1 00:00:48,724 --> 00:00:52,171 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Hi, and welcome to Backup Central's Restore it All podcast. 2 00:00:52,171 --> 00:00:54,421 I'm your host, Prasanna Malaiyandi. 3 00:00:55,021 --> 00:01:00,061 And with me, I have my lovely guest who is all scratched up and 4 00:01:00,061 --> 00:01:01,591 looks like he was in a bar fight. 5 00:01:03,721 --> 00:01:04,531 Curtis Preston, 6 00:01:05,046 --> 00:01:05,536 W. Curtis Preston: Okay. 7 00:01:06,496 --> 00:01:09,720 for those watching on the video on backupcentral.com , you 8 00:01:09,745 --> 00:01:12,248 can see my arm, my hand. 9 00:01:12,308 --> 00:01:13,268 There's my hand. 10 00:01:13,928 --> 00:01:16,568 Um, yeah, I was at a bar fight yesterday. 11 00:01:16,568 --> 00:01:18,728 Bar fight with a, with a set of stairs. 12 00:01:19,308 --> 00:01:25,063 As of five minutes ago, I have, I'm at about 90% of cleaning 13 00:01:25,063 --> 00:01:30,043 my wood shop out of all of the various little pieces of scraps. 14 00:01:30,043 --> 00:01:36,603 And by the way, when you use power tools on vinyl flooring, , it 15 00:01:36,658 --> 00:01:38,278 Prasanna Malaiyandi: just splinters everywhere. 16 00:01:38,593 --> 00:01:39,643 W. Curtis Preston: oh my God. 17 00:01:39,643 --> 00:01:42,733 It's just, it's not like, it's not like dust. 18 00:01:42,733 --> 00:01:45,433 It's like, I don't know how, what to call it. 19 00:01:45,433 --> 00:01:48,223 I mean, it's dust, but it's like pixelated dust. 20 00:01:48,223 --> 00:01:50,683 So it's, it's just very bulky, right? 21 00:01:50,683 --> 00:01:53,503 It doesn't lay on the floor like dust without even sweeping it up. 22 00:01:53,503 --> 00:01:56,623 It creates giant piles, very quickly. 23 00:01:56,683 --> 00:02:01,183 And that's what I'm in the process of trying to rid my, my shop of is, 24 00:02:01,963 --> 00:02:05,683 is, uh, that anyway, but you're, but you're, you're leading the show 25 00:02:05,683 --> 00:02:07,993 today, so what are, why, why, why is 26 00:02:08,098 --> 00:02:08,428 Prasanna Malaiyandi: up? 27 00:02:09,058 --> 00:02:13,078 So today is, I don't know, Curtis, let's see. 28 00:02:13,078 --> 00:02:14,608 Has it been, let's see. 29 00:02:14,608 --> 00:02:18,868 We've known each other for a while and we always talk about how 30 00:02:18,988 --> 00:02:20,848 you've been in this space forever. 31 00:02:21,298 --> 00:02:26,428 And I do mean forever, But today, right. 32 00:02:26,428 --> 00:02:26,998 It's a big. 33 00:02:27,058 --> 00:02:31,368 W. Curtis Preston: for a while now, I've been saying coming up on 30 years. 34 00:02:31,768 --> 00:02:32,188 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Yeah, 35 00:02:32,398 --> 00:02:33,238 W. Curtis Preston: Um, 36 00:02:33,658 --> 00:02:38,398 Prasanna Malaiyandi: it's no longer the 15 or 20 plus years in the industry. 37 00:02:38,398 --> 00:02:38,698 Right? 38 00:02:38,698 --> 00:02:41,248 It's now 30, the big three. 39 00:02:41,253 --> 00:02:41,608 Oh, 40 00:02:42,103 --> 00:02:42,973 W. Curtis Preston: years. 41 00:02:43,123 --> 00:02:43,663 Uh, yeah. 42 00:02:43,693 --> 00:02:44,293 By the time 43 00:02:44,313 --> 00:02:45,688 Prasanna Malaiyandi: so how does it make that feel you? 44 00:02:47,083 --> 00:02:52,723 W. Curtis Preston: uh, you know, uh, I mean, you know, I, I, I'm old. 45 00:02:52,723 --> 00:02:53,443 What can I say? 46 00:02:53,828 --> 00:02:54,583 ? What can I say? 47 00:02:55,093 --> 00:02:57,313 I felt Yeah, go ahead. 48 00:02:58,093 --> 00:03:00,103 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Now, aren't you glad though you're not sitting there 49 00:03:00,103 --> 00:03:03,763 still like swapping out tapes like you used to do in your first job? 50 00:03:04,543 --> 00:03:05,563 W. Curtis Preston: Oh dude. 51 00:03:05,563 --> 00:03:08,563 Well, except for that time when I got paid a ridiculous 52 00:03:08,563 --> 00:03:10,123 amount of money to swap tapes. 53 00:03:10,363 --> 00:03:10,993 Yes. 54 00:03:11,713 --> 00:03:12,193 Right. 55 00:03:12,223 --> 00:03:16,363 You know, we've told that story a couple times where I once got paid 56 00:03:16,843 --> 00:03:20,203 $10,000 to load up a tape library. 57 00:03:21,673 --> 00:03:21,913 , this is the 58 00:03:22,243 --> 00:03:23,233 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Take the money. 59 00:03:23,293 --> 00:03:24,193 W. Curtis Preston: swapping moment. 60 00:03:24,198 --> 00:03:25,533 Take the money and run. 61 00:03:25,873 --> 00:03:28,273 Prasanna Malaiyandi: You know what I bet though, today what you would 62 00:03:28,273 --> 00:03:33,133 end up doing is you take the $10,000 and then you'd go spend like $500 63 00:03:33,313 --> 00:03:35,293 hiring some college kids to basically 64 00:03:35,368 --> 00:03:35,998 W. Curtis Preston: You know what? 65 00:03:36,078 --> 00:03:36,133 Prasanna Malaiyandi: you. 66 00:03:37,168 --> 00:03:38,608 W. Curtis Preston: That Outsourcing. 67 00:03:38,818 --> 00:03:40,288 Outsourcing, right. 68 00:03:40,293 --> 00:03:40,888 Well, I don't know. 69 00:03:40,888 --> 00:03:43,258 I'm, you know, as we've discussed on the podcast, I'm kind of a 70 00:03:43,258 --> 00:03:47,698 DIYer, so I would probably still, I would, I, I would want to keep 71 00:03:47,728 --> 00:03:48,898 Prasanna Malaiyandi: tedious like that. 72 00:03:49,978 --> 00:03:50,578 W. Curtis Preston: What's that? 73 00:03:50,698 --> 00:03:52,638 Prasanna Malaiyandi: tedious like that though, would you really? 74 00:03:53,518 --> 00:03:55,558 W. Curtis Preston: Oh, it was so tedious. 75 00:03:55,558 --> 00:03:58,528 It took the reason why it was so, it was so much money. 76 00:03:58,528 --> 00:04:00,778 It was because I was in there. 77 00:04:01,378 --> 00:04:07,438 Um, by the way, that money came from amazon.com, not a sponsor. 78 00:04:07,918 --> 00:04:13,228 Um, I was in Amazon putting in their first enterprise wide backup system. 79 00:04:13,228 --> 00:04:19,028 This was 1998, and my bill rate as a backup expert was 250 bucks an. 80 00:04:19,738 --> 00:04:25,618 And it took, it took me a week to do that, to ba They basically, 81 00:04:25,618 --> 00:04:26,818 they bought this big tape library. 82 00:04:26,818 --> 00:04:28,348 They bought all these tapes to go with it. 83 00:04:28,798 --> 00:04:34,978 And um, and it took me a week to unpack and label the, 84 00:04:35,008 --> 00:04:37,948 Prasanna Malaiyandi: say you had to label was the one that took a while. 85 00:04:38,683 --> 00:04:39,013 W. Curtis Preston: Yeah. 86 00:04:39,013 --> 00:04:41,653 You had to, I, I had to go print labels, right? 87 00:04:41,653 --> 00:04:45,253 I had to get labels, I had to pull the little sticker off, and then I had to 88 00:04:45,583 --> 00:04:49,483 put them on, and, and they gotta be on, just so you know, or it doesn't work. 89 00:04:49,933 --> 00:04:53,443 And you know what I, what I did what I always say at the end of the story, 90 00:04:54,328 --> 00:04:58,768 Because I've told this sir a few times, is at the end what Amazon got, uh, as 91 00:04:58,768 --> 00:05:03,958 advice was, Hey, just so you know, they sell these with the barcodes already 92 00:05:03,963 --> 00:05:06,388 on them, for the, for the future. 93 00:05:07,378 --> 00:05:12,928 Uh, by the way, and by the way, this was, this was before Amazon sold stuff, right? 94 00:05:13,198 --> 00:05:15,928 So we didn't buy the tapes from Amazon. 95 00:05:16,048 --> 00:05:19,438 Um, we would've, we would've paid retail back in the day. 96 00:05:19,768 --> 00:05:19,978 What 97 00:05:20,023 --> 00:05:21,733 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Fries electronics? 98 00:05:22,828 --> 00:05:24,598 W. Curtis Preston: Uh uh, no, I don't think so. 99 00:05:24,598 --> 00:05:26,218 We were in, we were in Seattle. 100 00:05:26,938 --> 00:05:27,748 Pre, pre. 101 00:05:28,318 --> 00:05:30,208 Who would you have bought tapes from back then? 102 00:05:30,208 --> 00:05:30,418 What? 103 00:05:30,423 --> 00:05:31,618 C D W, maybe 104 00:05:31,753 --> 00:05:33,343 Prasanna Malaiyandi: CDW outpost.com. 105 00:05:35,188 --> 00:05:35,668 W. Curtis Preston: Yeah. 106 00:05:36,418 --> 00:05:36,808 I don't know. 107 00:05:36,808 --> 00:05:37,648 I just don't know. 108 00:05:37,648 --> 00:05:41,548 Like, I can't remember the world before Amazon, you know? 109 00:05:41,848 --> 00:05:42,073 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Yeah. 110 00:05:42,253 --> 00:05:46,063 It's funny that you mentioned that I was driving down the, uh, Stevens 111 00:05:46,063 --> 00:05:51,823 Creek by my house the other day and there is actually still a mom and 112 00:05:51,823 --> 00:05:54,823 pop computer store that still exists. 113 00:05:55,593 --> 00:05:56,548 that I remember. 114 00:05:56,668 --> 00:06:02,158 B, going to to buy parts for my first PC couple decades ago, 115 00:06:02,488 --> 00:06:03,868 more than a couple decades ago, 116 00:06:05,143 --> 00:06:05,713 W. Curtis Preston: Yeah. 117 00:06:06,268 --> 00:06:07,618 Prasanna Malaiyandi: still in the same location. 118 00:06:07,618 --> 00:06:09,358 I don't know what they sell these days. 119 00:06:09,358 --> 00:06:11,268 I don't know how they stay in business, but. 120 00:06:12,758 --> 00:06:17,043 The thing I think would be interesting to our listeners is as you've gone 121 00:06:17,043 --> 00:06:22,523 through all these changes, right, or seen all these changes, how did you keep up? 122 00:06:23,088 --> 00:06:28,848 With the change in technology and not feel sort of like a dinosaur, right? 123 00:06:28,848 --> 00:06:30,528 That you're about to become obsoleted. 124 00:06:31,278 --> 00:06:31,758 Right. 125 00:06:31,818 --> 00:06:35,388 And how do you sort of like, it is a big shift though, right? 126 00:06:35,393 --> 00:06:38,958 Moving from one technology to another as new things are coming up and 127 00:06:38,958 --> 00:06:42,408 sometimes people feel like, I don't know how to make that leap into that 128 00:06:42,408 --> 00:06:44,148 new technology, into the next thing. 129 00:06:44,508 --> 00:06:47,918 How, what can they do to sort of help them with that transit? 130 00:06:48,723 --> 00:06:50,883 Okay, so let's go way back in the day. 131 00:06:50,883 --> 00:06:55,683 So I know everyone's heard the, the stories about you working at a bank, 132 00:06:56,658 --> 00:07:00,228 W. Curtis Preston: At a bank, 1993, the year was 1993. 