Enterprise-class Recovery Capabilities In A Solution Tailored For Smaller Organizations

Transcript

WHITE PAPER DATA DRIVEN GLOBAL VISION CLOUD PLATFORM STRATEG ON POWERFUL RELEVANT PERFORMANCE SOLUTION CLO VIRTUAL BIG DATA SOLUTION ROI FLEXIBLE DATA DRIVEN V Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises Need a Unified Approach to Data Protection Enterprise-Class Recovery Capabilities in a Solution Tailored for Smaller Organizations By Hitachi Data Systems August 2013 WHITE PAPER 2 Contents Introduction 3 Deliver Recovery Services 4 Recovery Point Objective 4 Recovery Time Objective 5 Backup Window 5 Total Cost of Ownership 5 What Can Go Wrong? 5 Protect Virtualized Environments 8 Point Solutions Versus Data Instance Management 8 The New Unified Data Protection and Recovery Solution for SMEs 8 WHITE PAPER 3 Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises Need a Unified Approach to Data Protection Introduction Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have many advantages over their larger enterprise (LE) competitors. They are often more nimble at reacting to changing market trends and requirements. They can bring new products and services to market faster. They can focus their activities on a smaller number of solution areas. And, they can attract better talent. Because of their scale, however, big enterprises can deliver a wider and deeper range of services, including IT services across business applications, storage and data protection. They have the resources needed to effectively protect and manage data while providing needed recovery service levels for a wide range of applications, end users and processes. As an SME, you have the same set of requirements as the LE. For example, you must be able to restore operations following a disaster and recover individual files and emails on an as-needed basis. You must reliably retain records and other information as deemed necessary by the business or by regulation. The challenge for both is the wide variety of data types, application service requirements, and threats that can impact the business. Not all data has equal value, and each combination of data type, location and threat may require a different approach to protecting that data. The difference is that the typical SME (see Figure 1) is hard pressed to be able to afford, implement and manage the many data protection and recovery “point solutions” that the LE uses to meet these challenges. Indeed, your IT staff is often stretched very thin, with much less technology specialization as compared to the large enterprise IT staff. You need to find solutions that are more comprehensive and easier to learn and use. Some of the possible technology options include traditional backup, archive and hierarchical storage management (HSM), continuous data protection (CDP), snapshots and replication. There are different options for protecting virtual machines (VM), for remote and branch offices (ROBO), and for user workstations. Each requires additional hardware, software licenses, administrators, training and services. Figure 1. Common SME Environment WHITE PAPER 4 In fact, you are also at greater risk of damage to the business when a data disaster strikes. For the LE, an event will usually be localized to one of its many locations or data centers. The financial impact may be substantial, but it is unlikely to result in the collapse of the business. But with fewer physical locations and less distribution of its data assets, the impact of a significant data loss can be devastating to the SME. So, just because your company isn’t a major corporation with hundreds of offices and thousands of employees doesn’t mean you’re not under the same pressures to maintain access to critical information in order to run your business and remain competitive. You also need to comply with any number of regulations and to keep your customers happy, which can be expensive and difficult to achieve when you lose critical data. But buying the same complex and expensive solutions as the LEs in your industry would be overkill: The cure would be worse than the disease. If there was a unified data protection and recovery solution that solved all of your data protection and recovery challenges, was easy to implement and use, and was priced for the SME, would you be interested in learning more? This white paper examines the recovery capabilities SMEs require and makes recommendations for a unified approach to data protection. Deliver Recovery Services DEFINE YOUR RECOVERY SERVICE In defining a recovery service, questions need to be answered by the data owner or the business: ■■ What ■■ What do you want to restore? events do you want to recover from? ■■ How fast do you need it back? ■■ How much time can we have to protect it? ■■ Where do you want to restore it to? ■■ What would be the cost, per hour, for lost data? ■■ What would be the cost if you lost the data forever? The capabilities and effectiveness of data protection solutions are measured in 4 ways: recovery point objective (RPO), recovery time objective (RTO), backup window, and total cost of ownership (TCO). A unified data protection solution needs to be able to adjust these attributes for the different