Quick Peak at the Enhancements in NetBackup Flex Scale 3.1
Are you curious about the new NetBackup Flex Scale 3.1? Itcomes with some exciting enhancements that make managing your private and hybrid cloud data protection solution even easier.Well here's a quick peak: As with all releases of NetBackup powered appliances we continue to increase our security features. On top of CA IOT, MFA with CAT cards and audit logging, this release adds a unique and highly critical security enhancement that prevents remote users from being able to remotely perform destructive operations. We also increased the amount of automation built into our DR site, allowing you to quickly and easily get your data protection jobs back up and running, typically in less than 10 minutes. Say goodbye to different management tools for managing your backups and your data protection infrastructure. Starting in NetBackup Flex Scale 3.1 the cluster management is integrated within the NetBackup UI, so an administrator can manage everything from a single pane of glass! When it comes to deployment we have made it easy for you to validate that your environment meets the prerequisites prior to install and also to deploy quicker. We also enhanced how we do backup and recovery of Oracle very large databases (VLDB) and Hadoop, such that it takes advantage of all the resources in the cluster resulting in the highest levels of performance and space efficiency. In summary, NetBackup Flex Scale 3.1 is packed full of enhancements to further simplify management and enhance security with some additional workload-specific protection improvements. To learn more details about these and other new features check out this more detailedblog. Please feel free to post any comments or questions you have about this release and I get back to you. Thanks
The Veritas Flex Appliance and the Game of Leapfrog
It’s my firm belief that we don’t see much that is actually “new” in IT very often. Mostly what we see is either the clever application of existing technologies or the re-application of pre-existing technologies with the understanding that the tradeoffs are different. I include server virtualization and containerization in the “not new” category with both actually being quite old in terms of invention, but in more recent history, containers having more interesting applications. The reason I’m going down this path is I frequently get questions regarding the Flex appliance as to why we chose to implement with a containerized architecture instead of using a hypervisor for an HCI data protection appliance like [insert company name here]? And, are your sure there’s no hypervisor? Yes, I’m sure there’s no hypervisor in Flex, it uses containers. Fundamentally there are good applications for both, and for entirely different types of workloads, so let’s look at why chosecontainers for the Flex Appliance instead of a hypervisor. Containers has its roots in FreeBSD “jails”. Jails enabled FreeBSD clusters to be hardened and for deploying of “microservices” (to use a more modern turn of phrase) onto the systems. The big advantage here being very high levels of isolation for the microservices, each running in its own jail. Containers then versus now are fairly different. FreeBSD jails were relatively primitive compared to something like Docker, but for their time they were state of the art, and they worked quite well. Which brings us to hypervisors. VMware started largely in test/dev. About the time it was entering into production environments, we were also seeing significant uptake of widely adopted 64-bit x86 processors. Most applications were running on a single box and were 32-bit, single-threaded, single-core, and didn’t need more than 4GB of RAM. Rapidly, the default server was 4 cores and had 8GB of RAM, and those numbers were increasing quickly. The hypervisor improved the extremely poor utilization rates for many sets of applications. Today, most new applications are multi-core, multi-threaded, and RAM hungry, by design. 16-32 cores per box is normal as-is is 128+ GB of RAM, and modern applications can suck that all up effortlessly, making hypervisors less useful. Since 2004 Google has adopted running containers at scale. In fact, they were the ones who contributed back “cgroups”, a key foundational part of Linux containers and hence Docker. This is interesting because: Google values performance over convenience Google was writing multi-core, multi-threaded, “massive” apps sooner than others Google’s apps required relatively large memory footprints before others Googles infrastructure requires application fault isolation So, although virtualization existed, Google chose a lighter weight route more in line with their philosophical approach and bleeding edge needs. Essentially “leapfrogging” virtualization. Here we are today, with the Veritas Flex Applianceand containers. Containers allow us to deliver an HCI platform with “multi-application containerization” on top of “lightweight virtualization” - essentially leapfrogging HCI appliances built on a hypervisor for virtualization. A comprehensive comparison of virtualization vs. containers is beyond the scope of this blog, but I thought I would briefly touch on some differences that I think are key and that help to highlight why containers are probably the