133 00:07:00,558 --> 00:07:06,168 My oldest daughter, the singer of the, uh, theme song for this 134 00:07:06,168 --> 00:07:09,198 podcast is negative one years old. 135 00:07:09,718 --> 00:07:14,978 She's, but a glimmer in my eye at that moment, I was fresh out of the Navy right. 136 00:07:15,938 --> 00:07:25,688 Had little to no experience with computers, and I, um, leveraged my wife, 137 00:07:26,288 --> 00:07:29,198 uh, to get my first job in backups. 138 00:07:29,258 --> 00:07:29,768 Right. 139 00:07:29,768 --> 00:07:36,068 You know, I, I often say that like, um, That the career up until, up 140 00:07:36,068 --> 00:07:40,028 until the point that I wrote the book, the first book, which was in 99. 141 00:07:40,913 --> 00:07:45,263 My career was complete happenstance, right? 142 00:07:45,773 --> 00:07:53,063 Um, so I was, I was in Delaware because the Navy took me to Philadelphia, right? 143 00:07:53,068 --> 00:07:57,683 The na I was in the Navy on, on the u s s Constellation, Macy rest in peace. 144 00:07:58,588 --> 00:08:04,798 , um, she went from, from San Diego to Philadelphia to go into dry dock. 145 00:08:04,798 --> 00:08:08,608 And so I was in the Navy, uh, getting out of the Navy. 146 00:08:09,028 --> 00:08:12,178 Uh, right now, 30 years ago, I would've been on what we call 147 00:08:12,688 --> 00:08:16,558 terminal leave, which is you get, basically, you get, you take all your 148 00:08:16,798 --> 00:08:19,408 saved up leave, and then you leave. 149 00:08:20,183 --> 00:08:21,863 You just don't come back to the ship. 150 00:08:22,403 --> 00:08:22,733 Yeah. 151 00:08:22,733 --> 00:08:25,883 And then you, you just get paid for all your vacation and you leave. 152 00:08:26,343 --> 00:08:32,573 I was a fresh graduate of the National Radio Institute of America . Right. 153 00:08:33,053 --> 00:08:36,213 I took one of those correspondence courses that you saw on the back of. 154 00:08:36,893 --> 00:08:38,243 Um, what was that? 155 00:08:38,243 --> 00:08:40,583 Pop, pop Popular Science. 156 00:08:40,588 --> 00:08:42,203 Is that, is that the name of the magazine? 157 00:08:42,203 --> 00:08:43,673 I think it was called Popular Science. 158 00:08:44,033 --> 00:08:46,463 And you'd have this ad like Build Your Own Computer. 159 00:08:46,583 --> 00:08:50,003 And I took that because it was a correspondence course and 160 00:08:50,003 --> 00:08:51,053 I could take it out to see. 161 00:08:51,593 --> 00:08:53,753 And um, so I did that. 162 00:08:53,753 --> 00:09:00,953 I built a 2 86 computer and that was all I, I think it was dos, 163 00:09:00,953 --> 00:09:02,453 I think it was a DOS computer. 164 00:09:02,513 --> 00:09:02,873 Right. 165 00:09:03,383 --> 00:09:05,513 Um, and. 166 00:09:06,623 --> 00:09:09,353 Uh, that was the limit of my experience. 167 00:09:09,563 --> 00:09:17,723 And then I got the job as the backup guy and I had to, I mean, I had 168 00:09:17,723 --> 00:09:21,443 to bone up really quickly on Unix. 169 00:09:21,863 --> 00:09:23,873 Uh, it was all Unix back then, right? 170 00:09:23,873 --> 00:09:26,873 It was, um, uh, at and t system. 171 00:09:26,873 --> 00:09:32,933 Five, three Uh, and we had seven Altrix Machine, deck. 172 00:09:32,933 --> 00:09:33,533 Digital. 173 00:09:33,593 --> 00:09:34,163 Digital. 174 00:09:34,223 --> 00:09:38,933 Remember, digital equipment corporation, a k a deck, seven altrix machines in 175 00:09:38,933 --> 00:09:43,673 Lake seven, uh, three And that was the entire computing environment when I 176 00:09:43,673 --> 00:09:48,263 came in, which is amazing to think about that for a 35 billion company, right? 177 00:09:48,303 --> 00:09:51,443 They, they had a mainframe that there was that world, and then there was 178 00:09:51,443 --> 00:09:55,403 this handful of Unix computers, which exploded the day after I got there. 179 00:09:56,183 --> 00:09:56,963 Um, 180 00:09:57,278 --> 00:09:59,768 Prasanna Malaiyandi: is your phone probably has more computing power 181 00:09:59,768 --> 00:10:01,418 than all those systems combined 182 00:10:02,513 --> 00:10:06,323 W. Curtis Preston: Well, I know it has more storage capacity than my entire data 183 00:10:06,323 --> 00:10:10,793 center did, or at least it has roughly. 184 00:10:10,798 --> 00:10:18,983 I think I have a 256 gigabyte iPhone and we had 300 gigabytes of storage space 185 00:10:19,223 --> 00:10:22,633 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Isn't that crazy to think about that in the last 30 years. 186 00:10:22,633 --> 00:10:22,993 Right. 187 00:10:22,993 --> 00:10:23,473 That's 188 00:10:23,513 --> 00:10:26,363 W. Curtis Preston: the way, that was 300 gigabytes at the end of my. 189 00:10:28,028 --> 00:10:31,718 when we got there, we would've had nothing. 190 00:10:31,748 --> 00:10:32,138 Right? 191 00:10:32,138 --> 00:10:39,338 Because the, each Altrix machine had its own eight millimeter, which those 192 00:10:39,338 --> 00:10:45,158 back then, those were a gigabyte or two, like they, they weren't very big. 193 00:10:45,568 --> 00:10:52,068 And um, the three they only had quick 80, which was 80 megabytes. 194 00:10:52,793 --> 00:10:53,753 That was a tape drive. 195 00:10:53,753 --> 00:10:56,573 And then we had the, we had one eight millimeter tape drive 196 00:10:56,573 --> 00:10:57,863 that we shared amongst them. 197 00:10:58,553 --> 00:10:58,823 Right. 198 00:10:58,823 --> 00:11:00,653 Which was, which was RFS mounted. 199 00:11:00,653 --> 00:11:04,133 We've talked about that before that it was like N F F, it was a pre predecessor 200 00:11:04,133 --> 00:11:06,023 to nfs, but you could mount devices. 201 00:11:06,293 --> 00:11:10,883 And so we would RFS mount, you know, the tape drive, we had 202 00:11:10,913 --> 00:11:13,283 seven machines seven days a week. 203 00:11:13,283 --> 00:11:17,033 We would do a rotating full one day a week on each different machine. 204 00:11:17,783 --> 00:11:23,498 And um, then, um, And then we would, you know, and then we'd do an incremental 205 00:11:23,498 --> 00:11:25,118 every day on those little quick eighties. 206 00:11:25,628 --> 00:11:30,458 But yeah, so that whole, that whole thing when I got there, that was 20 207 00:11:30,463 --> 00:11:32,858 gigabytes, , the whole data center. 208 00:11:33,158 --> 00:11:38,498 It was by the time I was done that it was like 300 we bought and like 209 00:11:38,498 --> 00:11:46,268 literally the last few months we bought a new machine, which was an HPT 500. 210 00:11:46,268 --> 00:11:46,948 I remember. 211 00:11:48,308 --> 00:11:53,948 Which was, uh, it was a monster and it was a hundred gigabytes 212 00:11:54,488 --> 00:11:56,468 all on one server. 213 00:11:56,813 --> 00:11:58,103 Prasanna Malaiyandi: you're probably thinking, oh my God, 214 00:11:58,103 --> 00:11:59,473 how do I back this thing up? 215 00:12:00,398 --> 00:12:01,748 W. Curtis Preston: Well, that's exactly what I said. 216 00:12:01,748 --> 00:12:04,928 I was like, it came, it came with a dat drive, right? 217 00:12:05,048 --> 00:12:06,428 There was like four gigabytes. 218 00:12:06,428 --> 00:12:07,358 I was like, okay. 219 00:12:07,538 --> 00:12:10,028 So that's 25 tape changes. 220 00:12:10,598 --> 00:12:16,328 To do a full, so I, I basically, so, so that machine was, I guess it wasn't 221 00:12:16,333 --> 00:12:19,148 in the last few months, I guess it was in the last year or so, because 222 00:12:19,448 --> 00:12:24,458 that machine was what allowed me to justify the purchase of my first 223 00:12:24,458 --> 00:12:27,248 spectral logic, uh, tape libraries. 224 00:12:27,248 --> 00:12:29,138 That's how I first came to do Molly. 225 00:12:29,378 --> 00:12:34,028 Um, and, you know, and our, and the fine folks over at Spectra Logic, 226 00:12:34,028 --> 00:12:40,343 not a sponsor that, um, you know, Uh, that, that also came as a guest on the 227 00:12:40,343 --> 00:12:43,313 podcast, but yeah, that's what I used. 228 00:12:43,318 --> 00:12:47,093 You know, you talk about changes in technology and how do I, how did I adapt? 229 00:12:47,573 --> 00:12:51,983 It was kind of the whole, like necessity is the mother of invention. 230 00:12:51,983 --> 00:12:52,313 Right. 231 00:12:52,343 --> 00:12:55,403 Necessity is also the mother of adaptation. 232 00:12:56,243 --> 00:13:05,948 Um, and so I will, I'll tell you the, as I adapted, I know I wanted, As we were going 233 00:13:05,948 --> 00:13:12,008 to this, this concept of a centralized area where all the tape would be, cuz we 234 00:13:12,008 --> 00:13:18,608 had a tape library, and by that I meant we had a room where tapes went, right? 235 00:13:18,638 --> 00:13:22,808 We had in those, we had channel attached nine track tape drives. 236 00:13:22,808 --> 00:13:27,398 If you don't know what that looks like, they're the old ass things that you see. 237 00:13:27,863 --> 00:13:29,363 In movies from the fifties. 238 00:13:29,843 --> 00:13:32,753 Those big giant, they're, they're refrigerator sized. 239 00:13:32,813 --> 00:13:33,473 They're bigger. 240 00:13:33,743 --> 00:13:35,663 Yes, they're, yeah, it's a reel to reel. 241 00:13:35,783 --> 00:13:37,493 They're bigger than a refrigerator. 242 00:13:37,973 --> 00:13:41,873 Um, and we had three or four of those in there, and we had 243 00:13:41,873 --> 00:13:44,093 a bunch of right line cabinets. 244 00:13:44,098 --> 00:13:45,293 Do you know what right line is? 245 00:13:45,998 --> 00:13:54,158 They're, they're, um, you know, a very high end, um, cabinet, but like metal 246 00:13:54,248 --> 00:13:58,418 cabinet maker, and they have like, they have these, like moving cabinets. 247 00:13:59,018 --> 00:14:02,558 So like, you can, you can fit a lot in square square space. 248 00:14:02,563 --> 00:14:03,518 Well, that's what we had. 249 00:14:03,718 --> 00:14:09,758 And I wanted to put all of the, the, the, the Spectra tape Libraries. 250 00:14:09,758 --> 00:14:11,978 I don't remember what the, the brand was, but they were, 251 00:14:12,668 --> 00:14:14,648 they were like a few U high. 252 00:14:15,003 --> 00:14:15,613 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Mm-hmm. 253 00:14:15,863 --> 00:14:18,263 W. Curtis Preston: and then they, you know, they fit in a rack and you know, 254 00:14:18,263 --> 00:14:23,933 the deep rack and then they were like a few U high and I needed, I eventually 255 00:14:23,938 --> 00:14:31,343 needed like 10 or 12 of them, and I wanted to put them all in one space. 