Air-gapping is an advanced data protection feature used to isolate and detach target storage volumes from unsecure networks, production environments, and host platforms.

1. www.stonefly.com/resources/what-are-air-gapped-backups

2. What is Air-Gapping?
Air-gapping is an advanced data protection feature used to
isolate and detach target storage volumes from unsecure
networks, production environments, and host platforms.
Depending on the software and vendor, the ability to turn-
on and turn-off air-gap volumes can be manual or
automatic via user-defined policies. Additionally, also
dependent on the vendor, air-gap volumes can be
provisioned on-premises and/or in the cloud.

3. How Air-Gapped Backups
Work
Air-gapped backups leverage air-gapped target storage
volumes to store backups, snapshots, replicas, and
redundant copies of business-critical volumes. As air-
gapped volumes are turned-off and inaccessible by default,
they keep the stored data safe from any disaster that may
affect the primary production environment.

4. Air-Gapped Systems: On-
Premises & in the Cloud
How are air-gapped backups set up on-premises
Two common practices are used by storage administrators to set up
on-premises air-gapped systems:
 Offline tape arrays or secondary storage systems that are
manually attached and detached. This is an error-prone process
and not entirely secure, which is why most data security experts
advise against it.
 Leverage software-defined networking to deploy virtual target
storage repositories, on VMware, Hyper-V, KVM, or Citrix
(formerly XenServer), that can be attached or detached
automatically as per user-defined policies.

5. How are air-gapped backups set up in the
cloud
Air-gapped backups are not the same thing as redundant
data storage. Air-gapped storage provides an additional layer
of security against cyber-threats. To do so, simply creating
and storing a secondary copy is not enough.
Similar to the software-defined on-premises air-gapped
backups, air-gapped repositories in the cloud are set up on
an isolated network and are offline by default. The storage
volumes are only attached to the primary repository to store
critical data and then detached as per user-defined policies.

6. Advantage of Air-gapped
Backups
With air-gapped target volumes, organizations can
protect their mission-critical structured, unstructured,
and object workloads from threats like ransomware,
virus, failed software-upgrade and human error.
The primary function and advantage of air-gapped
repositories is to provide a storage location that uses
software-defined network to isolate itself from the
production environment. In the event of a disaster,
the data stored in air-gapped volumes remains
available; even if the production environment fails.

7. 3-2-1-1-0 Data Protection
Rule with Air-Gapped
Volumes
The 3-2-1-1-0 rule is an advanced data protection strategy
that leverages backup & DR capabilities to ensure high
availability, recoverability, and delivers near-zero
downtime.
The rule states that you need to have three different
copies of data, stored on two storage media, with one
offsite copy, and one offline copy.

8. Air-Gapping in StoneFly
Solutions: Air-Gapped Vault &
Air-Gapped Fabric
All StoneFly hyperconverged infrastructure and backup and
disaster recovery (DR) solutions offer air-gapping as a
standard feature.
StoneFly air-gapped features are available as Air-Gapped
Vault and Air-Gapped Fabric.
 Air-Gapped Vault are target storage repositories that can be set up
on-premises or in the cloud of your choice using StoneFly’s patented
storage OS (StoneFusion and SCVM).
 Air-Gapped Fabric provides seamless data management of all air-
gapped repositories deployed on-premises and/or in the cloud.

9. Air-Gapped Repositories
Air-gapped repositories consist of one
virtual storage controller connected to two
target storage repositories. One target
repository is network-facing, always
accessible and available to user-groups,
applications, etc. The second target
repository is air-gapped, detached, and
isolated.
Air-gapped repositories can be deployed on
popular hypervisors and in the cloud of your
choice. Users can define policies to
automatically turn-on and turn-off air-
gapped repositories.

10. Air-Gapped Controllers
Air-gapped controllers consist of two
virtual storage controllers connected
to one target repository each.
One pair of virtual storage controller
and target repository are network-
facing, always accessible and
available to user-groups,
applications, etc. The second pair of
virtual storage controller and target
repository are air-gapped, detached,
and isolated.

11. Contact us
Address:
2865 Grove Way
Castro Valley, CA 94546 USA
Phone no.:
☎ 510-265-1616
Email:
✉
sales@stonefly.com
Website:
www.stonefly.com/veeam-cloud-connect-backup-to-azure