11.5 Data Backup Techniques for the Mobile Devices

The evolution of mobile devices, such as smartphone and tablet, along with the growing adoption of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), creates a new dimension in backup industry. Employees and users started using these mobile devices to create and store critical data. The key considerations around these are the potential loss of corporate data if the device is lost or stolen. Hence, it is important to backup and restore the data on these devices. IBM TSM supports Adaptive sub-file backup technique for taking backup of mobile devices data.

Typically, organizations are subject to compliance regulations that require IT to back up data wherever it exists. So, IT administrators will have to assume the responsibility of adding smartphones and tablets to their list of endpoint devices that must be backed up. Typically, to start performing backup for mobile devices, backup client application needs to be installed on the mobile device. The backup client periodically backs up the data either to the enterprise data center or to the cloud. Organizations generally consider implementing deduplication, compression, and incremental backup to minimize the network bandwidth requirement and reduce the backup storage cost. For security reasons, data that are backed up from the mobile devices are encrypted.

Also Read: Use these 3 methods to fix the slow and long running incremental or full backups

For example, Mobile Device Management (MDM) is a mobile device solution used by an IT department to monitor, manage, protect (backup), and secure (remote password locks, full data wipes) employees' mobile devices that are deployed across multiple mobile service providers and across multiple mobile operating systems being used in the organization. MDM software also reduces the overhead on IT administration associated with deploying and updating applications on mobile devices.

Backing up mobile devices can be challenging due to intermittent (and sometimes poor) connectivity. A key challenge for backing up mobile devices is that they are not always connected to a corporate network. So, backups occur over the Internet, which can be troublesome. Another challenge is that smartphone and tablet operating systems have security features built in them which limit the access to the data stored on the devices. Some of the mobile devices, particularly tablet and smartphone, may not allow traditional backup applications to access data. To overcome these challenges, organizations must adopt new policies, strategies, and techniques to protect the data residing on mobile devices.

Also Read: Full and Incremental backups types for taking VM backups

Since capacity is limited on mobile devices, many users store data remotely rather than on the device itself. Storing data remotely is the best way for users to make their data available across all devices – desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones. This decreases the need to back up mobile devices and laptops, because data stored remotely can be backed up using traditional methods. One option is to use enterprise file sync-and-share software. File sync-and-share applications automatically establish two-way synchronization between the device and a designated network location, either enterprise data center or cloud. Any data a user creates or modifies on the mobile device is automatically synchronized with on-premises servers or cloud, where it is then backed up using traditional methods. File sync and share also improves employee productivity by allowing users to access data from any device, anywhere, at any time.

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