It seems clear today that traditional data protection methods have never truly met business needs. Sluggish media, long backup windows and high overhead are conditions you grew to accept - because those techs and performance levels were simply what was available. And if those approaches provided sub-par performance then, what can they possibly do for a modern, hybrid virtual and physical IT infrastructure? It's time for a better approach to data protection, and today you've got countless options at your fingertips.

This online book by Greg Shields, Microsoft MVP and VMware vExpert, is about data protection in the virtual and physical data center. Access it now for an in-depth look at topics spanning the business risks of traditional data protection and the business drivers and challenges of modern virtual/physical data protection. Read on to learn about modern approaches to data protection in such an environment and explore topics including:

• Establishing the shortest possible RTO and RPO
• Backups for servers
• Whole-system disaster recovery
• Minimizing storage & administrative overhead
• And much more