recovery requirements of each user, application, data set, location and so forth. And the solution must be able to do it all from a single, easy-to-use management console. It should be able to select from a palette of available technology choices that all work together to offer a comprehensive solution to this very complex problem. Recovery Point Objective Recovery point objective refers to the different past points in time that you can recover to; it effectively measures the frequency that data is captured into the protection system and the length of time that each recovery point is retained. For example, if you perform a backup each night on application “A,” and retain the last 60 backup sets, you have an RPO of 24 hours and 60 daily recovery points to choose from. In this example, any data created today (since the last WHITE PAPER 5 backup) and any data that hasn’t changed in the last 60 days, is at possible risk of loss. Advanced technologies such as snapshots, replication and CDP can reduce (improve) the RPO, dramatically reducing the amount of data at risk, and should be considered for higher value data. Recovery Time Objective Recovery time objective refers to the amount of time it takes to restore access to data or an application following any type of disaster. Using traditional backup to tape, including the transport of tapes to off-site facilities, can result in an RTO measured in days or weeks. Many organizations find that it’s less painful or costly to accept a data loss and/ or recreate the data than it is to restore it from off-site tape. Again, there are options for tuning RTO. For example, you can employ synchronous replication and automated failover of your production storage volumes to a secondary system in another location. This strategy can reduce your RTO to almost zero in the case of a local disaster or system failure; but this solution is probably the most expensive to implement, and it does not provide any protection against file-level loss or corruption. (The error will be immediately replicated to your recovery system!) Backup Window Backup window is the amount of time that an application or data set is unavailable while a backup operation is executed. Data write operations need to be paused during the backup window to avoid capturing an inconsistent data set, so long backup windows can have a serious impact on application availability. The backup window for traditional full backups is defined by how much data needs to be copied and the transfer speed of the slowest component in the backup infrastructure. Traditional incremental backups can also take a relatively long period of time: The backup application must scan through the file system directory to identify which files are new or have changed since the last backup. CDP and replication technologies capture new data as it is created, effectively eliminating the need for a backup window. Snapshots impose very short backup windows as they redirect data pointers at the time of the backup, rather than analyzing or copying actual data. Total Cost of Ownership Total cost of ownership reflects how much the data insurance you’re buying is going to cost, and consists of many items. Data insurance items may include: the protection software and annual maintenance; implementation services; administrator training and certification; backup storage, server and network hardware and maintenance; and floor space, off-site facilities and electricity. Each different data protection option will put a different load on your systems and impact costs differently. For example, a full backup creates a mostly duplicate set of your data from the last backup, incrementally increasing your storage costs each time it is run, up to the number of backups you keep. Having 30TB of backup data for every 1TB of active production data is not unheard of. Data deduplication was invented to put a temporary bandage on this phenomenon. Options such as CDP and snapshots capture only 1 copy of new or changed data, dramatically reducing storage requirements and backup windows. By mapping business requirements by RPO, RTO, backup window and TCO, you can start delivering “recovery services” that are tuned to the needs of each stakeholder, including the chief financial officer (CFO). What Can Go Wrong? To provide the level of recovery services needed for each application while keeping costs to a minimum requires the ability to set different policies based on those needs, as defined by the attributes above. But you can further define these policies by the different events that can threaten data availability. A unified data protection and recovery solution is going to involve a lot of considerations and contingencies (see Figure 2). There are many things that can go wrong with your data, and you should have a specific response to each: ■■ Critical data is accidentally or maliciously deleted. You need a solution that can quickly and easily restore individual files and folders; restoring an entire system when you only need a single file could be disruptive and may open the door to the risk of further loss. WHITE PAPER 6 ■■ Data is lost or corrupted over a period of time. Not all data loss incidents are noticed