Veritas™ Instant GRT (Instant Granular Recovery Technology) is a new feature that will greatly reduce your backup time and improve flexibility and performance when using the “Quick catalog" option for VMware and Hyper-V hosts and VMs.
Instead of the conventional full cataloging option that may consume a lot of time when running a large backup job, the Instant GRT, or quick catalog option, job will finish up much faster, while at the same time providing the flexibility to complete an item level restore after the backup completes.
This functionality already exists for RAWS backup for applications like Exchange and SharePoint but not for the Virtual Agents. Feature Pack 4 has added this feature for Virtual Agents also.
The Quick Catalog option can provide huge relief to administrators who can now see the backup job completing quickly, rather than worrying overnight about how long the backup job will take to finish up. This is possible because this option removes the forceful need of deep cataloging for VMware and Hyper-V backups. Remember, you still get the great benefit of an item-level restore immediately after the backup finishes.
Our in-house performance tests show considerable performance improvements. More importantly our customers are reporting up to 50% improvements, and simply by reducing the catalog time in cases where there are larger VMs.
Following readings has been taken from our in-house Performance Testing
SR No | Data Size | Backup Type | Resource Type | Storage Device used | Backup Performance Gain |
1 | ~700 GB | 1 Full and 5 incremental | VMWare File and Folder GRT | Deduplication Disk Storage | 15% of Performance boost |
2 | ~300 GB | 1 Full and 5 incremental | VMWare File and Folder GRT | Disk Storage | 17% of Performance boost |
3 | ~925 GB | 1 Full and 5 incremental | Hyper-V File and Folder GRT | Disk Storage | 25% of Performance boost |
4 | ~292 GB | 1 Full and 5 incremental | Hyper-V Exchange GRT | Disk Storage | 18% of Performance boost |
5 | ~600 GB | 1 Full and 5 incremental | Hyper-V Exchange GRT | Deduplication Disk Storage | 26% of Performance boost |
Here is what our Customer says -
"....We use Backup Exec to backup multiple Hyper-V guests on multiple hosts. One being 4-node server 2012R2 cluster with about 3 TB data (40 guests). Normally, incremental backup takes about 6 hours + another 6 hours for catalog. With Instance GRT, the backup takes just about 6 hrs, without additional time needed for catalog. So the time needed for backup is actually cut in half, which is great..."
The full cataloging options are still available. Users who find that the backup window may not be an issue for them, as they might have a small backup selection list and hence can afford the time taken for full cataloging after the backups, can still select one of the full cataloging options. In fact, full catalog is the default option even in Feature pack 4.
The only limitation is that you will not be able to search an item from the backup set during restore which users tell us is not as important. However, you can still view the items that you want to restore as you go on expanding the nodes in the restore view.
Not in most cases, but based on the backup size, when doing a restore you may notice a little lag time of only a few seconds when browsing file system based backup sets to a maximum of couple of minutes for browsing Agent’s backup set in Restore view.
Here is a snapshot of the Restore view:
For most this is not an issue because you do not restore often, whereas your backups might be running on a daily or even hourly basis. This can reduce your backup times by hours each day when taking advantage of this new feature. Moreover, the item level restore (GRT restore) facility is still available right after the backup.
It is at the same location in UI, it is just that we have elaborated the text for easy understanding.
It would look like this -
The second option is the default option as was in earlier releases. However, to get the benefit of the instant GRT feature for VMware and Hyper-V, you have to select the first option (Quick Catalog) while configuring a new backup job.
No, the default option is still the second option as shown in the above screen.
Job properties will not change automatically, irrespective of whether it is a patch upgrade or a version-to-version upgrade. If you wish to use the “Quick Catalog” you will need to change the default option.
No change. It is the same as in earlier releases.
Backup Exec supports this feature for “Backup To Disk” (aka B2D) and for a “Dedup device” configured on the Backup Exec server.
For a tape device, you need to do a full catalog to achieve a GRT restore. Delayed cataloging for VMware and Hyper-V would not be supposed in that scenario.
No.
There are no new requirements for this feature.
All applications/Hyper-V/ESX versions are supported.
Refer to Backup Exec 15 FP4 Software Compatibility List (SCL) for more information.
https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/article.000024530
Refer to the Technote TECH49563 for the list of ports.
We hope you find this new Instant GRT feature of great value and invite you to share your feedback once you’ve had an opportunity to use it.
We thank you our customer and partners for providing valuable feedback during the development cycle. If you have any addition thoughts or constructive comments please let us know.
Thank you,
Backup and Recovery Team
You must be a registered user to add a comment. If you've already registered, sign in. Otherwise, register and sign in.