Frequently Asked Questions on NetBackup Accelerator Part II
Thanks to everyone who supported my earlier blog on Frequently Asked Questions on NetBackup Accelerator. I have received a number of follow up questions (as comments) in that blog and I had been answering them as time permits. Two recent questions needed some elaboration.
Copy Data Management is not a Replacement for Backup
Copy Data Management (CDM) is a very hot topic in both the backup and recovery and storage management markets today. Technology startups are coming out of stealth mode, investors are funding new ventures, and established hardware and software vendors are entering the market.Nuts and bolts in NetBackup for VMware: What is new in NetBackup 7.6?
It had been a while since I added something new to this series on Nuts and Bolts in NetBackup for VMware. The dawn of NetBackup 7.6 is here. It is one of the biggest releases in NetBackup for VMware vSphere and vCloud. This release prepares for your journey to Software Defined Data Center. Are you ready? Fasten your seat belts! First and foremost, let us put some perspective on the adoption of virtualization in data centers. Symantec and VMware have been guiding you in reaping the benefits of virtualization. It is happening in three phases. You are likely to be in one of the three phases in this exciting journey. IT Production: In this phase, you are looking save on capital expenses through server consolidation for general-purpose workloads. The key advantage here is to pool and abstract hardware resources for optimal utilization. NetBackup prepared you for this phase since NetBackup 6.5 in 2007, the very first official release of NetBackup with VMware specific features. VMworld judges awarded NetBackup with Best of VMworld in Data Protection and Business Continuity category. NetBackup was the first product to ever get this recognition. NetBackup is still the only product that has won or became the finalist in that category the most number of times. Business Production: This phase is about virtualizing business critical applications and reducing operational expenses. Automation is the mantra at this stage. NetBackup prepared you for this phase since NetBackup 7.1/NetBackup 5220 release in 2011-12. Symantec V-Ray, VMware Intelligent Policies, SAN based offhost backups and integrated VMware Ready backup appliances mitigated the operational costs of virtualized workloads through simplification and automation. NetBackup 5220 and Symantec V-Ray got the attention from both VMworld and Microsoft TechEd judges bagging several awards. Software Defined Data Centers: This is the nirvana for virtualization where compute, network and storage is virtualized and managed as a service model. This phase is all about agility and efficiency for data centers. Now NetBackup 7.6 is preparing you for SDDC in 2013-14. So how exactly is NetBackup 7.6 preparing for this third phase in virtualization so as to reach software defined data centers? Let me give you an overview here. You are zero miles away from these features once you enter the 7.6 freeway to Software Defined Data Center NetBackup Accelerator for VMware workloads: Super fast backups for workloads in VMware vSphere and vCloud are here! NetBackup Accelerator for VMware combines three key technologies to deliver fast and resource efficient backups for virtual machines and applications. NetBackup Replication Director for VMware workloads: Storage array level snapshots and replicas can meet high RPO/RTO required for business critical workloads. However the lack of content awareness limits their use cases. NetBackup Replication Director for VMware vSphere and vCloud workloads enables you to make use of storage level snapshots and replicas without losing end-to-end content visibility, granular recoverability and data life cycle manageability. NetBackup Instant Recovery for VMware: This capability enables you to bring up enterprise grade virtual machines and workloads right from the backup storage even before restoring data back to production storage. NetBackup for VMware vCloud: NetBackup 7.6 brings unmatched support for VMware vCloud Suite, starting with end-to-end support for vCloud Director based environments. As you guys know, vCloud Director is the current foundation for building an SDDC for VMware customers. You get to protect the “DNA” of such SDDCs through NetBackup 7.6. Almost all features in NetBackup for VMware vSphere now seamlessly work for vCloud Director based environments. NetBackup Blue Sky Recovery: NetBackup now automates the migration and disaster recovery of physical machines into virtual machines in VMware vSphere and vCloud environments from the backups. NetBackup Auto Image Replication works in conjunction with this capability to take systems anytime to remote locations or to the cloud. This feature is designed to accelerate your journey to virtualization. Well, this is just an overview. We will get into the nuts and bolts of each of these features in upcoming blogs in this series. The first one in this series is already live. Here is the blog on technical deep dive into NetBackup Accelerator for VMware. Got a question NetBackup 7.6 for VMware features? Ask me using the comments section below. I shall answer them directly or through subsequent blogs. We have a lot to talk about in NetBackup 7.6! Related blogs: Eliminating CBT penalty with NetBackup Accelerator Earlier blogs in Nuts and bolts seriesNetBackup: The true scale-out backup solution for VMware vSphere workloads on Nutanix
Nutanix is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution where each node is a self-sufficient set of compute and storage resources to run workloads. Four Nutanix nodes form a Nutanix Block. Multiple Nutanix Blocks can be acquired for pooling compute and storage. Nutanix follows ‘shared nothing’ architecture for storage.NetBackup Accelerator questions the value of storage-based snapshot integration from Competitor ‘C’
