Virtual Server Backups

A couple of weeks back, I got a chance to play with VMWare and attend a web training session. Now I understand why Virtualization news dominates the Storage world.

Virtualization, which is an excellent solution for SMBs, is the process of running multiple virtual servers on one physical hardware. It helps in server consolidation, quick deployment, easier administration and efficient use of power; hence not only slashes the costs resulting in significant savings for an organization but also creates a green data center.

Backing up Virtual servers is not as simple as backing up physical servers. Backup softwares need to keep in mind the resource consumption. There are 3 approaches for backing up virtual machines:
1. Traditional backup which requires backing up each virtual machine individually involves installing backup agent on each virtual system. The limitation here is not only the cost of licensing each of them, but also backups utilize more resources and in turn affect the performance.
2. Consolidated Backup is a snapshot based technology. It requires no agents, reduces the load on host and can even backup virtual machines that are powered off. The limitations are it requires scripting to perform backups and also does not support application consistent backups.
Idealstor is currently working on a method to achieve this by using VSS with vmware consolidated backup (VCB) to ensure a consistent backup.
3. Snapshotting or cloning the virtual machines
IT users can also use a combination of the above backup methods to get the right data-protection solution for their environment.

Make Email recovery easier!!

Email has become the main form of business communication and according to a survey; more than 60% of the organizations use Microsoft Exchange for corporate email. Backup administrators spend a considerable amount of their time on Exchange backup and restores especially the brick level backups needed to restore individual email messages, contacts, calendar items etc.

There are many new innovative technologies available these days to recover exchange database at message level by just a drag and drop operation. You take a backup of the information store, specify the database backup path in the Exchange Recovery Application and booooommm…it opens up the individual mailboxes. No brick level backups required – Hence less time, less space and cost. Restoration is just a drag and drop operation of the email on to your PST file or live exchange server.

Check out some of the cool softwares I came across which does email recovery in seconds..
• Power controls, Ontrack
• DigiScope, Lucid
• ReplayDSM, AppAssure

Which is the best method to handle incremental backup??

Few days back I was handling a support call for using Backup exec with our Idealstor appliance. The end user was having problems using Archive bit for Incremental backups because of another application clearing the bit.

We know that backup administrators always prefer a solution that will shorten their backup window. And Incremental backup, which copies all the files that have changed since last backup, is one way to speed up the process, though it takes longer to restore. Now for an incremental backup, any backup software has to first determine which files have changed since the previous backup.
Most of the leading Data Protection softwares use Archive bit, which is a flag associated with every Windows file. It is set to 1 when a file is created or modified and the backup software, after backing up the file clears the bit and sets it to 0. Next time when you run the incremental backup, the software locates the files changed or created based on the archive bit set to 1. But what if another software also clears the archive bit?? You could end up not backing up a few files:( .

Ibac Data Protection software uses Modified Date/Time/Size and byte level compare. Modified D/T/S compare is really fast when compared to other methods. IBac clocks around 3GB/min for a compare job. But again the disadvantage here is if the timestamp doesn’t change for certain files even though they are modified. Byte level compare is slower than the others but reliable especially for database backups.

Now the big question here is the best method for compare, whether it is Archive Bit or Modified Date/Time/Size or byte level?? May be the best method depends on your environment…

Removable disk Solutions(Get Efficient by upgrading to latest technology)

One of the main challenges for D2D backup to replace tapes was offsite storage. But with the latest removable drive technology, even disks can be physically removed and taken offsite.
A few Removable disk solutions in today’s market:

Prostor Systems’ new “RDX removable disk technology” for backup, disaster recovery and archive.
The RDX Archival Disk Cartridge is a 2.5-inch removable Serial ATA (SATA) hard drive that acts like a tape cartridge, but performs with the speed and reliability of disk. The RDX drive has a native transfer rate of up to 45MB/s and support drive capacity from 40 GB to 300GB which is the maximum capacity 2.5 inch drive introduced by Fujitsu recently. The drives have built-in AES encryption and add a second level of data correction that is capable of correcting multiple, full sectors of a disk.

