Introduction
Since I started my career back in 2000 in the data protection industry, I’ve had one constant battle. Over and over again. Across customers, technologies, and architectures.
Explaining that snapshots are not backups
For more than two decades, that sentence came out of my mouth almost automatically. Any time a customer said, “We’re good, we have snapshots,” my response was immediate:
No — snapshots are not backups.
And for most of my career, that was absolutely true.
Snapshots were fast. Convenient. Close to the data. But they were tightly coupled to the primary storage system. They lacked isolation, long-term resilience, and context. They were great for operational recovery, but risky when treated as a full protection strategy.
That day has arrived. The debate is now over. Snapshots can also be a backup — when done the right way.
And the reason I can say that today is because of how snapshots and backups are finally being brought together through the integration between Pure Storage and Rubrik.
Why “Snapshots Are Not Backups” Was Always the Right Answer (Until Now)
Historically, snapshots failed the backup test for some very real technical reasons.
Most storage snapshots rely on copy-on-write (CoW) or redirect-on-write (RoW) mechanisms. They are metadata pointers to blocks living on the same storage system. That’s what makes them efficient — and also what makes them dangerous when used alone.
If bad data lands on production, snapshots preserve it faithfully. If corruption spreads, snapshots capture it cleanly. If replication is enabled, the corruption replicates quickly and efficiently.
From a storage health perspective, everything looks perfect. From a recovery perspective, you’re already out of good options.
What Backups Always Did Better
Backups introduced time and distance.
They decoupled recovery from the primary storage platform. They provided immutability, longer retention, and the ability to recover even when the source system itself was compromised.
But backups also had tradeoffs:
• Slower restore times
• Higher operational overhead
• Less visibility into real-time storage behavior
So most enterprises ended up running both snapshots and backups — but in silos.
Where the Pure Storage + Rubrik Integration Changes Things
The value of this integration isn’t about adding another dashboard. It’s about correlating snapshot intelligence with backup context.
When those two perspectives are connected, snapshots stop being “just fast rollback points” and start becoming trusted recovery candidates.
If you want to go deeper into the mechanics, here’s a good background read: https://bit.ly/4qD6wgg
Final Thought
For more than 20 years, I told customers that snapshots are not backups. And for most of that time, I was right.
Today, I can finally say something different — without hesitation.
When snapshots are combined with proper backup intelligence and visibility, they can be a backup.
The debate is finally over.
Contributed by
Boomchi Kumar
Director Security Consulting
