Is Data Growth Extending Your Backup Window?

When looking to replace your tape library with a purpose-built disk backup appliance you may assume that all the big players in the market offer solutions that are similar in performance and capabilities. But the technical details, including the underlying architecture and how the deduplication operation is implemented, make a huge difference in the overall value of the solution. Let’s examine scale up vs. scale out architectures.

Choosing Between Scale Up vs. Scale Out Architectures

The most obvious reasons for choosing between scale up vs. scale out approaches are scalability and performance. Scale out architecture allows you to combine the power of multiple machines into a combined deduplicated data repository with each node having its own dedicated deduplication power. So, you are not limited to the server capacity of a single controller. In a scale up architecture scenario, however, you have a hard limit - the scale of the hardware on which you are currently running. Clearly then, one factor in choosing between scale up vs. scale out is whether or not you have enough resources within a single machine to meet your scalability requirements.

Solutions that have legacy front-end server architectures SCALE UP by adding resources to the single server. In this case disk shelves are added as data grows, but supported with no additional CPU or memory resources. As data grows, the backup windows keep expanding because of the fixed pool of available deduplication resources. Eventually, the backup window expands to a point where you must replace the front-end server with a more powerful server via a costly “forklift upgrade.”

ExaGrid offers the only disk-based backup appliances that offer GRID architecture that can SCALE OUT to respond to data growth. As a new appliance is installed, it gets added to the existing GRID. Each new appliance is a full server that adds more deduplication resources - processor, memory and bandwidth, along with its added disk capacity.

Reasons for Choosing Scale Out Architecture Even If a Single Machine Meets Your Requirements

Today, with the availability of large multi-core and large memory systems, you might well have a single disk-based backup with deduplication appliance that can cover your scalability and performance goals. And yet, there are several other factors to consider carefully:

Continuous Availability/Redundancy - Having one big controller is a single point of failure. With a GRID, if one of the nodes fails the other nodes continue to function normally.

Cost/Performance Flexibility - As hardware tends to change quickly over time, you want to have the flexibility to choose the optimal configuration setup at any given time or opportunity to optimize cost/performance. If your system is designed for scale up only, then you are pretty much locked into the hardware that you are using.

Continuous Upgrades - Building a backup system as one big unit means that if a newer, more powerful controller is needed to keep up with expanding requirements over time, the only choice is to remove and replace the unit. Unexpected incompatibilities between older components and new appliances due to obsolescence may mean a complete forklift upgrade is needed.

More information on scale up vs. scale out architectures and how ExaGrid stacks up against other appliances is available at our Resource Center.

ExaGrid Supports Optimized Synthetic Backups with Symantec NetBackup

Backup administrators use a variety of methodologies and technologies when backing up data.  Combining traditional synthetic backups with appliances that are capable of optimizing them gives backup administrators a powerful weapon in their battle to keep ahead of ever-expanding data protection needs.

ExaGrid was recently named the first third-party deduplication appliance to be certified by Symantec for Optimized Synthetic Backups with NetBackup. Optimized Synthetics use metadata to create a roadmap for recovering a full backup without actually doing the data movement to rebuild the full. ExaGrid’s support for optimized synthetic backups was built under the Symantec OpenStorage API integration (OST). Let’s take a look at the benefits of this integrated solution.

Traditional Synthetic Backups

Synthetic backups have been around for a while. They “stitch together” a full backup with all its subsequent incremental backups to “synthesize” a full backup. However, this operation represents a lot of data movement and backup application and hardware bandwidth consumption.

Optimized Synthetic Backups

Optimized synthetic full backups take a different approach to the problem. They eliminate that bandwidth and server load penalty by synthesizing a new “full” from a previous (“real”) full and a series of previously-done differential incremental backups. Symantec OpenStorage technology enables ExaGrid’s disk backup with deduplication system to achieve the high level of integration with NetBackup needed to create optimized synthetic backups. The benefits to this approach are as follows:

• Reduced backup windows from elimination of full backups
• Reduced backup application load
• Improved RTOs and RPOs
• Reduced replication bandwidth

Optimized synthetic cumulative incremental backups allow a low-cost cumulative incremental backup to be synthesized from a series of previously-done differential incremental backups.  The optimization provided by the manipulation of metadata alone allows backup administrators to drastically reduce the frequency of those time and resource-costly full backups. Instead, they can perform many days of fast, resource-friendly differential incremental backups plus a fast, resource-friendly daily optimized synthetic full backup. This concept is illustrated below: 

As this figure illustrates, the optimized synthetic full is the accumulation of all the metadata from the Day 1 full backup plus Day 2-5 differential incremental backups (just the changes). 

The various pieces of protected data are tracked via metadata, and these are used to optimize the construction of the synthetic full (or the cumulative incremental).  No data is moved when constructing the synthetic full, since it is already safely stored on the advanced disk-based backup appliance. Only the references to the actual data are manipulated. Full recovery from that optimized synthetic full backup leverages the metadata references to bring back only the data required.


