Server Backup Essentials

Transcript

White Paper Server Backup Essentials Mastering the technology & business of server backup Server Backup Essentials The 10 Elements of Server Backup Local vs. Off-Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 Remote Offices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 IT Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 OS Platforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 Data Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 Backup Functionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 Data Recovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Security / Encryption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 zetta.net | i Server Backup Essentials Local vs. Off-Site Local and off-site Backup Combination. It’s a best practice to have a combination of local and off-site backup. Typically you want to keep large files, like databases and system state file backups on-site. This enables a quick recovery of the latest version of these files and reduces downtime. It’s the most practical if your available bandwidth limits how fast you can restore these large files over the wire. Off-site server backup is the other part of backup, that’s critical for disaster recovery and regulatory compliance. You can backup data either to removable media (tapes, USBs, disks) or to the cloud. Physical media backups can be cheap, however they require lots of manual intervention and getting tapes back to your office will take hours or days. Also, getting a tape back does not guarantee you’ll be able to recover the data. Off-site media backup also becomes a security risk, because of the possibility of media being lost or stolen. Cloud off-site server backup. Enterprise-grade cloud backup delivers significant advantages, like automation of daily backups, shorter backup windows, ability to immediately recover data from anywhere using just a web browser and lower costs. Learn more. Local vs. off-site. Zetta’s DataProtect delivers both local and cloud off-site backup in one solution. It’s SmartBackup logic delivers the most optimal combination of local and off-site backup to ensure speed, reliability, quick recovery, compliance and cost reduction. Use This off-site Backup ROI calculator to compare costs for off-site backup in your environment zetta.net | 1 Server Backup Essentials Remote Offices Remote Office Backup Challenge. Managing backups for multiple offices is time consuming and loaded with extra costs, due to different software for backup, archiving and recovery, as well as travel, movement of physical media and meeting regulations. Options. The main options are: placing servers or appliances in remote locations, using replication or backup software, adding a new datacenter, or using cloud-based services. Hardware Option. You can re-utilize an old server or buy an appliance to use as a replication target. This can be a relatively quick and inexpensive option. However, you still need replication software. You also will need to support it, by travelling to the site or hiring local contractors—adding cost and complexity. This option can become impractical if you have more than 2 remote offices without local IT assets. Datacenter Option. Renting rack space in a collocated datacenter has the same travel requirements as the hardware option, but is more expensive since you have to pay a premium for space, power, and cooling. Cloud Option. Both of these other options have costs that have to be added to the budget for backup. Even the self-replication option requires additional storage, power, cooling, and time to manage. Watch this video to see how Zetta’s cloud datacenters solve the problem of remote office server backup, without the headaches of managing it yourself. With online server backup you get one console for backup jobs from each office, eliminating the chores involved with remote office backup: manual processes, unnecessary complexity and redundant costs. Take a look at how you can get one console for all your backup jobs zetta.net | 2 Server Backup Essentials IT Assets Unique Backup Needs. The unique characteristics of SQL databases, VMs, Exchange servers, file servers, and executive laptops make it complicated to back them all up to a single location.  For example, telling your CEO that you can recover her critical data in a day, once the tapes have come back in from your offsite vendor may not be the answer she’s looking for. Cost and Complexity. The costs and complexity of backing up different IT assets can quickly escalate if you buy different solutions to address different asset types, backup types (local vs. off-site) and disaster recovery. Checklist. When picking a backup solution, make a checklist to be sure each of your IT assets has been optimized for: n Plug-ins (SQL, Exchange, VMware) n Large Files (CAD, 3D graphics, biomedical imaging) n Many Small Files (MS office, Accounting & HR Documents) Online Server Backup. With an enterprise-grade online server backup supporting multiple applications and platform, you have access to built in plugins for SQL, VMware, and Exchange that sends you one daily email to confirm all you IT assets were backed up successfully. By storing data in native file, it enables instant recovery with mountable drive letter access to backed up data in it’s native file format. Take a look at how you can integrate all your IT assets into a single backup job zetta.net | 3 Server Backup Essentials OS Platforms Windows + Linux + Mac OS = scalability. Most IT organizations have to support multiple server OSs. However, many backup solutions specialize in a single OS or a specific application. It is important to pick one that supports most of your operating systems for current backups, as well as future changes in the IT and business infrastructure. One Command Center. Picking such a solution that has a single management interface for the checklist below can save a significant amount of time