best fit for modern, hyper-converged appliances: Virtualization Containers Operating system isolation (run different kernels) Application isolation (same OS kernel) Requires emulated or “virtual hardware” and associated “PV drivers” inside guest OS Uses host’s hardware resources and drivers (in the shared kernel) Standardized “packaging” of virtual machine (mostly; variance between hypervisors) Standardized packaging requiring Docker or one of the other container technologies Optimized for groups of heterogeneous operating systems Optimized for homogeneous operating system clusters Here’s another way to look at it: Enterprise Cloud Hardware Custom/Proprietary Commodity HA Type Hardware Software SLAs Five 9s Always on Scaling Vertical Horizontal Software Decentralized Distributed Consumption Model Shared Service Self Service What you see here is a fundamentally different approach to solving what might be considered a similar problem. In a world with lots of different 32-bit operating systems running on 64-bit hardware, virtualization is a fantastic solution. In a hyper-converged appliance environment that is homogeneous and running a relatively standardized 64-bit operating systems (Linux) with 64-bit applications, only containers will do. The application services in the hyper-converged Flex Appliance are deployed, added or changed in a self-service consumption model. They’re isolated from a potential bad actor. The containers and their software services are redundant and highly available. Application services scale horizontally, on demand. One of the best party tricks of the Flex Appliance that I didn’t touch on above is that containers fundamentally change how data protection services are delivered and updated. With the Flex Appliance, gone are the days of lengthy and risky software updates and patches. Instead, quickly and safely deploy the last version in its own container in the same appliance. Put the service into production immediately or simultaneously run old and new versions until you’re satisfied with its functionality. We couldn’t do any of this with a hypervisor. And, this is why the Flex Appliance has leapfrogged other hyper-converged data protection appliances. I also refer you to this brief blogby Roger Stein for another view on Flex.
Appliance Upgrade Readiness Analyzer (AURA) and System Load
Please disregard. I posted this in the wrong forum by mistake. I have reposted in the NetBackup Appliance forum. Thanks, Jason Can you run the AURA while the system is performing backups and replications? In checking my schedules, I don't seem to have a time when one or more of each aren't running. Thanks all. JasonIDC Technology Spotlight on the Importance and Value of the Flex Appliance
Access the full IDC Technology Spotlight here: Simplifying Data Protection with Next-Generation Converged Infrastructure. KEY TAKEAWAYS Flex Appliance may be the most important product announcement by Veritas since the company split from Symantec some years ago. Flex Appliance is a new architecture designed specifically for modern data protection workloads. It also offers an important bridge back to NetBackup environments that should provide this large group of users a logical and simple path forward. Veritas is among the first major vendors to move into this rapidly emerging and growing product category. It does so with the clear advantage of a large, receptive installed base and with credibility built on its successful NetBackup appliance. Flex Appliance's microservices architecture is also built to address the diverse data protection and management needs of specific business units and applications. Thus, as a single system, it can simultaneously provide consolidated data protection operations with the ability to deliver microservices on a best-in-class basis for specific workloads. We believe that Flex Appliance may be the key to Veritas retaining its market-leading position in the data protection and recovery market. More on the Flex Appliance here:Veritas Flex ApplianceWelcome to the Veritas Flex Appliance
The Veritas Flex Appliance is a new concept in delivering enterprise data protection services. It utilizes a modern, containerized architecture to deliver a range of on-demand services including data protection and tiering to public and private clouds. Flex simplifies IT by replacing multiple, dedicated departmental servers with a single, microservices based data protection appliance. With Flex, multiple NetBackup and NetBackup CloudCatalyst microservices are configured and deployed in less than 5 minutes, and on-demand. And, Multiple NetBackup deployments (domains) can be consolidated on a single Flex appliance substantially reducing data center cost and complexity. The Flex Appliance represents a paradigm shift in high availability and SW updates. It’s not only a fully redundant hardware appliance, it’s also H/A in its and containers/services. With Flex, new versions of services are deployed in independent containers making SW patches and updates a thing of the past. Interested in learning more about Flex? Join our Veritas Appliances community and interact with the Engineering and Product Management team that developed this new architecture. Helpful Resources: Flex Appliance Webpage Flex Appliance Data Sheet Flex Appliance Solution Brief