256 00:14:32,813 --> 00:14:33,863 Prasanna Malaiyandi: so they're all together. 257 00:14:34,133 --> 00:14:34,493 Yeah. 258 00:14:34,568 --> 00:14:35,978 W. Curtis Preston: I wanted data security. 259 00:14:35,978 --> 00:14:36,248 Right. 260 00:14:36,248 --> 00:14:37,568 I didn't like this idea of tapes. 261 00:14:37,568 --> 00:14:39,938 You were just floating all over the place, which is what that 262 00:14:39,938 --> 00:14:41,048 was what we did it back then. 263 00:14:41,048 --> 00:14:42,938 The tapes just hanging out, right? 264 00:14:42,938 --> 00:14:44,288 Literally sitting on the top of the 265 00:14:44,333 --> 00:14:45,113 Prasanna Malaiyandi: On desk 266 00:14:45,428 --> 00:14:46,658 W. Curtis Preston: Um, what's that? 267 00:14:46,928 --> 00:14:48,158 Or on a desk or whatever. 268 00:14:48,163 --> 00:14:49,958 Yeah, yeah. 269 00:14:50,168 --> 00:14:54,308 Um, so we wanted to put it across the, across, I said across the 270 00:14:54,308 --> 00:14:55,928 street, literally across the hall. 271 00:14:56,618 --> 00:14:57,188 But that was. 272 00:14:59,018 --> 00:15:03,278 50, 75 feet away from the servers, maybe a hundred feet in the wrong place. 273 00:15:05,168 --> 00:15:08,508 And all we had was SCSI, 274 00:15:09,068 --> 00:15:09,818 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Oh no. 275 00:15:10,548 --> 00:15:15,158 W. Curtis Preston: By the way, SCSI two, mind you, the which we began 276 00:15:15,158 --> 00:15:19,128 to call slow and skinny SCSI because they came out with fast wide SCSI. 277 00:15:19,538 --> 00:15:21,788 so all we had was slow and skinny SCSI. 278 00:15:21,788 --> 00:15:24,098 They had fast wide SCSI that could go that. 279 00:15:25,208 --> 00:15:27,438 But my servers didn't have fast wide SCSI. 280 00:15:27,728 --> 00:15:35,408 They had SCSI two, and so we bought these boxes from a company called lan. 281 00:15:36,548 --> 00:15:39,158 The fact that I still remember that is crazy. 282 00:15:39,158 --> 00:15:43,838 But that was the name of the company and basically they were SCSI, two 283 00:15:44,518 --> 00:15:48,638 Tokai , fast wide, ultra SCSI adapters. 284 00:15:49,148 --> 00:15:51,248 And we had one, we had one on each end. 285 00:15:52,793 --> 00:15:57,803 So we'd, we'd we'd up Reve to ultra wide SCSI, have a hundred foot 286 00:15:57,943 --> 00:15:58,343 Prasanna Malaiyandi: date over 287 00:15:59,213 --> 00:16:01,073 W. Curtis Preston: and then down Rev, right. 288 00:16:01,133 --> 00:16:04,253 And Spectra Logic was like, Hey man, this don't work. 289 00:16:04,313 --> 00:16:05,213 This ain't our fault. 290 00:16:05,273 --> 00:16:05,663 Right? 291 00:16:05,663 --> 00:16:08,843 And they're like, if we, if you ever prop, if you ever have a problem with 292 00:16:08,848 --> 00:16:10,703 the tape library because of those boxes. 293 00:16:11,693 --> 00:16:13,823 You're gonna ha, we're gonna ask you to bring that tape 294 00:16:13,823 --> 00:16:15,413 library back across the hall. 295 00:16:15,713 --> 00:16:17,753 Plug it in with a regular SCSI two cable. 296 00:16:17,993 --> 00:16:18,533 You know what? 297 00:16:18,593 --> 00:16:21,773 Never happened, never happened. 298 00:16:22,013 --> 00:16:24,983 Those pair land boxes were rock solid, 299 00:16:25,438 --> 00:16:26,728 Prasanna Malaiyandi: that's a surprise. 300 00:16:27,828 --> 00:16:28,193 W. Curtis Preston: Yeah. 301 00:16:28,703 --> 00:16:31,793 Um, and that's old, that's old electrical signal stuff. 302 00:16:31,793 --> 00:16:33,563 That's not fiber, right? 303 00:16:33,713 --> 00:16:36,263 That's, that stuff's clunky, right? 304 00:16:36,413 --> 00:16:37,583 But those things were perfect. 305 00:16:37,583 --> 00:16:42,533 Never once did I have to crawl under the floor to disconnect a para box, replace 306 00:16:42,533 --> 00:16:45,143 the para box, troubleshoot it, never once. 307 00:16:45,143 --> 00:16:45,893 So those things were perfect. 308 00:16:46,893 --> 00:16:47,078 . Right. 309 00:16:47,258 --> 00:16:50,678 And so we just adapted over time, right? 310 00:16:50,728 --> 00:16:55,928 And, and, and of course also in this, before the tape library thing happened 311 00:16:56,198 --> 00:16:58,238 was when my first Shell script broke. 312 00:16:58,718 --> 00:17:05,078 Uh, we talked about this on a podcast, I think just last week, where I 313 00:17:05,078 --> 00:17:09,698 started out with shell scripts and I didn't think I could get budget for, 314 00:17:10,178 --> 00:17:12,498 you know, a, a commercial solution. 315 00:17:13,528 --> 00:17:17,963 And, um, I remember going to my boss, Susan Davidson, shout out to her. 316 00:17:18,023 --> 00:17:24,263 She, she's out there somewhere and, um, she, um, I just said, 317 00:17:24,263 --> 00:17:27,653 listen, I can't, I can't keep up that, by the way, that's a key. 318 00:17:27,653 --> 00:17:34,493 That was a key is being okay to say, I can't do it right. 319 00:17:34,553 --> 00:17:36,833 I can no longer keep up with what's happening. 320 00:17:36,833 --> 00:17:38,033 I'm getting too scared. 321 00:17:38,038 --> 00:17:40,313 We're gonna lose data and it's gonna be my fault. 322 00:17:41,153 --> 00:17:42,263 And she's like, well, aren't there? 323 00:17:43,433 --> 00:17:46,673 Isn't there, like software you can buy and I'm like, I can spend 324 00:17:46,673 --> 00:17:54,893 money Um, and I remember that my very first and the company was, 325 00:17:54,893 --> 00:17:56,843 uh, company called Software Moguls. 326 00:17:56,843 --> 00:18:01,253 The product was called SM r c, and on that shelf behind me, while you can't 327 00:18:01,253 --> 00:18:05,363 see it on that shelf, behind me is a cd. 328 00:18:06,533 --> 00:18:09,173 That is SMR from back in the day. 329 00:18:09,323 --> 00:18:09,713 Yeah. 330 00:18:10,103 --> 00:18:16,013 Um, but, uh, I, I got that, uh, so I was able to buy that. 331 00:18:16,013 --> 00:18:17,873 I remember that it was $16,000. 332 00:18:18,443 --> 00:18:19,453 Just remember that my first. 333 00:18:20,448 --> 00:18:23,318 Purchase of a piece of backup software like that was $16,000. 334 00:18:24,038 --> 00:18:27,608 Um, and the competing solutions were like quarter million dollars, like Bud 335 00:18:27,608 --> 00:18:29,138 Tools, like a quarter million dollars. 336 00:18:30,008 --> 00:18:34,988 Um, because we wanted to use tape, tape drives in each server. 337 00:18:35,768 --> 00:18:39,278 , basically, we, we, we had a, we had a shitty network, and so we didn't 338 00:18:39,278 --> 00:18:43,028 want to, we, we knew we couldn't do network based backup, right? 339 00:18:43,118 --> 00:18:45,398 And so we wanted tape drives on each server. 340 00:18:45,788 --> 00:18:49,028 And that meant, in their words, they were media servers. 341 00:18:49,028 --> 00:18:52,418 And media servers were a server price versus a client price. 342 00:18:52,688 --> 00:18:53,078 And that's 343 00:18:53,123 --> 00:18:53,993 Prasanna Malaiyandi: it's more expensive. 344 00:18:54,888 --> 00:18:57,223 I was gonna ask you like how you even did vendor selection, 345 00:18:57,223 --> 00:18:58,213 if you remember back then. 346 00:18:58,213 --> 00:18:58,483 Right. 347 00:18:58,483 --> 00:19:01,273 And it looks like price was a big aspect of that. 348 00:19:02,458 --> 00:19:03,308 W. Curtis Preston: Pri pri. 349 00:19:03,313 --> 00:19:07,228 Well, basically we had some, you know, it was like, here are the, 350 00:19:07,288 --> 00:19:10,048 here are the oss we have, right? 351 00:19:10,788 --> 00:19:12,748 Databases weren't an issue yet. 352 00:19:13,993 --> 00:19:14,473 Right. 353 00:19:14,563 --> 00:19:21,223 Um, because those, you still, nobody had agents for Sybase or whatever, right? 354 00:19:21,913 --> 00:19:27,913 Um, the, you, you still scr, you did a, you either put it in backup mode or you 355 00:19:28,258 --> 00:19:28,708 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Shut it 356 00:19:28,753 --> 00:19:30,493 W. Curtis Preston: dump and sweep or whatever, right? 357 00:19:30,493 --> 00:19:30,913 Yeah. 358 00:19:32,323 --> 00:19:38,143 Um, so it's like, Hey, we have Solaris, we have a I x, we have. 359 00:19:38,803 --> 00:19:42,283 You know, uh, I think we got rid of the system, five systems, and we have 360 00:19:42,283 --> 00:19:44,863 Alteryx and we have a deck Unix system. 361 00:19:44,863 --> 00:19:51,823 Now, um, you know, you needed, you needed to handle all of those, right? 362 00:19:52,303 --> 00:19:55,273 Um, and you needed to support local tape drives. 363 00:19:55,393 --> 00:19:58,663 So Arcserve was out, Arcserve was the other big product that 364 00:19:58,663 --> 00:20:01,573 was back then, Arcserve, they wanted a centralized backup. 365 00:20:03,473 --> 00:20:06,533 and everything over the network, I'm like, look, we have a, we have, we still 366 00:20:06,533 --> 00:20:10,073 have thick net under the floor right? 367 00:20:10,073 --> 00:20:11,633 We have vampire taps. 368 00:20:11,783 --> 00:20:18,773 For those of you that have grown up in a world of, of 10 based tea, um, 369 00:20:18,953 --> 00:20:27,953 vampire taps, it was coax cable and you literally t screwed into the cable 370 00:20:29,143 --> 00:20:29,533 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Yep. 371 00:20:29,783 --> 00:20:32,713 W. Curtis Preston: It's like a saddle tap on a plumbing line, right? 372 00:20:33,103 --> 00:20:35,473 You just literally pierced the cable. 373 00:20:35,563 --> 00:20:38,683 I mean, bits are just falling out all over the floor, . So 374 00:20:38,883 --> 00:20:40,153 we're like, we're not doing that. 375 00:20:40,203 --> 00:20:43,233 Prasanna Malaiyandi: So after all this time working on backup, right. 376 00:20:43,233 --> 00:20:48,033 Then when did you start getting like interested in the disaster 377 00:20:48,033 --> 00:20:49,283 recovery side of things? 378 00:20:49,283 --> 00:20:54,018 Because, at the same time, like somewhere in that job, right? 379 00:20:54,018 --> 00:20:57,938 You did start to then focus on disaster recovery as well. 380 00:20:58,953 --> 00:21:01,893 W. Curtis Preston: Well it was, it was a necessity for the job. 381 00:21:02,283 --> 00:21:08,433 Um, basically we did a DR test every six months and you 382 00:21:08,438 --> 00:21:09,573 know, we would put everybody. 