To learn more about ExaGrid's support for Optimized Synthetic Backups with NetBackup, download our free whitepaper "Exploiting Metadata to Optimize Synthetic Backups."

It’s that time of year when the lists come out, and the data storage industry is no different. Over at the Storage Switzerland blog, George Crump and Erick Slack, Senior Analysts for Storage Switzerland, have created a list of top data storage companies to watch in 2012.  We are very pleased that ExaGrid was named as one of the top data storage companies by these respected storage industry analysts.

According to Crump and Slack, “The purpose-built backup appliance (PBBA) market has certainly come into its own over the past few years. During that time ExaGrid has established itself as a leader, especially in the mid-range market where it focuses. ExaGrid uses a scale-out architecture to allow midrange customers to start small and grow their investment as needed instead of having to do a fork-lift upgrade.”

They continued, “In 2012 look for ExaGrid to continue maturing its product with tighter integration with software applications like those from Symantec and Veeam. They should also be able to take advantage of processor improvements and disk capacity improvements to be able to scale into the higher end of the PBBA market. Look for 2012 to end with only three serious PBBA vendors instead of the dozen that we have today. I expect ExaGrid to be one of those three.”

Thank you Storage Switzerland for the top data storage companies in 2012 nod! For more information about ExaGrid, please visit our Resource Center.

Growing Number of Companies with Broken Backups Choose ExaGrid Over Data Domain

ExaGrid vs. Data Domain deduplication… which one should you choose for your broken backups? Maybe I’m biased, but, ExaGrid is the only disk backup with deduplication solution purpose-built for backup that offers a GRID architecture that expands capacity seamlessly and increases performance exponentially as data grows. ExaGrid eliminates the scalability problems associated with competitive systems that use a fixed controller architecture which expands backup storage capacity--but not performance--by adding just disk shelves as data grows, until backup windows explode to an unacceptable level, then requiring a forklift upgrade.
 
Volkswagen Credit is a great example of a company that looked carefully at both ExaGrid and other competing solutions. They found that ExaGrid was a superior disk backup solution. After testing solutions from ExaGrid vs. Data Domain deduplication side-by-side, Volkswagen Credit selected ExaGrid based on its post-process deduplication, scalable GRID architecture, overall ease-of-use and superior price/performance.

Volkswagen Credit found as much as a 75 percent improvement in its backup speeds and restores which are described as “lightning fast.” As a result of this success, the company has installed ExaGrid appliances at five North American locations with plans to install ExaGrid at additional sites in the future.

Now that it's 2012, are you looking to eliminate broken backups and scalability problems like Volkswagen Credit? Click here for a comparison of ExaGrid vs. Data Domain deduplication and other disk backup appliances. 

Recently, ExaGrid was awarded Ready for IBM Tivoli Storage Manager certification. In order to achieve this IBM Tivoli certification, TSM testing teams have validated that ExaGrid’s EX Series backup appliances are seamlessly integrated and fully compatible to work with the Tivoli storage management software. 

The achievement of Ready for IBM Tivoli certification shows IBM customers looking for a disk backup solution in their TSM environment and that the ExaGrid system meets or exceeds IBM compatibility criteria. ExaGrid is now included in the IBM Global Solutions Directory and the Integrated Service Management Library (ISM).

Earlier this quarter, ExaGrid announced support for IBM TSM. The combination of the popular backup application and ExaGrid’s disk backup with deduplication offers additional reduction of up to 10:1 in the amount of backup data beyond that offered by IBM TSM’s incremental forever methodology. ExaGrid’s support for IBM TSM significantly reduces customer’s dependence on tape and also allows IT users to free up expensive disk previously used for backup that can be used for primary storage. In addition, IBM TSM customers will benefit from ExaGrid’s GRID scalability to maintain the fastest backup performance over time as data grows with no costly forklift upgrades.

According to Marc Crespi, VP of product management for ExaGrid, “We are excited to have achieved Ready for Tivoli certification from IBM. Our approach brings unique value to TSM users in enabling them to manage backups more efficiently, reclaim expensive disk for primary storage and cost-effectively scale to support data growth. With this certification, we look forward to bringing ExaGrid’s award-winning disk backup with deduplication capabilities to IBM Tivoli Storage Manager customers.”

Click here to read more about ExaGrid’s support of TSM and our IBM Tivoli certification.

If you would like to learn how you can achieve cost savings in disk backup with deduplication, download our complimentary white paper now.

Here at ExaGrid, we always strive to deliver excellent backup performance to all our customers, and that was confirmed recently by independent analyst Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) in a lab report presenting the results of their hands-on testing of the EX13000E from earlier this year.  Highlights of the backup performance report include the following:

• The first backup was running 16 minutes after starting the configuration.
• The EX13000E achieved a sustained aggregate backup rate of 2.95 TB/hour, using Symantec OST running over a 10 GB Ethernet connection. Based on their results from adding a second EX13000E, ESG Lab said they were confident backup performance scaled linearly to 29 TB/hour for ten EX13000E appliances in a single grid.
• The tests found a deduplication ratio of 24:1.
• Adding a new backup appliance to an existing grid was straightforward.  ESG wrote, “Automatic spillover and migration provides the flexibility needed to grow, maintain and tune a growing pool of virtualized capacity. Taken together with the space savings provided by deduplication, the scalability of a singly managed ExaGrid system reduces the cost and complexity of managing growing disk-based backup requirements.”

