How Data Backup is Changing and Why It Matters

A survey of today’s data backup and recovery solutions reveals a landscape that has grown increasingly complex in an effort to keep up with ever larger backup needs.

Traditional data backup keeps forging along. In some environments it works well enough and there is little drive and/or budget to replace it. But in other data environments traditional backup is increasingly inadequate for new data protection challenges, including cloud, big data, mobile, and virtualized environments. These data infrastructures require optimized approaches for the new challenges they represent.

This article will discuss newer backup options for these fast-growing environments as we head into 2014.

Cloud Backup

Most backup vendors offer some level of cloud functionality to their backup applications, even if it’s as simple as a cloud target. However, given extreme data growth and the need for fast backup and recovery, cloud backup requires more robust solutions.

Cloud gateway vendors EVault, Panzura, and Riverbed offer additional capabilities. EVault is a traditional backup vendor that has successfully retooled for the cloud. The company added additional functionality around dedupe, acceleration, and restore. Panzura’s global filesystem enables high performance to cloud storage, and Riverbed built Whitewater to add high speed local caching to WAN acceleration for faster data transport to the cloud.  

CTERA and TwinStrata are entrants in the emerging Hybrid Cloud Storage (HCS) category, which represents a close integration between on-premise and cloud storage functionality. HCS is not limited to backup and recovery. For example, MS StorSimple’s HCS platform with MS Azure is for primary storage environments. In the backup category, CTERA enables data accessibility and sharing across multiple locations by integrating on-premise and cloud storage. TwinStrata offers dynamic caching and supports a very wide set of cloud host partners.

EMC is actively pursuing cloud integration for its data protection offerings in EMC Data Protection Suite. EMC’s hardware and software portfolio size allows it to sell many cloud-based backup configurations and consulting services to service providers and corporate IT.  

On the other hand, Symantec just retired Backup Exec Cloud, a standalone cloud backup product included with Backup Exec 2012. Symantec cited Backup Exec Cloud’s lack of file sharing and mobile backup access – in other words, it was a simple cloud backup target and not exactly an innovative approach to cloud-based data protection and collaboration. (To be sure, Symantec NetBackup is seeing double-digit sales growth.)

We don’t usually think “tape” along with the cloud, but tape libraries are proving to be enormously useful in cloud-based data centers. For example, redIT (no relation to the online forum of the same name) is a virtual data center provider using Quantum Scalar libraries in conjunction with disk. Big tape libraries from Spectra Logic, IBM, and Oracle also complement disk storage in cloud hosting environments.

Big Data

Big Data is a big marketing term with fluid definitions. Certainly it means large volumes of data, but more specifically it refers to large data sets with current business value. Backing up big data has to offer extremely high scalability and performance, high availability, and innovative approaches to backing up very big data sets.

CommVault Simpana OnePass saves time at the scanning stage with an object-level baseline backup. Parallel file systems can also speed up big data backup such as IBM’s General Parallel File System connected to high performance storage hardware. Sepaton built its reputation on protecting big data environments with fast backup and restore, dedupe, high scalability and replication.

EMC is deeply involved with big data and offers multiple protection solutions. One popular solution is snapshots and replication using NetWorker Snapshot Management and mirrored configurations on VNX arrays. Symantec is also actively developing products and services for big data in its NetBackup Global Enterprise Data Protection Platform.

Spectra Logic in particular has made a big push for adding tape libraries into big data environments. