Transcript
Storage
Meeting Backup and Recovery Challenges in Physical and Virtual Environments Traditional approaches to backup and recovery can quickly become expensive and difficult to manage in virtualized environments—especially as those environments grow over time. Acronis Backup & Recovery® 10 software together with Dell™ storage can help organizations address the recovery time, scalability, cost, and performance challenges of data protection in these environments.
V
By Marc Mombourquette
consolidation and business continuity in
Recognizing the limitations of traditional backup
enterprise IT environments. As part of the
Using traditional backup approaches in virtualized
planning process for virtualization, IT administrators
environments—generally by placing software backup
have an opportunity to evaluate and update their
agents on each VM—can work well with small imple-
strategies for securing and restoring data. Although it
mentations, but can be costly in the long run. As VM
is clear that each virtual machine (VM) must have some
count within an IT environment increases, the number
sort of backup and recovery protection, traditional
of agents increases as well. As environments grow to
techniques for protecting physical servers may not
potentially include thousands of VMs, the growth in
work well for protecting VMs—quickly becoming
licensing costs alone can become unsustainable.
irtualization can offer major advantages for
expensive and difficult to manage as the environment
Another challenge to consider is the ability to meet
grows. Key elements to consider as part of an evaluation
RTOs—the maximum time allowed to recover a system
include recovery time objectives (RTOs), scalability,
after a failure. There are two main hurdles to clear when
cost, and performance.
meeting an RTO goal: recovering the OS and application
Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 software is designed
to a consistent running state, and recovering the required
specifically to address these challenges. This compre-
data back into the system. The traditional method of
hensive, high-performance data protection and disaster
recovering a system typically requires IT staff to reinstall
recovery solution can help protect physical servers and
the OS and the backup application before they can
workstations running Microsoft® Windows® or Linux®
recover the data, after which they must apply patches
operating systems as well as VMs based on Microsoft
and configure the backup application to work with the
Hyper-V™, VMware®, Citrix® XenServer™, and Parallels vir-
backup infrastructure. The entire process can require
tualization platforms from a single centralized manage-
significant expertise and potentially take hours to com-
ment console designed for ease of use.1 Together with
plete, even before the first byte of data is restored.
Dell storage arrays, it can provide a simple, scalable, and
In addition, although many organizations are
cost-effective way to meet enterprise RTOs while help-
implementing server virtualization to help gain
ing protect critical systems.
efficiencies from their server hardware, the reality is
1
For more information on comprehensive Acronis support for major virtualization platforms, see “The Hidden Costs of Virtualization,” by Acronis, Inc., October 2009, available at www.acronis.com/promo/dell2009.
Reprinted from Dell Power Solutions, December 2009. Copyright © 2009 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
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Storage
designed to grow from protecting a single Managed vault disk Acronis storage node
Microsoft Windows and Linux servers
workstation in a home office to potentially thousands of workstations and servers in a large enterprise (see Figure 1). A single Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 domain can scale up to 20 storage nodes, with each node managing up to 20 disk or tape vaults, all of which can be controlled through a single management server.
Acronis management server
Administrators can add resources such as Microsoft Windows workstations
disk capacity and backup servers on demand to handle new workloads, helping
Acronis storage node
minimize startup costs. The agentless approach used by Managed vault tape
Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 also helps
Managed vault disk
avoid rising agent costs as VM count increases. Acronis offers a license model
Figure 1. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 architecture
that supports virtualized environments with fixed pricing based on the number
that placing 15–20 VMs on a single physical
Recovery can be accomplished quickly
of physical servers rather than the
server typically leads to significantly
even using dissimilar systems. Recovering
number of VMs—enabling administrators
increased demands on processor, memory,
a system onto dissimilar hardware often
to add VMs to existing servers and
and I/O processing. Because backup
means the system cannot start normally,
protect those VMs without incurring
processes are often highly resource
potentially requiring hours or even days
additional licensing costs.
intensive, they can slow significantly as
of work from skilled engineers to perform
In addition, the integrated Acronis
VMs proliferate and consume an increasing
tasks such as copying and replacing driv-
Backup & Recovery 10 Deduplication
amount of physical resources.
ers and editing and creating Windows
option can help further lower costs by
registry keys. The Acronis Backup &
helping to dramatically reduce overall
Meeting recovery time objectives
Recovery 10 Universal Restore option
storage requirements and simplify
helps dramatically simplify and streamline
remote office backup. Source-level
The integrated system recovery capabilities
this process, enabling organizations to use
deduplication for the remote systems
in Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 enable IT
dissimilar hardware for standby purposes
enables backups to run over a wide area
staff to rapidly recover systems and appli-
and helping eliminate the need to provi-
network using minimal bandwidth, which
cations to a consistent state. The patented
sion identical hardware for recovery or
helps eliminate the need to purchase,
Acronis disk-imaging and bare-metal
deploy potentially expensive clustering
deploy, and maintain disk or tape stor-
restore technology is designed to allow
solutions. IT staff can add drivers for the
age devices at the remote location. In
comprehensive system recovery back to
new hardware to a recovery CD before or
fact, these savings may be significant
the state at which the backup was per-
during the recovery process, and the
enough to enable organizations to cost-
formed, without the need to reinstall and
Universal Restore option can automati-
effectively extend deduplication to
reconfigure the backup application.
cally configure the underlying OS settings
workstations and laptops. 2
Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 also helps standardize the recovery process into easy-
to help ensure the recovered system runs on the new hardware.
to-follow procedures, helping free highly
Organizations performing remote office and workstation or laptop backups can also gain the advantages of remote recovery, helping avoid the time
In a major disaster, IT staff can perform a
Enhancing scalability and controlling costs
concurrent mass recovery with a high level
When deploying Acronis Backup &
locations for desk-side service. Instead,
of automation, helping avoid the manual,
Recovery 10, organizations can invest in
administrators can recover multiple
time-consuming, and error-prone processes
infrastructure only as it is needed. The soft-
systems at different locations simultane-
that might otherwise be required.
ware is based on a scalable architecture
ously from a single console.
skilled IT personnel to focus on other tasks.
2
and cost of sending IT staff to distant
For more information on Acronis deduplication, see “How Deduplication Benefits Companies of All Sizes,” by Acronis, Inc., June 2009, available by sending an e-mail request to
[email protected].
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DELL POWER SOLUTIONS | December 2009
Reprinted from Dell Power Solutions, December 2009. Copyright © 2009 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
Centralizing management
to capture entire disk images and save
and performance to meet their needs.
Managing data backup for a large environ-
them to disk storage such as a storage
Acronis Backup & Recover y 10 is
ment can be tedious when hundreds or
area network (SAN), network attached
designed to address these challenges
thousands of systems are involved. Acronis
storage (NAS), direct attach storage
for organizations of all sizes, including
Backup & Recovery 10 enables administra-
(DAS), RAID arrays, or rewritable optical
a choice of seven editions to suit a
tors to centrally manage backup policies,
disks. Storage devices such as tape drives
variety of sizes and needs. By offering
servers, storage nodes, and vaults through
and libraries are also supported.
simple, cost-ef fective backup and
a single centralized console designed for
Utilizing the Acronis Backup &
recovery for both physical systems and
ease of use. Policy-based management
Recovery 10 Deduplication option can
VMs, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10
helps eliminate the need to create backup
also help dramatically reduce storage
and Dell storage can help organizations
jobs on each individual system; instead,
requirements and demands on processor
create a robust, efficient infrastructure
administrators can create a standard policy
resources, I/O capacity, and network
that can scale on demand as the IT
and apply it to a group of systems, helping
bandwidth to make highly efficient use
environment grows.
to save time and avoid backup jobs that
of available resources. Administrators
deviate from existing backup policies.
can choose between deduplication at
Marc Mombourquette is a product
All managed systems in the backup
source and target to help reduce storage
marketing manager at Acronis. His
infrastructure—both physical and virtual—
volumes. When deduplication at source
interests include backup and recovery,
are registered to the Acronis Backup &
is selected, the backup client performs
virtualization, and emerging technologies.
Recovery management server and listed in
the deduplication process before trans-
Marc is a graduate of the University of
the console. Administrators can create
mitting the data to the storage node,
Massachusetts Amherst.
groups to organize managed systems, and
helping reduce bandwidth requirements.
can assign systems to more than one group
When deduplication at target (storage)
to help maximize flexibility. Administrators
is selected, the backup client transmits
can also drill down into backup image sets
the backup data to the storage node,
and initiate tasks such as consolidation,
with the storage node then performing
validation, expiration, and cleanup.
the deduplication, helping to significantly
Advanced scheduling features and tem-
reduce storage volumes to optimize stor-
plates also help increase flexibility, enabling
age capacity.
administrators to design the backup rotarequirements. As the environment grows,
Simplifying data protection in virtualized environments
the efficiencies afforded by this centralized
Organizations planning for virtualiza-
management can grow along with it.
tion should evaluate their strategies for
tions and schemas appropriate to their
securing and storing data and imple-
Maintaining high performance
ment a storage and backup system that
To help ensure high-performance backups,
can help them meet RTOs and control
Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 is designed
costs while providing the scalability
Reprinted from Dell Power Solutions, December 2009. Copyright © 2009 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
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