383 00:21:10,533 --> 00:21:12,423 Uh, in, in the place. 384 00:21:12,543 --> 00:21:16,563 Uh, we do it over the weekend cuz downtime during the week wasn't acceptable. 385 00:21:18,003 --> 00:21:22,833 And then, um, and we didn't have a sandbox or the cloud or whatever you, you had 386 00:21:22,838 --> 00:21:25,443 to literally shoot a server in the head. 387 00:21:26,843 --> 00:21:27,403 right? 388 00:21:28,893 --> 00:21:29,463 Well, I guess not. 389 00:21:29,463 --> 00:21:31,743 Literally you had to shoot a server in the head. 390 00:21:31,923 --> 00:21:32,973 Figuratively. 391 00:21:33,643 --> 00:21:36,763 I learned a lot of valuable lessons from that back then, right? 392 00:21:36,763 --> 00:21:39,073 This idea of having someone else do it. 393 00:21:40,213 --> 00:21:45,103 This idea of having great documentation, um, documentation 394 00:21:45,108 --> 00:21:46,753 is, you know, that's easy to follow. 395 00:21:47,578 --> 00:21:48,808 An easy to update. 396 00:21:49,228 --> 00:21:52,648 And just, just that concept of doing regular recovery testing. 397 00:21:53,278 --> 00:21:59,368 Um, we, we, we didn't have, we didn't have to worry about regular recovery 398 00:21:59,368 --> 00:22:05,698 testing with files and stuff because we did like 10 restores a day. 399 00:22:06,908 --> 00:22:10,628 We had like 12,000 employees who were apparently complete morons 400 00:22:10,958 --> 00:22:18,458 because because 0.01% of them every day were, was screwing up something 401 00:22:18,788 --> 00:22:20,078 and we were having to restore it. 402 00:22:20,078 --> 00:22:21,818 So literally like 10 restores a day. 403 00:22:22,288 --> 00:22:22,848 Right. 404 00:22:23,318 --> 00:22:26,978 And maybe that's why I got really good at backup because, you 405 00:22:27,263 --> 00:22:29,123 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Of the restore side, simplify. 406 00:22:29,228 --> 00:22:29,768 W. Curtis Preston: Yeah. 407 00:22:29,798 --> 00:22:30,398 Yeah. 408 00:22:30,488 --> 00:22:30,668 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Yeah. 409 00:22:30,725 --> 00:22:31,115 you know, what? 410 00:22:31,115 --> 00:22:36,125 I wonder if it's interesting that today things just kind of work. 411 00:22:36,125 --> 00:22:41,075 I wonder what the percentage is that people do restores these days, and 412 00:22:41,075 --> 00:22:46,025 maybe that's where doing restore testing becomes really valuable. 413 00:22:46,175 --> 00:22:49,625 Because like you were saying, you do 12 a day, you're gonna get really good at it. 414 00:22:49,625 --> 00:22:49,895 Right? 415 00:22:49,895 --> 00:22:51,485 It's just sort of like muscle memory. 416 00:22:51,995 --> 00:22:55,055 But if you're only doing it once every month or so, right? 417 00:22:55,400 --> 00:22:55,790 W. Curtis Preston: Yeah, 418 00:22:56,435 --> 00:22:56,765 Prasanna Malaiyandi: you lose. 419 00:22:58,160 --> 00:23:01,610 W. Curtis Preston: and I, I make a similar comment about, you know, you 420 00:23:01,610 --> 00:23:07,550 kids today, so everybody's on solid state devices these days, right? 421 00:23:08,630 --> 00:23:10,130 That stuff just doesn't fail. 422 00:23:10,130 --> 00:23:15,560 Like the stuff we were on back in the day, we were on individual servers 423 00:23:15,710 --> 00:23:17,810 running on individual hard drives. 424 00:23:17,810 --> 00:23:18,090 No. 425 00:23:18,980 --> 00:23:19,820 No raid. 426 00:23:19,880 --> 00:23:20,780 What's raid 427 00:23:21,360 --> 00:23:23,190 Prasanna Malaiyandi: We were talking about disaster recovery, 428 00:23:24,030 --> 00:23:24,300 right? 429 00:23:24,300 --> 00:23:25,350 And how you got interested. 430 00:23:25,350 --> 00:23:29,370 And then we were also talking about how people today don't necessarily 431 00:23:29,370 --> 00:23:32,400 have the same type of, like, they're not doing restores all the 432 00:23:32,400 --> 00:23:34,710 time because discs aren't failing. 433 00:23:34,710 --> 00:23:37,710 Things are more reliable, things are more robust, right? 434 00:23:38,550 --> 00:23:40,560 And so you lose touch of those things. 435 00:23:40,797 --> 00:23:45,795 W. Curtis Preston: I, I don't think that we were doing DR testing 436 00:23:45,795 --> 00:23:49,515 every six months because we were altruistic or amazing or anything. 437 00:23:49,965 --> 00:23:54,045 It was because we were a bank and the O C C required it. 438 00:23:54,785 --> 00:24:03,390 Um, And you know, it's sort of like if you are in the biotech 439 00:24:03,390 --> 00:24:05,880 world, you know what validation is? 440 00:24:06,570 --> 00:24:10,020 Uh, validation is a giant pain in the butt. 441 00:24:10,350 --> 00:24:13,110 Uh, for those of you that don't know what it is, I'm not even 442 00:24:13,110 --> 00:24:15,960 gonna bother explaining it, but, you know, and so they're just 443 00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:17,910 really good at processes like that. 444 00:24:18,330 --> 00:24:20,880 Um, we just had, we just got good at. 445 00:24:21,645 --> 00:24:22,755 Doing testing. 446 00:24:22,935 --> 00:24:23,385 Right. 447 00:24:23,685 --> 00:24:27,885 Um, and I don't think moving forward in my career, I don't think I ever 448 00:24:27,885 --> 00:24:29,625 worked at another company that did DR. 449 00:24:29,625 --> 00:24:34,035 Testing the way they did, or even anywhere near as frequently, or, yeah. 450 00:24:35,490 --> 00:24:36,570 Prasanna Malaiyandi: So yeah. 451 00:24:36,570 --> 00:24:39,360 So you've been doing sort of server backups, right? 452 00:24:39,360 --> 00:24:40,200 Files. 453 00:24:40,500 --> 00:24:42,060 You've been looking at Dr. 454 00:24:42,060 --> 00:24:43,230 And DR testing. 455 00:24:43,800 --> 00:24:46,350 At some point in your career, you started looking, I'm guessing, 456 00:24:46,350 --> 00:24:48,540 at applications and databases. 457 00:24:49,525 --> 00:24:50,015 W. Curtis Preston: Yeah. 458 00:24:50,350 --> 00:24:50,505 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Right. 459 00:24:50,655 --> 00:24:56,835 And that must have been sort of a completely different world when you 460 00:24:56,835 --> 00:25:01,305 first approached it versus what you were doing with server backup and file backup, 461 00:25:03,265 --> 00:25:03,755 W. Curtis Preston: Yeah. 462 00:25:03,825 --> 00:25:08,655 Uh, the biggest one for me at the time was Oracle. 463 00:25:08,655 --> 00:25:09,765 And Oracle. 464 00:25:10,545 --> 00:25:15,855 Once you figured out how to put it in the backup mode, Oracle backup was a cinch. 465 00:25:16,520 --> 00:25:16,725 , right? 466 00:25:17,325 --> 00:25:19,605 Uh, if you were good at scripting, if you were good at scripting, 467 00:25:19,605 --> 00:25:20,805 nobody had an Oracle agent. 468 00:25:21,370 --> 00:25:21,790 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Yep. 469 00:25:22,185 --> 00:25:23,325 W. Curtis Preston: There was no rman. 470 00:25:23,505 --> 00:25:27,645 There was something before Rman, but it's it name, it's name escaped to me. 471 00:25:27,650 --> 00:25:31,185 But there, there, there was no rman there, there was just, you had the 472 00:25:31,190 --> 00:25:32,985 alter table space begin back up. 473 00:25:33,405 --> 00:25:36,795 By the way, nowadays you could just say alter database, begin back up. 474 00:25:37,095 --> 00:25:38,295 So much easier. 475 00:25:38,685 --> 00:25:43,305 Um, I had to, I had to query the database, ask for the names of all the table spaces. 476 00:25:43,790 --> 00:25:47,840 Then put each table space in backup mode, um, and then we 477 00:25:47,840 --> 00:25:49,340 could do the backup, right? 478 00:25:49,760 --> 00:25:51,620 That was pretty easy-peasy. 479 00:25:51,620 --> 00:25:56,450 And then you had to, uh, and we would also do a log switch at the end to 480 00:25:56,450 --> 00:25:59,240 make sure that we, you know, we had the latest logs and then we'd back them up. 481 00:26:00,110 --> 00:26:05,300 Uh, sql SQL Server wasn't a thing, right? 482 00:26:05,390 --> 00:26:11,330 So we had Sybase, which for those don't know, is the OG SQL server, 483 00:26:11,880 --> 00:26:14,810 Prasanna Malaiyandi: I was gonna say, yeah, . Not a lot of people know 484 00:26:14,810 --> 00:26:14,970 that 485 00:26:15,735 --> 00:26:16,245 W. Curtis Preston: yeah. 486 00:26:16,335 --> 00:26:20,745 Um, SQL Server was originally Sybase and they were originally gonna co do it, 487 00:26:20,750 --> 00:26:22,605 and then, yeah, that didn't work out. 488 00:26:23,055 --> 00:26:28,875 Um, but yeah, so Cy, there was Sybase that we had Informix, um, Informix. 489 00:26:29,715 --> 00:26:34,695 Informix had a hot backup mode, but it, but it created downtime, so you 490 00:26:34,695 --> 00:26:37,575 could tell Informix to stop right. 491 00:26:38,835 --> 00:26:42,045 Because Oracle's hot backup mode, you could continue operating right? 492 00:26:42,585 --> 00:26:44,325 And it would just change how it did redo logs. 493 00:26:44,775 --> 00:26:49,095 Informix would literally stop rights to the database. 494 00:26:49,545 --> 00:26:50,025 Right? 495 00:26:50,505 --> 00:26:56,605 And, and sql, we couldn't fig, the only way to do SQL or Sybase 496 00:26:56,625 --> 00:26:58,425 back then was a dump and sweep. 497 00:26:59,205 --> 00:26:59,625 Right? 498 00:26:59,835 --> 00:27:01,965 Um, and there was a company. 499 00:27:03,315 --> 00:27:03,675 Mm. 500 00:27:04,095 --> 00:27:10,215 Oh oh and and Sybase backup had a feature that if you were doing it to 501 00:27:10,215 --> 00:27:16,215 tape and the tape filled up and you were waiting to swap tapes, cuz it 502 00:27:16,215 --> 00:27:19,455 supported the concept of, you know, putting a database on multiple tapes, 503 00:27:20,955 --> 00:27:23,855 the, it would hang the database. 504 00:27:24,825 --> 00:27:28,035 So if you're doing backups and you were doing backups manually, cuz 505 00:27:28,035 --> 00:27:28,995 that was the only way to do it. 506 00:27:29,265 --> 00:27:33,315 If you were doing backups and you forgot to, to notice that the tape was full 507 00:27:33,585 --> 00:27:38,025 and then that needed to be swapped out, it would literally hang the database. 