ESG closes the report by saying, “ESG Lab believes that organizations struggling with the cost, complexity and risk associated with tape backups would be wise to consider the bottom line savings that can be achieved with ExaGrid: faster backups, quicker and more reliable restores, lower risk, lower expenses (capital and operational), and last, but not least, a greener solution with optimized power and cooling.”

Download our free whitepaper “Sorting Through the Confusion of 5 Alternative Approaches” to learn more about how you can achieve your backup performance IT goals.

Backup Academy Course on Hyper-V Backup Best Practices

The day has come! This is my final installment on viewing Veeam’s Backup Academy online courses in a series of eight posts on VMware backup solutions. I am looking forward to taking the exam soon to become a Backup Academy Certified Expert. This eighth training course is about “Best Practices for Hyper-V Backups.”  It’s presented by Greg Shields, MVP and Senior Partner at Concentrated Technology.

One new area that I learned about from this Hyper-V backup best practices course was that choosing what you want to backup and where you locate your backup agent is very important.  The backup agent can be on the host in the primary partition, inside the individual VMs or at the storage layer. Or, you might also choose to have a cluster aware agent at the cluster services layer.  These choices (WHAT and WHERE) affect the granularity of Hyper-V backups and amount of backup/restore effort that these different perspectives can deliver in the end.

Click here to learn more about cost-effective disk backup solutions for VMware environments.

Have any questions or feedback for me regarding this Backup Academy training course on Hyper-V backup best practices? Please feel free to comment below.

What can you do when your existing backup system needs to be replaced because it’s too old to keep alive, has reached its maximum capacity, retention is shrinking or your backup windows are growing? In the past, you had no choice but to swap a new backup system for the old one, a “forklift upgrade.” Here’s what RFI Communications & Security Systems did instead so that they could avoid a forklift upgrade.

RFI is a systems integrator for security and fire/life safety solutions. They had been backing up to a Data Domain box, but when it was time to expand the backup system, the only choice was a forklift upgrade because the system wasn’t scalable. As Frank Jennings, Network Administrator at RFI explained, “Our only option was to buy a whole new box... with our retention dwindling, we decided the time was right to begin looking at other solutions.”

RFI purchased an ExaGrid system to work with their existing backup application, Symantec Backup Exec. According to Jennings, “Unlike the Data Domain system, the ExaGrid will give us the ability to easily scale the system up as our data grows¼ it was more cost effective as well.”

Click here to read the rest of RFI’s story on how they were faced with a forklift upgrade, implemented an ExaGrid system for scalability, future growth and faster backups and restores.

Backup Academy Course on VMware Backup Best Practices

As I continue along my viewing of Veeam’s Backup Academy online courses, this is my seventh course out of a series of eight on VMware backup solutions. Only one more training course left! I am looking forward to taking the exam before the end of 2011 to become a Backup Academy Certified Expert. This seventh training course is on “Best Practices for VMware Backups.”  It’s presented by vExpert and Veeam Software Strategy Specialist, Rick Vanover.

One new area that I learned about from this course on VMware backup best practices was a discussion of how virtualization makes backups better by separating the source (shared storage or DAS where the VMs live) and target (backup repository) within the virtual machine backup strategy. It’s best to place as many domains of failure between these two environments as possible. There’s not much protection against a failure in the virtual environment if the VMFS volume is on the same storage resource as the backups of the VMs. Sometimes additional storage isn’t an option, though. One approach to take if full physical separation is not possible is to separate VMware backups and primary storage within drive trays on modular storage, like in the example below.

Click here to learn more about cost-effective disk backup solutions for VMware environments.

Have any questions or feedback for me regarding this Backup Academy training course on VMware backup best practices? Please feel free to comment below.

Who is Considered an Info-Tech Disk Backup Solutions Champion?

Info-Tech is ranked as the leading research firm in the IT & Telecom Research, Reports and Services market. They recently evaluated six competitors in the disk backup solutions market, including Data Domain, Dell, FalconStor, HP, Quantum and ExaGrid. ExaGrid once again was rated as a disk backup solutions “Champion” in the “Leading Vendor” category in the latest version of their report on “Vendor Landscape: Disk Backup.” According to this report, champions are vendors that “…offer excellent value. They have a strong market presence and are usually the trend setters for the industry.”

According to the report, “ExaGrid is a champion in disk backup due to the combination of its architecture and business strategy. The youngest company in the landscape, ExaGrid has differentiated itself with a unique product offering that brings a scalable storage node clustering (or grid) approach to the backup tier.” Info-Tech also noted that, “ExaGrid has differentiated itself through easy non-disruptive scalability and cost-effective options.”

Click here to download a copy of the full Info-Tech Research Group’s disk backup solutions vendor landscape report.