 |
|
|
"I used Backup Express to back up a production imaging server which has almost 5 million files on one of its partitions. I was able to back up the volume in 38 minutes! A file-based backup had been taking about 12 hours."
System Administrator, major university
IS/IT departments are responsible for ensuring that business-critical applications are always available to users including the following requirements:
- Implement non-disruptive backup and still meet increasingly stringent SLAs for business continuance, restore requirements (RPO / RTO), and disaster recovery.
- Keep data centers and remote sites protected with limited resources.
- Maintain consistent version control and staging environments.
Backup-to-Disk has been the answer to many of these requirements. However, the initial Backup-to-Disk solutions were expensive and cumbersome.
| Advantages of Backup-to-Disk-Gen I |
Disadvantages of Backup-to-Disk-Gen I |
- Predictable, scalable backup for growing data volumes
- Reliable recovery
- Fast, granular recovery
- Point-in-time volumes with history
- Increased administrator efficiency
- Emergence of lower-cost ATA disks
|
- Cost of storage / capacity (Limitations of disk-based backup data stored)
- Traditional data backup schedules: base incrementals
- Data archived from D2D2T difficult to manage (no single-step recovery)
- Limited application integration
|
Backup Express next-generation D2D technology meets today's data protection challenges:
AdvancedClient, the technology at the heart of Syncsort Backup Express, is the latest achievement in Syncsort's four-decade tradition of engineering innovation. AdvancedClient enables business continuity planners to commit to, and deliver on, exceptionally tight RPOs and RTOs.
For each snapshot, Syncsort block-level incremental (BLI) technology identifies the blocks that have changed since the last snapshot and transfers only those blocks to secondary storage. Unlike the CPU-intensive BLI offered by other products, AdvancedClient image-based BLI accesses changed blocks directly, at the disk level, bypassing the file system, dramatically reducing the impact on the application server. Thus snapshots can be scheduled more frequently and RPOs measured in minutes can be achieved.
Changed blocks are stored using advanced technology that creates a virtual volume image from point-in-time snapshots. A virtual volume image can then be mounted as a read-writable LUN in only minutes and made available to the application for a full recovery.
Syncsort Backup Express high-speed recovery utilizes the same routine, scheduled AdvancedClient BLI snapshots - whether for disaster recovery, remote office protection, near-instant access to database applications, Oracle database cloning, or file restores.
Block-Level Incremental (BLI) Snapshot, File-Level Recovery
Source-side deduplication, built into AdvancedClient BLI technology, reduces storage requirements by up to 90%, without the need for deduplication on the storage side. AdvancedClient source-side deduplication also provides up to 90% reduction in CPU impact and data transmission, and it does not require scheduled base backups of unchanged data.
Backing up VMware ESX servers without impacting server performance is a problem for many enterprises. A common approach uses VMWare Consolidated Backup (VCB) with a proxy backup server to reduce CPU processing on the ESX host. However, this approach has limitations: it lacks support for database applications, uses inefficient file-level backups, requires scheduled base backups with resulting strain on resources, and requires large amounts of storage.
Syncsort Backup Express provides a two-pronged, integrated business continuity solution for VMware virtual machines. In addition to supporting traditional VCB, Backup Express offers its AdvancedClient solution for virtual machines hosting critical applications or vital data.
Backup Express AdvancedClient technology provides a superior solution for VMware backup:
- Supports Oracle, SQL Server, Exchange.
- Highly efficient BLI backups have minimal CPU impact on the ESX server, so critical processing is not impacted.
- BLI incrementals eliminate the need for scheduled base backups, with their significant overhead.
- Only changed blocks are stored, dramatically reducing storage requirements.
Plus, Backup Express with AdvancedClient provides powerful application continuance and disaster recovery capabilities:
- Instant Availability (IA) provides rapid read/write access to virtual volume images of Oracle, SQL Server, Exchange and other applications.
- ExpressDR™ software utilizes advanced server imaging technology for rapid and complete recovery of critical Windows and Solaris servers.
- Fast, simple image-based recovery of critical servers, including operating system, settings, and patches.
- Immediate access to stored virtual volume images for nearly uninterrupted access to critical applications such as SQL Server, Exchange, and Oracle.
- Fast recovery from a single virtual volume image on disk, with no need to aggregate backups.
- Dramatically reduced storage requirement compared to file-level backups.
- Closely spaced recovery points, made possible by minimal system impact: low CPU usage on client machines, reduced network traffic, and reduced storage requirement.
- Full server recovery to past points in time, easily achieved through simple single selection from many virtual volume images.
- Multiple recovery points ensure minimal disruption and help satisfy compliance requirements.
- All resources are efficiently protected, including SQL Server, Exchange, and Oracle; and all levels are protected: file, folder, disk, server, and site.
Using Backup Express XRS and APM capabilities, data transferred by AdvancedClient can be stored on almost any type disk storage, including NetApp, EMC, HP, Data Domain and others.
For more information:
|
|
|