508 00:27:38,025 --> 00:27:43,395 Like the database would just, and there was a company, their name I forgot, 509 00:27:43,755 --> 00:27:48,255 but there was a company who solved that problem and they became, it's 510 00:27:48,255 --> 00:27:52,560 sort of like, um, You know, Veeam, when Veeam first came out, and they 511 00:27:52,560 --> 00:27:56,430 were really the first ones going after VMware, they solved a problem No. 512 00:27:56,490 --> 00:27:58,200 That nobody else was solving at the time. 513 00:27:58,380 --> 00:28:01,350 It was like that, but for Buffer Sybase. 514 00:28:01,350 --> 00:28:05,070 And they became, and I remember that that company got acquired by, 515 00:28:05,070 --> 00:28:07,770 uh, ca, but I don't remember their, 516 00:28:08,550 --> 00:28:11,910 Prasanna Malaiyandi: So I guess in this transition though, like 517 00:28:12,030 --> 00:28:15,390 going back to the themes of like, what do people need to know? 518 00:28:15,390 --> 00:28:19,620 Because even today, right, this probably still applies if you're very heavily 519 00:28:19,620 --> 00:28:23,940 focused on virtualization when you're switching to applications and databases, 520 00:28:24,300 --> 00:28:27,570 it's a little bit of a scary world because everything's so different. 521 00:28:28,530 --> 00:28:33,840 But like what are some, I guess, hints or like best practices 522 00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:35,550 or tips you can give people? 523 00:28:37,290 --> 00:28:44,235 W. Curtis Preston: Well it, I think the hardest part is, To not 524 00:28:44,235 --> 00:28:46,845 put your head in the sand Right? 525 00:28:47,595 --> 00:28:52,875 So there, there's a, there's, so I, I'm gonna say there's two extremes, right? 526 00:28:53,535 --> 00:28:58,995 One is jumping on every single new technology the moment it comes out, 527 00:28:59,325 --> 00:29:01,215 and then letting it consume your life. 528 00:29:02,175 --> 00:29:06,255 To figure out, let's say if all you care about is backup, uh, which is, 529 00:29:06,260 --> 00:29:08,775 that's pretty much, that was my, it's been my job for a long time. 530 00:29:08,775 --> 00:29:09,825 That's all I cared about. 531 00:29:09,825 --> 00:29:11,175 Well, how do I back this thing up? 532 00:29:11,835 --> 00:29:12,115 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Mm-hmm. 533 00:29:12,345 --> 00:29:20,295 W. Curtis Preston: Um, there have been so many applications and application, 534 00:29:20,300 --> 00:29:26,655 like things that have come out since, um, You know, and, and, and also, I 535 00:29:26,655 --> 00:29:29,265 dunno about applications, but use cases. 536 00:29:29,655 --> 00:29:33,465 So, you know, first we were just backing up the OS and then people started saying, 537 00:29:33,465 --> 00:29:35,025 well, how do you restore a server? 538 00:29:35,535 --> 00:29:35,805 Right? 539 00:29:35,805 --> 00:29:38,025 And then we, you know, and then it's like, well, we're gonna 540 00:29:38,025 --> 00:29:39,465 talk about bare metal recovery. 541 00:29:39,465 --> 00:29:45,915 And, um, and um, then it was, well, we've got a way to back up databases, 542 00:29:45,915 --> 00:29:47,865 but then that wasn't good enough. 543 00:29:47,865 --> 00:29:52,605 And so we had to start looking at like agent-based backup. 544 00:29:53,490 --> 00:29:53,580 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Yep. 545 00:29:53,850 --> 00:29:56,100 W. Curtis Preston: Um, and then a then there was a big swing 546 00:29:56,100 --> 00:29:57,540 against agent base backup. 547 00:29:57,540 --> 00:29:58,950 We've talked about that a few times. 548 00:29:58,950 --> 00:30:02,790 DBA DBA versus agent based Backed up. 549 00:30:03,550 --> 00:30:04,775 Then what began like. 550 00:30:05,750 --> 00:30:07,580 10 plus years. 551 00:30:07,580 --> 00:30:12,650 The only thing that was consuming all my time was the problem of tape. 552 00:30:13,160 --> 00:30:13,670 Right. 553 00:30:14,090 --> 00:30:16,880 Um, the, the, um, 554 00:30:17,075 --> 00:30:18,365 Prasanna Malaiyandi: shining problem. 555 00:30:18,485 --> 00:30:20,795 W. Curtis Preston: shining problem and the fact that everybody in 556 00:30:20,795 --> 00:30:22,595 the world misunderstood tape. 557 00:30:22,835 --> 00:30:26,345 Everybody thought the tapes were too slow in reality, they were too 558 00:30:26,345 --> 00:30:28,715 fast, and the fact that they were treating them like they were too 559 00:30:28,715 --> 00:30:30,845 slow was making it actually worse. 560 00:30:31,265 --> 00:30:34,685 That went on for, for quite a long time, made me a lot of money. 561 00:30:35,525 --> 00:30:39,305 Um, and, you know, paid, paid the bills for a while, 562 00:30:40,025 --> 00:30:42,636 Prasanna Malaiyandi: I'm sure you dove into virtualization, right? 563 00:30:42,705 --> 00:30:45,195 Things had to be done differently, right? 564 00:30:45,285 --> 00:30:49,190 And so I know on the podcast just the other day, we were 565 00:30:49,190 --> 00:30:50,830 just talking about V C B, right? 566 00:30:51,545 --> 00:30:52,565 W. Curtis Preston: yeah, yeah, yeah. 567 00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:53,600 Prasanna Malaiyandi: And those sort of 568 00:30:53,615 --> 00:30:53,735 W. Curtis Preston: the. 569 00:30:55,265 --> 00:30:59,825 For me personally, I got virtualization. 570 00:30:59,945 --> 00:31:04,175 Like, like it, it just, I was like, this is amazing. 571 00:31:04,745 --> 00:31:05,225 Right? 572 00:31:05,825 --> 00:31:09,605 Um, and I also got that it completely broke backups. 573 00:31:10,415 --> 00:31:15,155 And again, that was another thing where you just like, if you, 574 00:31:15,155 --> 00:31:16,625 all you care about is backups. 575 00:31:17,255 --> 00:31:22,355 You worked and you figured out before, before, um, 576 00:31:22,820 --> 00:31:25,020 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Vendors offered solutions, right, to 577 00:31:25,025 --> 00:31:25,475 W. Curtis Preston: Yes. 578 00:31:25,475 --> 00:31:28,475 , I was working with customers where it's like, I don't want to go 579 00:31:28,475 --> 00:31:31,615 change my whole backup product, just cuz I started using VMware. 580 00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:32,770 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Mm-hmm. 581 00:31:32,935 --> 00:31:36,626 W. Curtis Preston: um, you know, Veeam may be a great product, but I, I don't 582 00:31:36,631 --> 00:31:40,015 want to use, I don't want to use one product for my virtualization and 583 00:31:40,015 --> 00:31:42,145 another product for my servers, right? 584 00:31:42,505 --> 00:31:44,995 That, and by the way, that has been one of my mantras, right, 585 00:31:44,995 --> 00:31:47,005 is simplicity whenever possible. 586 00:31:47,395 --> 00:31:52,015 I'd much rather buy one product that's decent in everything than 587 00:31:52,015 --> 00:31:55,285 to buy three products that are great at three things, right? 588 00:31:55,525 --> 00:32:01,015 Um, and especially if you, if you can meet your requirements with the one product. 589 00:32:02,020 --> 00:32:03,800 . I would do that any day of the week. 590 00:32:03,900 --> 00:32:07,800 So we were, we would do things, it's about adapting, right? 591 00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:12,240 So we would do things like, Well, we, we went to monthly full backups 592 00:32:12,240 --> 00:32:13,530 instead of weekly full backups. 593 00:32:13,530 --> 00:32:19,650 We went to, uh, a rolling month schedule so that you were never doing, um, 594 00:32:19,980 --> 00:32:25,865 uh, and also with VMware you had a lot of work to make sure you weren't 595 00:32:25,870 --> 00:32:30,845 doing two fulls on the same client, I'm sorry, a VM that was on the same 596 00:32:30,845 --> 00:32:33,695 virtualization server at the same time, cuz that would just kill the box. 597 00:32:34,445 --> 00:32:36,275 We did crazy stuff like that. 598 00:32:36,305 --> 00:32:37,475 That was a lot of work. 599 00:32:38,330 --> 00:32:38,495 , right. 600 00:32:38,705 --> 00:32:41,315 But it was easy for me to grok, right? 601 00:32:41,315 --> 00:32:45,605 It was like, I understand the problem, the solutions are complicated and just a 602 00:32:45,605 --> 00:32:47,585 lot of work, but I understand the problem. 603 00:32:47,855 --> 00:32:50,375 And then what happened? 604 00:32:51,785 --> 00:32:53,165 Prasanna Malaiyandi: I was gonna say apps and VMs 605 00:32:53,205 --> 00:32:58,905 . W. Curtis Preston: But apps, again, apps were easy to groc, right? 606 00:32:58,905 --> 00:33:06,225 It's like, I either, I, I basically, a new app is relatively easy to 607 00:33:06,225 --> 00:33:08,025 handle from a backup perspective. 608 00:33:08,235 --> 00:33:11,925 You're either gonna do a dump it, a sweep, you're gonna shut it down, or 609 00:33:11,925 --> 00:33:15,975 there's gonna be an agent, or there's gonna be some way, like with Oracle to 610 00:33:15,975 --> 00:33:17,745 put it in hot backup modem backup live. 611 00:33:17,750 --> 00:33:19,935 It's not, that's not that hard. 612 00:33:20,565 --> 00:33:22,935 Um, the. 613 00:33:23,685 --> 00:33:28,655 But like, when you start doing something crazy like the cloud, 614 00:33:29,060 --> 00:33:29,480 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Yep. 615 00:33:29,990 --> 00:33:32,540 W. Curtis Preston: that's when, and then, and we'll then we'll 616 00:33:32,540 --> 00:33:34,610 talk about containers, right? 617 00:33:34,610 --> 00:33:38,120 When you start basically saying, you know what, we're not gonna 618 00:33:38,125 --> 00:33:41,840 have, we're not gonna have computers anymore, we're not gonna have servers. 619 00:33:42,110 --> 00:33:42,800 We're gonna do this. 620 00:33:42,800 --> 00:33:44,840 I remember the first time I heard serverless, I was 621 00:33:44,845 --> 00:33:46,220 like, what the hell is that? 622 00:33:46,530 --> 00:33:47,090 Right? 623 00:33:47,420 --> 00:33:50,000 And they're like, well, well, there's this server, 624 00:33:50,795 --> 00:33:51,185 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Yeah. 625 00:33:51,755 --> 00:33:52,325 It's just 626 00:33:52,550 --> 00:33:54,050 W. Curtis Preston: Serverless always starts with a server. 627 00:33:54,530 --> 00:33:54,920 What's that? 628 00:33:54,950 --> 00:33:56,090 It's just not your server. 629 00:33:56,315 --> 00:33:56,705 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Yeah. 630 00:33:56,735 --> 00:33:58,805 It's not your server and you're not managing right. 