Data protection is to meet recovery point objectives (RPOs) and recovery time objectives (RTOs) of an organization’s information. Traditional wisdom states that mission critical applications require data protection methods delivering superior RPO (the less is the amount of data lost during recovery) and RTO (the faster to recover). A data protection solution may provide one of more methods to deliver different tiers of RPOs and RTOs. In general, methods for establishing RPOs and RTOs improve in the following order… Streaming backups < storage snapshots < continuous data protection This is the story of a vendor promoting themselves as the advocates of storage snapshots. Symantec’s social media policy teaches me to be discreet and respectful of the competition. Hence let me refer to this vendor as Competitor ‘C’. This Competitor ‘C’ had been scoring brownie points from some leading analysts by telling the story of storage snapshot based data protection. The story is primarily enhanced by a broad list of storage vendors they are currently supporting for storage-based snapshot management. NetBackup had been supporting storage snapshots for over a decade. It had been available since the release of NetBackup 4.0V when ServerFree Agent and Array Integration Option (later absorbed into NetBackup Snapshot Client) were introduced. The second generation of storage snapshot management started with NetBackup 7.5 when NetBackup Replication Director was brought to the market. Obviously, we position NetBackup Replication Director to protect environments requiring superior RPOs and RTOs. Recently Symantec commissioned Principled Technologies to put NetBackup and three other competitors to the test. The goal was to evaluate all four backup solutions for scalability and performance in meeting RPOs and RTOs. The first official report for NetBackup vs. Competitor ‘C’ for the battle of kingdom for scalability and performance is already published here. NetBackup Replication Director outperforms the storage snapshot solution from Competitor ‘C’ by a wide margin. While this is great news for us, we were rewarded with even better, somewhat earthshaking news! Are you ready? Let us consider a VMware vSphere environment with 1000 virtual machines. 400 of those virtual machines are hot with business critical applications like Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft SharePoint running. Principled Technologies is simulating real world workloads by loading these applications with programs designed to induce heavy activity. The remaining 600 virtual machines are hosting web applications with programs simulating real world web traffic. We want to create application consistent recovery points for the entire virtual environment. Let me list the results and some key observations. NetBackup Accelerator questions Storage Snapshots from Competitor 'C' Storage snapshots managed by Competitor ‘C’ Storage snapshots managed by NetBackup Replication Director NetBackup Accelerator based streaming backup Time required for backup (The best RPO possible for the environment) 1000 VMs in 2 hours 50 minutes 21 seconds 1000 VMs in just 38 minutes and 22 seconds 1000 VMs in 2 hours 51 minutes 33 seconds Compatibility Storage array vendor dependent snapshot Storage array vendor dependent snapshot Works with any production storage including DAS. NAS, SAN and converged infrastructure Implementation Requires professional services Professional services not required, but storage array knowledge recommended Single Click on backup policy user interface! Maintainance cost Training recommended. Always make sure to verify the compatibility of storage array, array firmware, array management software, backup software plugin etc. before implementing changes Training recommended. Always make sure to verify the compatibility of storage array, array firmware, array management software, backup software plugin etc. before implementing changes This is as simple as it gets! No dependence on storage hardware. Protection against array loss Need to create backup copies from snapshots, additional time and resources needed. Need to create backup copies from snapshots, additional time and resources needed. Full protection against array failures as full recovery points are available in backup storage Protection against site loss Need to maintain similar storage systems offsite Need to maintain similar storage systems offsite Any storage can be used offsite, including commodity storage So what is the earthshaking news here? NetBackup Accelerator provides the same level of RPO for your business applications for which Competitor ‘C’ would have required storage vendor dependent, expensive, high maintenance array snapshots! It is time for industry analysts with withdraw brownie points truly based on how many arrays a data protection vendor supports, but rather look at how a vendor supports business needs of customers with simplicity, agility and performance. Other blogs in this series Comparing apples to apples: All that glisters is not goldAgile, End-to-end, Scalable Data Protection for Cisco UCS Based Data Centers with Symantec NetBackup
Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) servers unify computing, networking, management, virtualization, and storage access into a single integrated architecture. This unique architecture enables end-to-end server visibility, management, and control in both bare metal and virtual environments.
What Really Makes a Market Leader?
What is “market leadership? There is no shortage of vendors claiming to be #1 in something. Such a simple question but so often misinterpreted. Many customers and vendors believe that the vendor placed in the highest and farthest to the right position of the Gartner Magic Quadrant report is the “leader” of that market. But that's only one data point .
