Remembering the Best and Worst of 2021

On this first business day of 2022, let’s take a look back at the year that was. It was, of course, another year of COVID. In fact, Curtis contracted COVID right at the end, despite being boosted. This is also the year of the OVH fire that we talked about for three episodes:

https://www.backupcentral.com/datacenter-manager-dan-frith-discusses-the-ovh-fire-restore-it-all-podcast-105/

https://www.backupcentral.com/how-do-you-prove-your-backup-service-is-real-restore-it-all-podcast-106/

https://www.backupcentral.com/ovhs-backup-service-didnt-work-restore-it-all-podcast-107/

We think our most interesting episode of the year goes to Paul VanDyke from Kodiak Island, who deleted his whole environment and then tested his backups: https://www.backupcentral.com/it-admin-deletes-entire-datacenter-then-tests-his-backups-restore-it-all-podcast-135/

We even had a barbecue episode. No backups, just beef and BBQ. https://www.backupcentral.com/no-backups-just-beef-bbq-restore-it-all-bonus-episode/

Prasanna said he learned a lot about tape this year from these three episodes:

https://www.backupcentral.com/tape-drive-designer-schools-mr-backup-on-tape-restore-it-all-podcast-111/

https://www.backupcentral.com/deep-dive-into-why-tape-still-has-a-future-in-storage-restore-it-all-podcast-129/

https://www.backupcentral.com/fujifilm-tape-evangelist-explains-past-present-future-of-tape-lto-restore-it-all-podcast-132/

We think our best “get” was Peter Krogh, who talked about how he coined the term “3-2-1 Rule” while writing the first edition of The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers.

https://www.backupcentral.com/peter-krogh-who-coined-the-3-2-1-rule-on-our-podcast-restore-it-all-podcast-131/

This led to a brief discussion about solar flares, where I mention a talk I watched by Intel. This is a link to that talk:

https://techfieldday.com/event/eicd16/

We also had two Druva competitors on this year, Veeam and HYCU.

https://www.backupcentral.com/dave-russell-answers-our-questions-about-veeam-restore-it-all-podcast-104/

https://www.backupcentral.com/veeam-reps-explain-defense-against-conti-ransomware-restore-it-all-podcast-127/

https://www.backupcentral.com/hycu-vp-explains-their-service-to-mr-backup-2/

The big winner of the year was ransomware. We talked about it a lot:

https://www.backupcentral.com/ransomware-victim-tells-his-story-restore-it-all-podcast-96/

https://www.backupcentral.com/is-entity-level-encryption-the-answer-to-exfiltration-ransomware-restore-it-all-podast-119/

https://www.backupcentral.com/protecting-your-network-from-ransomware-restore-it-all-podcast-122/

https://www.backupcentral.com/restoring-quickly-from-a-ransomare-attack-with-a-long-dwell-time-restore-it-all-podcast-123/

https://www.backupcentral.com/veeam-reps-explain-defense-against-conti-ransomware-restore-it-all-podcast-127/

Curtis this everyone should be looking into an intelligent DDI (DNS, DHCP, IP management) system that will spot (and stop) ransomware when it tries to reach out to its command and control servers.

https://www.backupcentral.com/stop-ransomware-in-its-tracks-with-dns-dhcp-ipam-restore-it-all-podcast-87/

You also need to monitor your bandwidth to look for exfiltration:

https://www.backupcentral.com/securing-speeding-up-network-traffic/

https://www.backupcentral.com/stop-ransomware-attacks-in-seconds-restore-it-all-podcast-126/

Finally, we talked a little about the book, and the upcoming 2022.

https://www.backupcentral.com/why-you-need-a-copy-of-modern-data-protection-restore-it-all-podcast-110/

Happy New Year, everyone! Here’s to a better 2022!

Mentioned in this episode:

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