631 00:33:58,805 --> 00:34:00,575 You're just running code and you're good to go. 632 00:34:00,785 --> 00:34:01,955 But I think you're right though. 633 00:34:01,955 --> 00:34:07,985 It's even for me, like going from on-premises technology to thinking 634 00:34:07,985 --> 00:34:09,575 about the cloud, it's like. 635 00:34:10,430 --> 00:34:11,510 , your mind blows up, right? 636 00:34:11,540 --> 00:34:15,830 Just the complexity, all the different cases, but also all the 637 00:34:15,830 --> 00:34:18,830 cool things you can now start to do once you're running in the cloud. 638 00:34:19,885 --> 00:34:22,325 W. Curtis Preston: Uh, it's funny when you say that the first thing that 639 00:34:22,325 --> 00:34:25,955 happens in my mind is all the cool ways that you can create data that 640 00:34:25,955 --> 00:34:27,365 I don't know how we're gonna back up 641 00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:29,270 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Yep. 642 00:34:29,375 --> 00:34:29,795 W. Curtis Preston: right? 643 00:34:29,855 --> 00:34:35,255 Because it's c so well let, let ask, see what you think about this. 644 00:34:35,495 --> 00:34:40,685 Most people that go into the cloud, as I make quotes in the air, they're 645 00:34:40,685 --> 00:34:42,035 just doing lifting and shift. 646 00:34:44,570 --> 00:34:47,450 would you say most people More than half? 647 00:34:47,675 --> 00:34:48,995 Prasanna Malaiyandi: I would say more than half. 648 00:34:49,055 --> 00:34:55,565 And I would also say that those early customers who started adopting cloud very 649 00:34:55,640 --> 00:34:56,660 W. Curtis Preston: It was 90% 650 00:34:57,035 --> 00:34:59,525 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Yeah, well it was 90% and the other thing is 651 00:34:59,675 --> 00:35:01,295 that was all shadow IT back then. 652 00:35:01,685 --> 00:35:02,045 Right? 653 00:35:02,045 --> 00:35:06,215 You didn't have the central IT folks managing the IT and 654 00:35:06,215 --> 00:35:07,265 the cloud infrastructures. 655 00:35:07,295 --> 00:35:09,845 It was a department being like, Hey, I gotta get this project done. 656 00:35:10,265 --> 00:35:13,025 I can't go to it because it's gonna take 'em a year to procure 657 00:35:13,025 --> 00:35:14,435 the budget to go through things. 658 00:35:14,675 --> 00:35:18,485 Let me swipe my credit card and spin up some resources on the cloud and get going. 659 00:35:18,695 --> 00:35:21,725 Going back to your point, right, it's like all those places in the cloud, 660 00:35:21,725 --> 00:35:23,555 that data may exist and how do you 661 00:35:23,555 --> 00:35:23,765 back. 662 00:35:25,490 --> 00:35:32,060 W. Curtis Preston: And that's, for me been my big complaint with the cloud, right? 663 00:35:32,150 --> 00:35:33,410 I mean, I, I love the cloud. 664 00:35:34,310 --> 00:35:37,640 I mean, it's, it's so, it's like, you know, how do you hate virtualization? 665 00:35:37,645 --> 00:35:37,940 Right? 666 00:35:38,240 --> 00:35:39,290 How do you hate the cloud? 667 00:35:39,800 --> 00:35:47,090 I do think it's, um, a little oversold overbought, right? 668 00:35:47,095 --> 00:35:49,430 People think, oh, I'm gonna go to the cloud cuz it's cheaper. 669 00:35:51,160 --> 00:35:57,110 It, it could be depending on how you use it, but it most likely won't be right. 670 00:35:57,260 --> 00:35:58,100 Um, 671 00:35:58,175 --> 00:35:59,975 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Have you seen the recent article bought article? 672 00:36:00,195 --> 00:36:05,325 There's, uh, recently there was a tweet by the company that sells base camp. 673 00:36:06,585 --> 00:36:11,685 Uh, and they basically looked at their AW s bill, broke it down, compute 674 00:36:11,685 --> 00:36:16,185 storage, and then they made a comparison to what if we just ran it on premises? 675 00:36:17,265 --> 00:36:21,015 And so that's what they're starting to do now, is how can we now shift 676 00:36:21,405 --> 00:36:24,225 back to premises because it's cheaper. 677 00:36:26,280 --> 00:36:26,760 W. Curtis Preston: Yeah. 678 00:36:26,760 --> 00:36:32,100 And maybe it is, maybe it depends on how you use the cloud, right? 679 00:36:33,490 --> 00:36:38,320 If you refactor and you look at each, you know, if you do what 680 00:36:38,325 --> 00:36:39,400 Drew, by the way, we didn't 681 00:36:39,445 --> 00:36:40,045 Prasanna Malaiyandi: I, we did. 682 00:36:40,045 --> 00:36:41,005 I was just, yeah. 683 00:36:41,545 --> 00:36:42,905 W. Curtis Preston: We're gonna have to fire the new 684 00:36:43,105 --> 00:36:43,345 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Yeah. 685 00:36:44,515 --> 00:36:49,015 .So since we are talking about the cloud and since Curtis just brought up the name, 686 00:36:49,315 --> 00:36:51,565 uh, we both work for different companies. 687 00:36:51,570 --> 00:36:52,675 Curtis works for Druva. 688 00:36:52,680 --> 00:36:53,545 I work for Zoom. 689 00:36:53,785 --> 00:36:55,975 This is not a podcast of either company. 690 00:36:56,215 --> 00:36:59,425 The opinions that you hear are our owned also. 691 00:37:00,190 --> 00:37:04,900 If you like what you hear and you wanna come join us, please reach out, um, 692 00:37:04,930 --> 00:37:11,500 at WC Preston or w Curtis Preston at gmail and join in the conversation. 693 00:37:11,500 --> 00:37:12,760 We love to have guests. 694 00:37:13,060 --> 00:37:13,870 We're friendly. 695 00:37:13,870 --> 00:37:18,370 I think, uh, people seem to want to come back every once in a while, but 696 00:37:18,370 --> 00:37:21,730 yeah, come join in if you think we're totally wrong or you wanna provide 697 00:37:21,730 --> 00:37:23,950 your thoughts, opinions, let us know. 698 00:37:24,400 --> 00:37:29,200 And finally, make sure to rate us@ratethispodcast.com slash. 699 00:37:30,040 --> 00:37:31,420 W. Curtis Preston: Wonderful job persona. 700 00:37:32,425 --> 00:37:32,935 Prasanna Malaiyandi: And leave a 701 00:37:32,935 --> 00:37:33,625 comment. 702 00:37:33,805 --> 00:37:35,215 Leave some, Leave some, notes. 703 00:37:35,215 --> 00:37:37,855 Because Curtis, love Curtis and I love to read the comments. 704 00:37:38,245 --> 00:37:43,615 So going back, we were talking about the cloud and how, uh, protecting 705 00:37:43,615 --> 00:37:48,595 it and spinning it up and also about the costs and re uh, bringing. 706 00:37:49,230 --> 00:37:49,650 W. Curtis Preston: Yes. 707 00:37:49,655 --> 00:37:49,780 Yeah. 708 00:37:49,780 --> 00:37:54,130 So, so for me, the only thing I care ever. 709 00:37:55,075 --> 00:37:55,450 . Okay. 710 00:37:55,540 --> 00:37:58,600 Literally the only thing I care about is are we getting this on tape? 711 00:37:58,600 --> 00:38:01,150 That's, that's, it's an old phrase that Right. 712 00:38:01,540 --> 00:38:03,460 Are, you know, are we backing this stuff up? 713 00:38:03,550 --> 00:38:03,970 Right. 714 00:38:04,600 --> 00:38:11,500 And when I look at the typical usage of the cloud, two things bug me. 715 00:38:11,500 --> 00:38:14,230 One is most everybody's doing it wrong, right? 716 00:38:14,740 --> 00:38:18,190 They're just, they're just, they're just renting VMs is, is all they're doing. 717 00:38:18,550 --> 00:38:20,410 And if that's all you're doing, you're doing it wrong. 718 00:38:21,010 --> 00:38:22,720 Um, yeah. 719 00:38:22,720 --> 00:38:23,320 Anyway. 720 00:38:24,790 --> 00:38:29,230 The second is that the, the other guys . Okay. 721 00:38:29,770 --> 00:38:31,360 The other guys are doing it great. 722 00:38:31,360 --> 00:38:33,670 They're just, they're using this and they're using the serverless. 723 00:38:33,675 --> 00:38:39,670 This and the, you know, um, they're using Pass and SAS and ias and um, 724 00:38:39,850 --> 00:38:46,845 and they're using things like r ds, DynamoDB, um, where they're creating data. 725 00:38:47,715 --> 00:38:52,965 That data is only stored in a server slash app that you do not own. 726 00:38:54,780 --> 00:38:55,950 and they're not backing it up 727 00:38:57,660 --> 00:38:59,450 Prasanna Malaiyandi: By default, they're not packing it up. 728 00:38:59,940 --> 00:39:01,590 W. Curtis Preston: by default, they're not backing it up. 729 00:39:02,170 --> 00:39:03,420 Some of the apps. 730 00:39:04,245 --> 00:39:06,315 By default actually do back up. 731 00:39:06,825 --> 00:39:11,475 Um, I, I was doing some research and I think RDS is one of those where if 732 00:39:11,475 --> 00:39:16,305 you're using rds by default, it would create a snapshot like once a day. 733 00:39:16,515 --> 00:39:19,425 And that snapshot takes up storage in your account. 734 00:39:19,425 --> 00:39:20,115 You pay for it. 735 00:39:21,075 --> 00:39:26,895 Um, I, I think that at least that, but by default, even that default 736 00:39:27,225 --> 00:39:29,805 is in your account, in your region. 737 00:39:30,510 --> 00:39:32,580 And we know what I think about that, right? 738 00:39:33,015 --> 00:39:34,095 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Bad, bad, bad. 739 00:39:34,275 --> 00:39:38,865 Or, or it's, or it's the other thing that everyone sort of, and I know we haven't 740 00:39:38,865 --> 00:39:42,165 talked about SaaS yet, which is something we should talk about next, right? 741 00:39:42,165 --> 00:39:46,245 But a lot of people also think, Hey, if I have high availability provided 742 00:39:46,245 --> 00:39:50,505 by like AWS S three or DynamoDB, there's no need for backup, but. 743 00:39:51,020 --> 00:39:51,765 that's not true. 744 00:39:51,765 --> 00:39:58,005 Backup is used for recovering from different types of disasters, right? 745 00:39:58,005 --> 00:40:02,205 One of which is sure a data center goes down or whatever else, but there 746 00:40:02,210 --> 00:40:06,855 are other purposes as well, like user corruption, malicious activity, right? 747 00:40:06,860 --> 00:40:09,735 All these other things that you need protect against that high 748 00:40:09,735 --> 00:40:11,025 availability does not give. 749 00:40:12,540 --> 00:40:13,020 W. Curtis Preston: Right. 750 00:40:13,770 --> 00:40:19,260 Um, the, uh, yeah, high availability and things like mirroring just 751 00:40:19,260 --> 00:40:20,730 makes the corruption more efficient. 752 00:40:22,560 --> 00:40:22,980 right. 753 00:40:23,490 --> 00:40:25,730 Um, but yeah, so. 754 00:40:26,745 --> 00:40:27,915 That bugs me. 755 00:40:27,915 --> 00:40:30,645 The, you know, the, the SASS thing bugs me. 756 00:40:30,645 --> 00:40:31,845 I talk to people. 