and resources, simplifying backups and recovery at the meantime. Checklist: n OS platforms (11 versions of Linux, 5 version of Windows, 2 versions of Mac OS) n Key application support (Exchange, SQL, VMs, System State) n Combination of local and off-site backups n Data protection elements (backup, archiving, disaster recovery) Online multi-platform server backup. Zetta DataProtect offers support for 18 different OS platforms, can sync data that rests on NAS or SAN, and can read and sync data from unsupported Operating systems via CIFS or NFS mounts. See how you can use a single management interface for different OS platforms with Zetta’s online server backup zetta.net | 4 Server Backup Essentials Data Protection Backup = Backup + Archiving + Disaster Recovery + Snapshot + Replication Snapshot-enabled backups: A snapshot is a point-in-time copy of your backup data. It delivers versioning-enabled backups with custom retention history, so you can quickly recover the latest file, but also instantly view and recover older versions as necessary. This reduces data lost due to corruption, adds value to business users and helps with regulatory compliance. Replication-enabled disaster recovery: Pairing snapshots and replication provides the most efficient disaster recovery capability. Rather that storing your files compressed, or in a proprietary unreadable format, replication makes your backup a fully instantiated file system – in its native format – so disaster recovery is as easy as pulling a file off a file server. This approach delivers 3 recovery options - through the software agent, Internet browser (clicking a URL to see your backup as a file system), or mounting your backup as drive so it will show up like any other shared network drive on your system. See screenshots. Archiving: Depending on your policies and regulations, you may want to keep backup data for 30, 90, 180 days or even years. Keeping this data on your primary storage is expensive, extends backup windows, and limits capacity expansion in your data center. An online backup solution like Zetta adds archiving functionality to your backup and recovery at no additional cost. It also enables instant data retrieval from archives when necessary. Download this whitepaper on “Versioning-enabled Backups” to learn more about Data Protection using Snapshot & Replication zetta.net | 5 Server Backup Essentials Backup Functionality Get data protected quickly. When deploying a server backup solution in your data center, it should take only a few minutes to add new data sources to the backup. This is especially important when the amount of data you’re backing up is growing rapidly. Traditional Backup Management Chores. With tape, disk, or D2D2T backup there is a series of tasks that slow down deployment, daily management, and adding new servers. First, data center space will need to be allocated and power provisioned. Then off-site tape rotation schedules will need to be created, backup application tests run, tapes manually unloaded to be taken off-site, and off-site storage vendors managed. Cloud Deployment & Management. With a cloud server backup solution like Zetta’s DataProtect you get ver easy setup and management. It’s turn-key solution, with set-and-forget automated backups. There’s the lightweight software agent that installs in less than a minute. Everything else can be managed via your System Management Portal from anywhere. Unlike tape, with Zetta’s server backup your incremental backups are layered on the original full-backup automatically. And Zetta’s experts-in-the-cloud proactively manage everything for you, and let you know if they detect an issue. Email alerts and daily digest emails for reporting and monitoring give a clear status of your backup jobs. Download this whitepaper “Simplifying Backups” to learn best practices on reducing backup complexity zetta.net | 6 Server Backup Essentials Data Recovery Zetta’s datacenters Easy Recovery Process. The have 10Gb number of steps and amount of time it takes to recover a file, folder, or entire system from backup is directly correlated with how likely the recovery is to be successful. Tape Recovery process. Since tape is a sequential technology, recovering even a single file from a tape backup requires time and effort. Restoring a full system from tape after a physical disaster like a fire or flood can be nearly impossible. First, you have to find, purchase, and install a tape drive identical to the one that made the tape. If the unit is older than 2 years this can be a problem.  Then you have to reinstall the same operating system.  Next, you have to install the same version of the same backup program as the one that created the tape.  connections so your data transfer speeds will never be capped, throttled or limited by bandwidth. Then you can start to recover the data, which takes the same amount of time as when the tape was written. Of course, it’s possible that you can’t recover any data from the tape if it’s been corrupted. With disk backup all the above is true, plus disk media is more expensive and sensitive to damage. Cloud Disaster Recovery Process. With Zetta’s 3-in-1 online backup, archiving, and disaster recovery, there are 3 recovery options, each with “pick and click” functionality. You can go through the software agent, find the version of the file you’re looking for from the right day and click, “recover.” Or, you can click a URL that will allow you to recover from your backup directly over the web by showing your replicated file system. Lastly, you can choose to mount your backup as drive so it will show up like any other shared network drive on your system. Each of these options lets you recover data to different servers at different sites via the system management portal from anywhere. No Single point of Failure. Every component in Zetta’s datacenters have N+1 redundancy so there’s no single point of failure. Data Transfer Speed. Zetta’s infrastructure, sub-file