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NetBackup continuously keeps your data protected. Can your backup vendor say that?

Virtually_LG
Level 4
Employee Accredited

It seems that you can’t avoid news stories on ransomware attacks these days. A couple of months ago, the University of Portsmouth campus in the UK was closed due to a possible ransomware attack on its IT department. Luckily it was during the Easter break, so the impact was minimal, but with attacks like this becoming more common that result in outages that can last for days to weeks, ensuring that your systems are protected and resilient against such attacks is becoming more paramount.

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I've had numerous conversations with customers over the year around this problem. Most recently, one customer I spoke to was looking to have the ability to use low RPO recovery points for mission-critical applications to guard against this type of problem; taking snapshot backups wasn’t really an option due to the impact that they had on their applications. This confirms that enterprises are now looking for effective solutions to guard against these attacks with immutable storage and intelligent protection strategies that help ensure system and data availability.

At Veritas, we recommend prioritizing data protection as a meaningful and reliable part of a comprehensive, multi-layered cybersecurity strategy. Many consider backup and recovery of your data to be the last line of defense against ransomware attacks. 

By integrating Continuous Data Protection (CDP) into the overall data protection and resiliency strategy with NetBackup, Veritas gives you an advanced solution that provides granular recovery points. This enables enterprises to rewind their application state to a point in time before an attack where systems and data are clean and fully operational. What’s important to note with CDP is how it captures those recovery points without impacting the production workloads that are being protected. Typically, backup solutions will stun a workload to create a snapshot in time, then release the stun. Then the snapshot is given up to the backup solution so that the data can be protected. With CDP, there is no need to stun the workload, making this process much better suited for protecting production systems with the added advantage of having granular recovery points that ensure the resiliency of your systems and data.

A CDP solution for VMware should provide:

  • granular recovery points that provide a low recovery point objective
  • zero impact to the application workload
  • a retention objective based on the recovery window.
  • the ability to recover the complete workload with the ability to recover files and folders from the workload at a granular level.
  • additional functionality such as orchestrated local and remote recovery, including cloud, is a huge benefit that allows you to test granular points before they’re applied into production fully.

I am pleased to announce a new feature that brings CDP functionality as described above with NetBackup 9.1. When deploying or upgrading to NetBackup 9.1, you can deploy a BYO Linux media server gateway function that, when configured within NetBackup, will act as a gateway for VMware-protected workloads that have been enabled against the protection plan. A simple switch within the protection plan enables CDP functionality for workloads, and the protection plan allows for the scheduling and retention policy of the granular recovery points.

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Initially, VMware virtual machines will utilize the VMware API for IO Filters (VAIO), a certified VMware driver that captures the IO from the VMs and passes it off to the media server gateway for processing. There is an initial seed of the complete VM that takes place so that a baseline is established. Once this baseline has been established, subsequent IO updates are sent to the gateway, which places the IO in write order to ensure data is written in the order created within the VM. After a predefined interval set within the protection plan, the dataset for the protected workloads is backed up and ready to be used for recovery.

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The ability to use NetBackup MSDP or AIR, it’s also available for the backup data. With Resiliency Platform, you get the added benefit of orchestration so that bulk recovery back to the source location and the ability to recover and test remotely is also possible and can be done without manual intervention.  

Continuous Data Protection in NetBackup 9.1 provides added protection against malware, ransomware, and data corruption, giving you peace of mind that you can wind back time if something malicious comes knocking on your door.

Please tell us what you think about this feature. Better yet, try it out yourself. Download a copy of Veritas NetBackup 9.1 from our trialware page and see how easy it is to recover your VMware business applications. Learn more about NetBackup at veritas.com/netbackup and watch this demo.

For additional resiliency options, learn about Instant Rollback for VMware and advanced resiliency options for VMware application protection with NetBackup 9.1

Existing customers can download a copy from the Veritas Download Center. Additionally, be sure to renew your Veritas maintenance and services to continue to get access to free support and upgrades so that you can make the most of your Veritas products. Renewing allows you to capitalize on the innovations in the latest releases as soon as they are available to keep your products up-to-date and operating as they should. It also allows you to leverage Veritas services to get the always-on, expert technical support required to resolve issues quickly. As a result, you extract more value from your Veritas investment, reduce your risks so that you can focus on your business. Learn more about Veritas maintenance and support at veritas.com/renewals.

For more NetBackup features, ask us questions in the comments, and stay tuned to more blogs or demos planned in our V-Bytes video series.

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