immediately, as is often the case with virus and hacker attacks, or rolling database corruptions. You need the ability to recover to a point in time before the corruption started, and you’d like to have those recovery points be as granular as possible. ■■ A disk can crash. Individual hard disks are often protected by arranging them in random arrays of independent disks (RAID) that can be configured to recover from 1 or more failures within the array. Using dual RAID controllers can further limit the impacts of a hardware failure. If you have disk volumes that are not protected in this way, you will need a facility for protecting and quickly rebuilding those volumes. There have also been reports of catastrophic failures of even the most reliable storage systems, usually due to human error (for example, a service technician pulling a good controller instead of the failing one). ■■ An entire server can die. The ability to restore operations when replacing a broken server may be complicated by the need to install different drivers on the new system if the hardware is not an exact match. Can you temporarily move the application workload to a standby physical or virtual server while the system is being repaired? ■■ Disaster strikes. When you lose an entire office to fire, flood or other unplanned event, it’s critical that you have a current copy of your important information in a location outside the disaster zone. How fast can you failover to the remote site, and can you failback when the office re-opens? How much standby server and storage capacity do you need to handle disasters? ■■ Recovering data in ROBOs is a challenge. Small operations usually don’t have the luxury of having an on-site technical resource to assist in backups and restores. In fact, a nontechnical staff member running the backup incorrectly, or not running it at all, is the primary cause of failed data recoveries in remote offices. Figure 2. The Complexity of Protecting Your Data WHITE PAPER 7 The protection of critical data — the files, databases and other objects you really cannot afford to lose or to be without for an extended period of time — requires frequent or even continuous backup. But this level of protection may come with added costs. Applying a similar policy to noncritical data, such as typical office files, could add undue storage, network and labor costs. In some cases, it can be more cost-efficient to accept the loss of truly noncritical data, or even to recreate that data rather than to recover it (see Table 1). These are not decisions and policies that a backup administrator should be making without direct input from the line of business (LOB) or other stakeholders in the information to be protected. Table 1. The Pros and Cons of Different Data Protection and Recovery Technologies Protection Technology Pros Cons Batch Backup (full + incremental) Legacy infrastructure investment (software, disk, tape, virtual tape); available administration talent pool Long backup windows (major application disruptions); poor RPO (24 hours); storage hog; full backups require deduplication; poor RTO from tape Continuous Data Protection Very granular RPO (1 minute); no backup window Some continuous drain on the production environment; consumes a large amount of storage, thereby limiting retention to a few days Snapshot Minimal backup window; storage efficient May or may not be application consistent; not immune to hardware failure or local disaster; consumes primary storage Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP) Moves backup data directly between NAS devices and backup devices (usually tape or virtual tape), speeding backups and reducing load on backup servers Each backup vendor supports slightly different implementations of NDMP, resulting in mixed performance and making it more challenging to move to new storage systems Replicate Disaster recovery protection; built into many storage systems Does not protect against file level loss or data corruption Archive Meet retention requirements; trim data and processing loads on application systems May need a facility for searching and retrieving archived data; very old data may not be readable Cloud Pay-as-you-go service reduces or eliminates purchase and administration costs Data security, reliability, and resiliency continue to be concerns; not suitable for all types of data; may require a substantial Internet connection WHITE PAPER 8 Protect Virtualized Environments The use of server virtualization technologies such as Microsoft® Hyper-V® and VMware vSphere is moving quickly from secondary applications like development and test to production applications like Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server®. This change is creating serious headaches for storage and backup administrators. Using traditional backup software agents within the virtual machines can be problematic. It can result in serious extension of backup windows and degradation of application performance as the physical system resources are loaded down by 10 or more backup operations instead of 1. Advanced technologies such as Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS) on Hyper-V and vStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP) on