change detection, and use of the WebDAV Protocol is much faster than other solutions since it lets you take advantage of multi-threaded file transfers so your internet bandwidth is used efficiently. This is great for when you have to recover many small files. Zetta’s datacenters have redundant 10Gb connections so your data transfer speeds will never be capped, throttled or limited by bandwidth. In addition, Zetta customers have a measured backup reliability of 99.99996%, and a 100% recovery rate. Download this whitepaper, “Disaster Recovery: You Can Afford It” to learn more about 3-in-1 backup, disaster recovery, and archiving zetta.net | 7 Server Backup Essentials Security / Encryption Security of backup data. Security is a constant worry for administrators using tape and disk backup solutions that are sent off-site. ZETTA ENCRYPTS DATA USING 256BIT SSL DURING Tape Backup Security. Some LTO4 and LTO 5 tapes can 256bit TRANSFER ACROSS AES hardware encryption, but additional software is required to maintain the encryption keys. That software is an additional expense, and if the software itself isn’t backed up, the keys can be lost permanently. The best practice for dealing with this issue is to write the key to the tape, with a passphrase to allow recovery. THE INTERNET AND SALSA20 256BIT ON DISK. Off-siting Service Security. When sending tapes off-site, delivery services commonly use physical security to protect data. They use lock boxes for transporting tapes which can be lost, causing a data breach. Also, older LTO1-LTO3 that are still widely used are not encrypted, and if stolen, can be read by anyone. Cloud Security. Zetta’s DataProtect online server backup encrypts data using 256bit SSL encryption, both during transfer across the internet and Salsa20 256bit on disk in the datacenter. Additionally, both Zetta’s service and the datacenter itself are have SSAE-16 audited security procedures. Take a closer look the security measures built into Zetta DataProtect zetta.net | 8 Server Backup Essentials Support What can go wrong with backups? While backup technology has been around for decades, there are still many things that can go wrong. For example, n Backup failure – A backup failure can be caused by a problem in the system, the media, or human error. n Missed Backup Windows – When backups scheduled for off-hours take too long and run into business hours it starts a conflict with users for network resources. n Data Corruption – Backups made to tape or disk media can appear fine, but once the recovery process starts read errors are found that mean recovery from that tape or disk will be impossible. n Inability to Recover – In some cases if you recall a tape from an offsite storage facility yo’ll find that the media cannot be read. Similarly, you might recall a tape from 4 years ago, only to find that your LTO4 tape drive can’t read the LTO2 tapes. n Random failure – There a number of other issues a backup administrator may encounter, such as:  backup software bugs, backup system misconfigured, forgetting an encryption password, or the backup system crashing in the middle of the backup. Important Support Elements: n 24x7x365. In The middle of an emergency, knowing you can reach a server engineer is key. A support staff that can quickly diagnose your issue makes the difference between it being solved, and thousands of dollars in downtime. n Engineer Level Support. Zetta’s customer support team are all server engineers. They’re same people who work on the servers in our datacenters. This means your issues start getting solved on the first call. n Account-specific support. n US-based Support Team. When you call Zetta’s customer support you’ll reach a server engineer in the US, not a remote call center. Zetta DataProtect delivers all these service elements without additional cost as part of its 3-in-1 backup, archiving and disaster recovery solution. Replace tapes with online server backup, eliminates those support costs, lowering both data center and hardware support costs. Companies that use Zetta’s DataProtect online server backup have access to 24x7x365 US-based phone support and a dedicated technical account manager for no extra cost. For more information about Zetta’s technical customer support, take a look at this blog post “The Best Part of an Online Backup Service Is The Service.” zetta.net | 9 Server Backup Essentials Costs Visible and Hidden Costs. When looking for a server backup solution, it is important to keep an eye on the following cost components. Adding operational costs to the capital expense for hardware will give you the total cost of ownership (TCO). 1. Software licenses per server (all software necessary for backup, archiving and DR) 2. Application plug-ins 3. Software support costs 4. Hardware costs 5. Storage costs 6. Datacenter and related cost (space, power, cooling…) 7. Service startup costs 8. Integration and deployment time and costs 9. Off-siting service costs 10. Remote office support costs Online Server Backup. Zetta DataProtect integrates all of the elements above in 3-in-1 online backup service that starts at $225 a month. It includes unlimited software licenses for snapshot-based backup, replication-based disaster recovery and archiving, 500 GB of enterprise-grade storage, 24x7 managed service and support with proactive notifications. About Zetta. Zetta is an enterprise-grade 3-in-1 online server backup, disaster recovery, and archiving solution for SMBs. The key features are: n Appliance-free (can be deployed in 15 minutes) n Fast data transfer rates (over 1TB/day) n Enterprise-grade Security (encryption, SSAE 16) n Multi-platform support (18 Linux, Windows, and Mac platforms) n Secure data access and recovery via the web For more information, contact [email protected] or visit www.zetta.net. Download this server backup ROI calculator to compare backup costs in your environment. Or, request custom pricing for Zetta DataProtect zetta.net | 10