Quantum’s removable disk-based backup product “GoVault” is designed for small and midsize businesses. It includes a tabletop or server-embedded intelligent dock, two removable cartridges for on-site and off-site data protection and data de-duplication backup software in one package. Go Vault also includes password protection and encryption to protect data from misuse.
The only limitation here is the cartridge which is proprietary unlike Prostor’s RDX in which 2.5 inch cartridges from different vendors are compatible.

The cartridges used by these 2 companies are smaller in size making them truly portable but on the other hand, the limitations are the cartridge capacity, which is limited to 300GB max when compared to 1TB in 3.5 inch drives, cost and also overall read access time which is 25% better in 3.5 inch drives than 2.5.

Idealstor LLC’s goal is removable disk backup technology. Their hardware product line includes only removable disk solutions:
1. SATA based ejectable backup systems upto 8 removable bays (i.e backup capacity upto 8TB)
2. FrankeNAS which combines 2.5TB RAID5 SATA storage for onsite and upto 4TB removable storage for offsite
3. Teralyte designed for SMBs, which can attach directly to any Windows backup server, comes bundled with iBac Data Protection software, removable disk caddies and the controller.
Idealstor backup products use non-proprietary 3.5inch hard drives allowing end-users to use any capacity or manufacturer SATA disk as removable disk backup media.

All the above 3 products are compatible with leading backup and recovery softwares like CA ARCserve, EMC Retrospect, Symantec Backup Exec etc.

Removable disk technology...Fast, portable, reliable, capacious, what more could you ask??

Next Generation Backup Media…Disk vs tape!

We have been using different backup media starting from punch cards, magnetic tapes, floppy disks, CDs, hard-drives etc. Magnetic tape has been the preferred choice for backup administrators for a long time mainly because it is cost effective and convenient for offsite storage (long term storage). But how good is your tape?? Experts indicate that 50% of tape restorations fail. Tape failures might happen due to a lot of reasons like normal wear, accidental damage, environmental damage and winding errors. Also restoring from a tape is time consuming since it’s a sequential access device and not random access like disks.

Disks are more durable, scalable, offer better performance and faster backups and restores (esp. when restoring single files). Storage vendors introduce new disk to disk storage technologies each day like RAID, NAS, Removable disk solutions which allows disks to be used for both onsite and offsite storage.

Hard drives are available from capacities 40GB to 1TB and the prices of disks have been dropping over the last few years. Hard drives also come with a manufacturer's warranty of 3-5 years and are designed for mean time to failure (MTTF) of 1 million hours. This saves the end user a large amount of money which they might spend in replacing tapes every 6 to 9 months.

With the latest disk storage technologies and disks becoming cheaper, I strongly believe Disk to Disk solutions are eventually going to take over conventional tape backups.

Green Storage

Energy has become one of the basic necessities of our life. It has definitely improved living standards all over the world. But the increasing demand of energy poses environmental challenges like global warming.

Energy efficiency and power consumption have now become hot issues in Storage industry too. Many storage companies like HP, 3PAR, HDS are coming up with technologies like “Thin Provisioning” and “Dynamic Capacity Management” which can improve efficiency by upto 45% and capacity utilization by more than 50%.

The fundamental concept of these Green Storage technologies is that physical capacity is only dedicated when the application writes data, rather than when the storage volume is initially allocated. For instance, storage administrators can thinly provision 50GB of storage as a 200GB volume. They can later add 50GB of storage on three different occasions without having to expand the file system. So they don’t have to keep more disks spinning without actually using them, thereby reducing power consumption.

Idealstor LLC (www.idealstor.com - the company I work for) use energy efficient storage technology by default in their products. They specialize in Removable disk solutions. Idealstor hardware appliance lets you eject the disks like tapes for offsite storage. You can use any SATA disk from capacity 40GB to1TB on a single system which makes the solution scalable. This allows administrators to use fewer systems, hence less power consumption, less cooling issues and energy efficient.

Move to Green Storage…… Your company will appreciate the savings and so will your planet.

Storage Management??

In simple terms, it is the process of classifying, storing, restoring and recovering your production data. Why do you need to backup your data? Losing data could mean losing your business :(…Imagine losing a customer database, it is going to cost you in terms of wasted resources and lost productivity.

Data can be lost due to hardware failure, file corruption, viruses, software problems, human error etc. Hence an organization, apart from focusing on business strategies, should also invest in data integrity and have a well planned data management policy.