757 00:40:31,995 --> 00:40:37,185 It's just, it's just, it is the most common misconception that I 758 00:40:37,185 --> 00:40:42,975 run into in the common IT world or the current IT world, is that 759 00:40:43,245 --> 00:40:46,785 backup is part of the SaaS offering, 760 00:40:47,610 --> 00:40:51,040 Prasanna Malaiyandi: and SaaS offering Could be Microsoft 365 761 00:40:51,450 --> 00:40:52,960 or one of these other offerings. 762 00:40:53,655 --> 00:40:54,135 W. Curtis Preston: Yeah. 763 00:40:54,135 --> 00:40:58,605 Uh, and the thing is, uh, it so isn't right. 764 00:40:58,635 --> 00:41:01,155 Um, you know, and, and the thing is, you know, it could be 765 00:41:01,155 --> 00:41:03,255 something like GitHub, right? 766 00:41:03,255 --> 00:41:06,285 You need to back up your GitHub repositories or, or replicate 767 00:41:06,290 --> 00:41:07,275 them or something, right? 768 00:41:07,275 --> 00:41:08,265 You need it. 769 00:41:08,265 --> 00:41:10,935 Just what happens if GitHub just disappears tomorrow, by 770 00:41:10,935 --> 00:41:13,145 the way, that happens, right? 771 00:41:14,120 --> 00:41:15,585 That absolutely happens. 772 00:41:15,675 --> 00:41:20,055 Um, and there are storage vendors and cloud vendors that just disappear. 773 00:41:20,565 --> 00:41:23,835 I, I think the best one that I have, I don't know if you can remember the name. 774 00:41:25,155 --> 00:41:27,135 This is, uh, the storage. 775 00:41:27,435 --> 00:41:27,915 What? 776 00:41:28,065 --> 00:41:28,965 No, not that one. 777 00:41:29,020 --> 00:41:32,290 I was thinking of the cloud storage vendor that was in San Diego 778 00:41:32,290 --> 00:41:36,850 that was supposed to be like s3, but for the, for the enterprise. 779 00:41:37,870 --> 00:41:39,370 Steven Foskett worked there. 780 00:41:40,090 --> 00:41:44,770 Uh, their name's completely gone, but they decided, you know what? 781 00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:47,620 This business sucks. 782 00:41:47,980 --> 00:41:51,280 We're outta here, and they said, you guys got two 783 00:41:51,455 --> 00:41:53,095 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Oh, I remember that. 784 00:41:53,095 --> 00:41:54,775 Yes, I do remember that company. 785 00:41:54,775 --> 00:41:56,245 I don't remember the name, but yeah. 786 00:41:56,725 --> 00:41:58,585 W. Curtis Preston: Yeah, uh, yeah. 787 00:41:58,615 --> 00:41:59,035 Sorry. 788 00:41:59,035 --> 00:42:03,265 If you got like four petabytes of data here, because that was their 789 00:42:03,265 --> 00:42:08,065 thing, is they were gonna be the large storage vendor and sorry if you got 790 00:42:08,065 --> 00:42:11,845 four petabytes and you know, we only got so much bandwidth and everybody 791 00:42:11,845 --> 00:42:13,375 else is trying to get off right now. 792 00:42:13,435 --> 00:42:16,465 Luckily, someone stepped in and provided some. 793 00:42:17,125 --> 00:42:20,305 Some sort of took over and, but they could have just that stuff. 794 00:42:20,305 --> 00:42:21,355 All could have, right? 795 00:42:22,675 --> 00:42:23,785 That can happen. 796 00:42:24,385 --> 00:42:29,725 Uh, I mean, it's not gonna happen to Microsoft per se, but it could, there are. 797 00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:33,220 , I don't wanna malign them anymore than I already have recently, but there is a 798 00:42:33,220 --> 00:42:38,440 large vendor that completely decided to just abandon a current business line. 799 00:42:38,770 --> 00:42:42,280 They're not going out of business, but they're not, we're not doing that anymore. 800 00:42:42,430 --> 00:42:45,220 And the amount of notice, how much notice did their customers get? 801 00:42:45,220 --> 00:42:45,820 Persona? 802 00:42:47,050 --> 00:42:47,540 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Zero. 803 00:42:48,700 --> 00:42:49,270 W. Curtis Preston: Yeah. 804 00:42:49,540 --> 00:42:50,380 Zero. 805 00:42:50,980 --> 00:42:54,200 Sorry, we're down and we're not coming back up. 806 00:42:54,280 --> 00:42:54,700 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Yep. 807 00:42:55,810 --> 00:42:56,300 Yeah. 808 00:42:57,445 --> 00:42:58,075 W. Curtis Preston: Holy 809 00:42:58,090 --> 00:42:58,900 Prasanna Malaiyandi: feel bad for the 810 00:42:58,945 --> 00:43:01,425 W. Curtis Preston: this, I feel bad for the customers. 811 00:43:01,425 --> 00:43:02,365 I really do. 812 00:43:02,875 --> 00:43:07,135 But the but the point is, back up your stuff, man. 813 00:43:07,285 --> 00:43:08,515 It's your data. 814 00:43:08,860 --> 00:43:09,100 Prasanna Malaiyandi: yep. 815 00:43:09,910 --> 00:43:11,890 No one else is going to care about it if you don't care about. 816 00:43:13,245 --> 00:43:13,300 W. Curtis Preston: Yeah. 817 00:43:13,300 --> 00:43:17,350 So that's, as we made the transition into the cloud, that's, and that's 818 00:43:17,350 --> 00:43:23,050 continuing to be my challenge is when I see this really popular app, um, that 819 00:43:23,050 --> 00:43:28,660 creates data, you know, even if it's just configuration data, that stuff takes time. 820 00:43:28,660 --> 00:43:30,850 There's a, there's cost to that configuration data. 821 00:43:30,850 --> 00:43:31,210 Right. 822 00:43:31,630 --> 00:43:31,870 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Yep. 823 00:43:32,740 --> 00:43:37,540 W. Curtis Preston: Um, but I think the final, as I look at, you know, 824 00:43:39,010 --> 00:43:42,040 These changes that have, that I've had to adapt to over the years. 825 00:43:42,040 --> 00:43:43,660 The final one is containers. 826 00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:45,040 Now, I dunno about final. 827 00:43:45,100 --> 00:43:45,370 Okay. 828 00:43:45,370 --> 00:43:48,730 But the current, the current final one, I don't know what's after containers, 829 00:43:49,420 --> 00:43:54,790 but this idea that we're gonna have an ephemeral os as I make quotes in the air, 830 00:43:55,285 --> 00:43:58,015 Prasanna Malaiyandi: I remember talking to you the first time about containers 831 00:43:58,015 --> 00:44:00,385 and backup and you being like, oh my gosh. 832 00:44:00,505 --> 00:44:01,675 Oh my gosh. 833 00:44:02,710 --> 00:44:02,830 W. Curtis Preston: yeah. 834 00:44:02,830 --> 00:44:05,030 Cuz everything up to this point. 835 00:44:06,385 --> 00:44:06,670 , right. 836 00:44:06,940 --> 00:44:12,010 Literally everything up to this point has been either put in an 837 00:44:12,010 --> 00:44:17,290 agent or talk to an API to back up the thing, whatever the thing is. 838 00:44:17,980 --> 00:44:21,430 Now, we haven't, we, we have a thing where you can't put agents 839 00:44:22,035 --> 00:44:22,180 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Yep. 840 00:44:22,540 --> 00:44:27,760 W. Curtis Preston: and I back that up and then it didn't help that, 841 00:44:27,760 --> 00:44:33,775 the initial response from the, um, From the container community was, if 842 00:44:33,775 --> 00:44:37,165 you have persistent storage on your container, you're doing it wrong. 843 00:44:37,690 --> 00:44:38,020 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Yep. 844 00:44:38,845 --> 00:44:40,735 W. Curtis Preston: That was the initial response I got. 845 00:44:41,695 --> 00:44:42,145 Right. 846 00:44:42,655 --> 00:44:49,345 So that's the current, that's the current Charlie Foxtrot and it'll get better. 847 00:44:50,305 --> 00:44:54,055 But currently, you know, the backup solutions are few and far between. 848 00:44:54,085 --> 00:44:55,345 Druva has one of them. 849 00:44:55,675 --> 00:44:56,155 Yeah. 850 00:44:56,515 --> 00:45:01,555 But to, to go back to the question that you asked in the beginning. 851 00:45:04,240 --> 00:45:08,350 of how do you, you know, how do you keep up date, up to date? 852 00:45:08,920 --> 00:45:09,220 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Yeah. 853 00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:11,050 And how do you not freak out also? 854 00:45:11,080 --> 00:45:11,500 Right. 855 00:45:12,640 --> 00:45:12,880 W. Curtis Preston: Who? 856 00:45:12,940 --> 00:45:14,320 Who says I'm not freaking out? 857 00:45:14,830 --> 00:45:17,740 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Well, . Well, I think some people will get so 858 00:45:17,740 --> 00:45:19,660 overwhelmed sometimes, right? 859 00:45:19,660 --> 00:45:23,170 They're like, I don't even know, like how to even take that first step. 860 00:45:25,420 --> 00:45:25,910 W. Curtis Preston: Yeah. 861 00:45:25,910 --> 00:45:31,810 I mean, I would just say one is you need information. 862 00:45:33,265 --> 00:45:39,685 Right, and you need to surround yourself with information as much as you can. 863 00:45:39,745 --> 00:45:42,295 That means listening to podcasts like this one. 864 00:45:43,345 --> 00:45:45,835 Um, it means reading blogs. 865 00:45:45,835 --> 00:45:48,385 It means following Twitter feeds. 866 00:45:49,305 --> 00:45:55,750 , um, you know, it means, uh, LinkedIn is becoming my favorite, one of 867 00:45:55,750 --> 00:45:57,340 my favorite resources lately. 868 00:45:57,850 --> 00:45:58,120 Right. 869 00:45:58,120 --> 00:45:59,770 Follow people on LinkedIn. 870 00:45:59,770 --> 00:46:03,940 Find out interesting people that are active in threads, right? 871 00:46:03,990 --> 00:46:07,820 Um, don't be afraid to ask questions. 872 00:46:08,760 --> 00:46:11,550 I remember, I'll talk about Foskett again. 873 00:46:11,550 --> 00:46:12,500 Steven fos. 874 00:46:13,395 --> 00:46:15,285 Gestalt it.com. 875 00:46:15,465 --> 00:46:18,105 And I remember sit, sitting, having a lunch in the middle of 876 00:46:18,105 --> 00:46:22,545 Times Square with Stephen Foskett and going, what is the cloud? 877 00:46:23,025 --> 00:46:25,995 I've been hearing this thing , I've been hearing this. 878 00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:26,715 Hear this thing a lot. 879 00:46:26,955 --> 00:46:31,095 You gotta be, you gotta be okay asking those stupid questions, 880 00:46:32,205 --> 00:46:32,385 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Be 881 00:46:32,415 --> 00:46:32,955 W. Curtis Preston: If you're, if. 882 00:46:33,940 --> 00:46:38,350 If you're not okay doing that, you're not gonna adapt. 883 00:46:39,160 --> 00:46:39,670 Right. 