Air-Gapped Backup
                     Air Gapped Backup
www.stonefly.com/resources/what-are-air-gapped-backups
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Contact 
us
Address:
2865 Grove Way
Castro Valley, CA 94546 USA
Phone no.: Email:
✉
☎ 510-265-1616 [email protected]
Website:
www.stonefly.com/veeam-cloud-connect-backup-to-azure