VMware are being deployed to work around this problem. However, they can also add to the cost and complexity of the environment, and may not provide truly consistent point-in-time copies of application data. A better solution, especially for database and email applications, can be the use of an in-guest continuous data protection agent. This CDP agent captures data in real time or on a scheduled basis with no backup window and has little or no impact on application availability and performance. A combination of in-guest CDP and off-host solutions, based on the combination of business requirements for each application, can offer the most cost-effective model. Point Solutions Versus Data Instance Management Many companies have opted to purchase several point solutions from different vendors to fully address the data protection and recovery challenges of critical applications, virtualized servers, remote offices and user workstations. This is an extremely expensive approach in terms of acquisition, integration and ongoing management costs. Other companies have decided the cost is too high and decided to take their chances by not protecting critical data, which is an approach that has often resulted in disaster. In today’s highly regulated and highly litigious business environment, the loss of important data can cause significant damage and often leads to the demise of the business. In addition to all the hardware, software and management complexity that multiple point solutions introduce into the IT environment, they often also result in additional copies of each data object. The “copy data problem,” as defined by analyst firm IDC1, consumes 60% of all storage capacity and accounts for 85% of storage hardware purchases and 65% of software purchases. A comprehensive, unified solution to data protection that captures new data only once and makes it available for different use and recovery purposes can reduce or eliminate the copy data problem. As a result, the solution reduces storage and administrative costs, while also helping the organization to adhere to data retention and governance policies. The New Unified Data Protection and Recovery Solution for SMEs In April 2013, Hitachi Data Systems announced Hitachi Data Instance Manager (HDIM), a new software offering that meets the challenges described above in a single, easy-to-deploy and easy-to-manage package. A unified policy- and workflow-based solution, HDIM centralizes multiple data protection capabilities for file, SQL and Microsoft Exchange in Microsoft and Linux midtier environments, including virtualized servers and remote offices. It includes configurable policies and workflows for backup, continuous data protection, archive, snapshot, deduplication, data security and more. Its unique graphical user interface helps you quickly map data management needs to automated workflows. 1 IDC #239875: The Copy Data Problem: An Order of Magnitude Analysis, March 2013 WHITE PAPER 9 HDIM protects data and reduces, controls and manages copy data, or data instances. It replaces or augments legacy data protection point-solutions and eliminates backup windows, improves service levels, reduces backup data volumes, supports compliance requirements and improves application uptime. At the same time, it helps to reduce costs. (See Figure 3.) Figure 3. A Common Proponent of HDIM: The Microsoft SQL Server Administrator Some of the many benefits of HDIM include: ■■ Eliminate your backup window with a unified continuous data protection and archive solution. ■■ Meet service levels and reduce costs, using fewer resources to manage more data with a holistic approach to data protection. ■■ Achieve maximum protection and synchronized snapshots for fast recovery and application consistency thanks to real-time data capture. ■■ Use a nondisruptive in-guest agent for virtual machines, or go agentless through integration with VMware vSphere APIs for Data Protection (VADP) and Changed Block Tracking (CBT). ■■ Realize advanced file and email archive capabilities in Microsoft environments from tight integration with Hitachi Content Platform. For more information on Hitachi Data Instance Manager, please visit www.HDS.com or contact your HDS sales representative or business partner. Corporate Headquarters 2845 Lafayette Street Santa Clara, CA 96050-2639 USA www.HDS.com community.HDS.com Regional Contact Information Americas: +1 408 970 1000 or [email protected] Europe, Middle East and Africa: +44 (0) 1753 618000 or [email protected] Asia Pacific: +852 3189 7900 or [email protected] © Hitachi Data Systems Corporation 2013. All rights reserved. HITACHI is a trademark or registered trademark of Hitachi, Ltd. Innovate With Information is a trademark or registered trademark of Hitachi Data Systems Corporation. Microsoft, Hyper-V and SQL Server are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. All other trademarks, service marks, and company names are properties of their respective owners. Notice: This document is for informational purposes only, and does not set forth any warranty, expressed or implied, concerning any equipment or service offered or to be offered by Hitachi Data Systems Corporation. WP-467-A DG August 2013