884 00:46:39,880 --> 00:46:44,350 Um, if you want to go and, you know, if, if, if, if you have a little bit 885 00:46:44,350 --> 00:46:47,710 of pride, maybe you go and research. 886 00:46:47,710 --> 00:46:49,810 You do a little nowadays you got Google. 887 00:46:49,815 --> 00:46:52,270 We didn't have Google , we didn't have Google. 888 00:46:52,420 --> 00:46:53,800 Did you always have Google? 889 00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:55,150 Like how long have you been 890 00:46:55,990 --> 00:46:56,260 Okay. 891 00:46:56,260 --> 00:46:57,250 You didn't always have Google. 892 00:46:57,250 --> 00:46:57,610 Right? 893 00:46:58,060 --> 00:46:58,510 Okay. 894 00:46:59,320 --> 00:47:01,720 Back then we had CIS admin magazine. 895 00:47:01,720 --> 00:47:02,110 Damn it. 896 00:47:03,450 --> 00:47:08,550 We had CIS Admin Magazine and we had Unix Review Magazine, and 897 00:47:08,550 --> 00:47:09,930 you got those and you read those. 898 00:47:09,990 --> 00:47:12,690 That was the first, that was the first public, the first thing that ever 899 00:47:12,690 --> 00:47:14,610 published me was the CIS Admin magazine. 900 00:47:15,270 --> 00:47:19,320 Um, you, you just read a lot. 901 00:47:19,560 --> 00:47:20,790 Uh, go read it. 902 00:47:20,970 --> 00:47:21,210 Read. 903 00:47:21,215 --> 00:47:22,530 It's a great resource. 904 00:47:22,530 --> 00:47:24,240 It's also a cesspool. 905 00:47:24,570 --> 00:47:29,040 Bs, but it . There's some interesting, I was just having an interesting 906 00:47:29,045 --> 00:47:34,740 discussion with somebody over, um, you know, backing up 365. 907 00:47:35,160 --> 00:47:39,810 It just, just don't, it, it, it can be a vortex of nonsense, 908 00:47:40,260 --> 00:47:42,570 Prasanna Malaiyandi: but there's also a lot of good articles and other things you 909 00:47:42,570 --> 00:47:43,020 can find 910 00:47:43,080 --> 00:47:43,860 W. Curtis Preston: are, yeah. 911 00:47:45,290 --> 00:47:46,930 Prasanna Malaiyandi: The other thing I would also say is probably 912 00:47:46,935 --> 00:47:52,350 like go to conferences and talk to people, meet people, meet other 913 00:47:52,500 --> 00:47:53,880 W. Curtis Preston: a What's A com? 914 00:47:53,940 --> 00:47:55,080 Com com. 915 00:47:55,170 --> 00:47:55,440 What'd you 916 00:47:56,160 --> 00:47:57,870 Prasanna Malaiyandi: I've, I've heard there's this new thing 917 00:47:57,870 --> 00:48:03,690 about, that's like virtual and hybrid as well for conferences. 918 00:48:03,930 --> 00:48:05,190 right? 919 00:48:05,370 --> 00:48:06,855 W. Curtis Preston: I went to reinvent last month. 920 00:48:07,695 --> 00:48:09,225 60,000 people. 921 00:48:09,385 --> 00:48:13,675 Drew of us, sent 30 people, 20 of us went home with either the flu or covid. 922 00:48:14,185 --> 00:48:14,675 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Yeah. 923 00:48:14,785 --> 00:48:15,475 W. Curtis Preston: So much fun. 924 00:48:16,885 --> 00:48:17,485 So what was that? 925 00:48:17,605 --> 00:48:19,555 Tell me again about how great conferences are 926 00:48:19,865 --> 00:48:20,935 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Well, there, there are virtual 927 00:48:20,935 --> 00:48:22,375 conferences as well, but there's 928 00:48:22,585 --> 00:48:25,855 like resources you can go to to learn about these topics. 929 00:48:26,965 --> 00:48:27,445 W. Curtis Preston: Yeah. 930 00:48:27,535 --> 00:48:27,985 Yeah. 931 00:48:29,035 --> 00:48:35,365 Um, but yeah, I, but you, you gotta find somebody for each topic. 932 00:48:35,755 --> 00:48:40,135 Make a friend in that space, right. 933 00:48:40,845 --> 00:48:47,980 . Um, like, like you are, you are my guy for things cloud, right? 934 00:48:47,980 --> 00:48:52,030 You, you know, the tech side of the cloud much better than I do. 935 00:48:52,720 --> 00:48:56,380 And when I, you know, when I have a, when I have a question about 936 00:48:56,385 --> 00:48:58,240 something, you're, you're my guy. 937 00:48:58,690 --> 00:49:02,710 You need that for everything, right? 938 00:49:02,710 --> 00:49:05,860 I've got some people for security, I've got some people for networking. 939 00:49:06,500 --> 00:49:07,700 Get those people. 940 00:49:08,780 --> 00:49:11,180 And, and, and LinkedIn I think is a great Twitter. 941 00:49:12,080 --> 00:49:14,930 Twitter used to be where you could find this kind of thing. 942 00:49:14,930 --> 00:49:15,320 I don't know. 943 00:49:16,370 --> 00:49:16,700 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Yeah. 944 00:49:17,075 --> 00:49:19,025 W. Curtis Preston: LinkedIn, I think is a better way to find that person. 945 00:49:19,865 --> 00:49:24,365 Find a hashtag, see what's going on in the hashtag, follow that person, 946 00:49:24,365 --> 00:49:27,005 comment on their stuff, comment. 947 00:49:27,010 --> 00:49:29,435 Don't just like it, comment on their stuff. 948 00:49:30,005 --> 00:49:33,185 Get to know them, you know, follow them. 949 00:49:33,305 --> 00:49:38,615 Um, connect with them and they can be your resource. 950 00:49:38,765 --> 00:49:39,215 Right. 951 00:49:39,320 --> 00:49:43,190 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Or the other thing I would also say is if you're working in 952 00:49:43,190 --> 00:49:47,420 an organization or a company, right, and there are groups who are looking at some 953 00:49:47,420 --> 00:49:51,410 of this tech, just kind of poke them, ping them, ask them questions, right? 954 00:49:51,650 --> 00:49:55,490 Provide your expertise and say backup or disaster recovery. 955 00:49:55,975 --> 00:49:56,065 , right. 956 00:49:56,065 --> 00:50:00,235 Ask the questions you normally would do for the other workloads and sort 957 00:50:00,235 --> 00:50:02,755 of get them to start thinking because, hey, maybe they haven't started 958 00:50:02,755 --> 00:50:06,175 to think about what do I do for backup with containers, or how do I 959 00:50:06,455 --> 00:50:06,815 W. Curtis Preston: What do you mean? 960 00:50:06,815 --> 00:50:07,745 Maybe there? 961 00:50:07,835 --> 00:50:11,195 They have absolutely not thought about backup 962 00:50:11,625 --> 00:50:12,115 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Yeah. 963 00:50:13,145 --> 00:50:16,295 W. Curtis Preston: There have been so many new technologies 964 00:50:16,295 --> 00:50:20,735 and new ways of doing things and backup has never been discussed. 965 00:50:20,735 --> 00:50:24,695 Like it's always been me raising my hand in the meeting 966 00:50:24,695 --> 00:50:26,315 going, oh, I'm just curious. 967 00:50:26,315 --> 00:50:29,435 Like, you know, um, yeah. 968 00:50:31,715 --> 00:50:36,575 Um, but yeah, you, you've got to continually adapt there. 969 00:50:36,605 --> 00:50:38,135 There are some things. 970 00:50:38,930 --> 00:50:43,250 You can develop mantras over your ti over your time, right? 971 00:50:43,790 --> 00:50:48,410 You know, um, I, I, you know, I live in this crazy world where everything 972 00:50:48,410 --> 00:50:49,820 of value needs to be backed up. 973 00:50:49,820 --> 00:50:52,310 I don't give a crap what you think, right? 974 00:50:52,315 --> 00:50:56,120 If your data is, if your data is valuable enough to create in the first place, 975 00:50:56,120 --> 00:50:57,590 and it's valuable enough to back up. 976 00:50:58,775 --> 00:51:04,475 Um, and I do believe strongly and at least the 3 21 rule, if what you're 977 00:51:04,475 --> 00:51:10,505 doing for data protection doesn't meet the 3 21 rule, then it's not backup. 978 00:51:11,195 --> 00:51:12,305 By my definition. 979 00:51:12,305 --> 00:51:13,715 So everything needs to be backed up. 980 00:51:13,955 --> 00:51:17,645 It needs to be backed up and, and if it's not 3 21, then it's not back up. 981 00:51:17,645 --> 00:51:19,295 There are things you can do past that. 982 00:51:19,595 --> 00:51:20,585 I don't disagree. 983 00:51:20,765 --> 00:51:25,295 You know, like the veeam's thing of the 3, 2, 110, I don't disagree with that. 984 00:51:25,715 --> 00:51:28,565 I'm just saying gotta have at least the 3 21. 985 00:51:28,655 --> 00:51:29,015 Right. 986 00:51:29,015 --> 00:51:30,095 And that's why I poke it. 987 00:51:30,095 --> 00:51:32,105 Things like 365 and Salesforce and stuff. 988 00:51:32,105 --> 00:51:36,915 Cuz they don't, they, they got the three, that's all they got they, 989 00:51:36,920 --> 00:51:38,555 they got no, they got no two, no one. 990 00:51:39,320 --> 00:51:39,890 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Crazy. 991 00:51:39,890 --> 00:51:40,310 Crazy. 992 00:51:41,330 --> 00:51:43,250 So years to 30. 993 00:51:44,000 --> 00:51:45,290 30 down, 30. 994 00:51:45,295 --> 00:51:46,490 More to go. 995 00:51:50,360 --> 00:51:52,250 W. Curtis Preston: Uh, let's see. 996 00:51:52,730 --> 00:51:58,820 I, you know, it's funny, I didn't think of, I will be the almost, I'll be a 997 00:51:58,820 --> 00:52:01,190 little older than my mother-in-law if I. 998 00:52:02,225 --> 00:52:03,905 And she seems really old. 999 00:52:04,115 --> 00:52:05,915 I love her, but she seems really old. 1000 00:52:06,335 --> 00:52:11,855 I don't, yeah, I don't, I don't see me making it to 87. 1001 00:52:11,855 --> 00:52:15,515 But anyway, , by the way, I just had, you know, I just had a birthday, right? 1002 00:52:15,520 --> 00:52:16,655 So I just had a birthday. 1003 00:52:16,655 --> 00:52:22,415 So I'm now 57, even if I look much older due to the receding hairline and all 1004 00:52:22,415 --> 00:52:25,175 the gray, >uh, and the very gray beard. 1005 00:52:25,925 --> 00:52:29,405 Um, it's a, it's a mountain of saw with a little bit of pepper. 1006 00:52:31,070 --> 00:52:32,120 Prasanna Malaiyandi: It's all good, 1007 00:52:32,900 --> 00:52:36,200 W. Curtis Preston: yeah, I don't know about 30, 30 years to go, but 1008 00:52:36,500 --> 00:52:38,120 I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. 1009 00:52:38,600 --> 00:52:40,820 Prasanna Malaiyandi: Well, thanks for sharing your experience 1010 00:52:40,820 --> 00:52:42,350 and advice for our listeners. 1011 00:52:43,580 --> 00:52:44,150 W. Curtis Preston: Thanks. 1012 00:52:44,240 --> 00:52:44,930 Anytime. 1013 00:52:46,130 --> 00:52:50,690 Prasanna Malaiyandi: And to our listeners, thanks for listening and please remember 1014 00:52:50,690 --> 00:52:53,420 to subscribe so you can restore it all.