At the risk of becoming overly philosophical, every once in a while it's important to take a step back from day-to-day activities and reflect on why we do the things we do. What real purpose is served? Are the original requirements still applicable or have new ones cropped up? Have new or better solutions evolved?

In storage management, there's no better candidate for this kind of scrutiny than backup. It seems that nearly everyone is evaluating new technology options, from virtual tape libraries to continuous data protection and agentless backup. While it makes sense to seek out these improvements, when a mass push to adopt new technologies occurs, I become concerned that insufficient attention and thought may be given to that most fundamental of questions: What problem are we really trying to solve?