Modern Cybersecurity Practice
June 27, 2022 | Veronica Haggar
What Is User Acceptance Testing and Why Is it so Important?
June 27, 2022 | Ron Stefanski
Developer’s Guide to Web Application Security
June 24, 2022 | Anas Baig
Cloudflare Outage Outrage | Yet More FAA 5G Stupidity
June 23, 2022 | Richi Jennings
The Age of Software Supply Chain Disruption
June 23, 2022 | Bill Doerrfeld

Get The Top Stories of the Week

  • View DevOps.com Privacy Policy
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Download Free eBook

The 101 of Continuous Software Delivery
New call-to-action

Most Read on DevOps.com

Four Steps to Avoiding a Cloud Cost Incident
June 22, 2022 | Asim Razzaq
How FinOps Can Optimize Cloud Costs and Drive Innovation
June 21, 2022 | Larry Cusick
The Age of Software Supply Chain Disruption
June 23, 2022 | Bill Doerrfeld
Survey Uncovers Depth of Open Source Software Insecurity
June 21, 2022 | Mike Vizard
At Some Point, We’ve Shifted Too Far Left
June 22, 2022 | Don Macvittie

On-Demand Webinars

DevOps.com Webinar ReplaysDevOps.com Webinar Replays
  • Home
  • About DevOps.com
  • Meet our Authors
  • Write for DevOps.com
  • Media Kit
  • Sponsor Info
  • Copyright
  • TOS
  • Privacy Policy

Powered by Techstrong Group, Inc.

© 2022 ·Techstrong Group, Inc.All rights reserved.