For over twenty years, companies have protected their data with backups. Backups address accidental loss, but not cyberattacks, ransomware, silent corruption, or current audit requirements.
The limitations of traditional backup systems
Traditional backup schedules typically include:
- a daily backup;
- a weekly backup;
- retention spanning several months.
This model leaves gaps when dealing with:
- cyberattacks;
- ransomware;
- insider threats;
- massive human error;
- silent corruption.
The challenge is no longer simply about restoration. The challenge is restoring the exact correct state.
When corruption is discovered several weeks after its onset, it becomes extremely difficult to determine which backup remains valid.
The temporal approach
Temporal storage is based on a different philosophy: every modification becomes a historised event, every version is preserved, and every system state can be replayed.
The objective is no longer:
Do we have a backup?
but rather:
What was the exact state of the data at 14:32 on 18 March?
This capability completely transforms the way incidents are managed.
Business benefits
Reduced recovery time: teams immediately retrieve the desired restoration point.
Incident analysis: it becomes possible to understand:
- who made the change;
- when;
- what ;
- in what order.
Compliance: auditors are increasingly demanding historical evidence. Temporal retention naturally provides these elements.
KARL and documentary memory
KARL applies this logic directly to S3 storage. Every object can be observed through its complete history. Organisations thus possess a genuine documentary memory.
To go further
To go further:
Read the Challenges article on KARL →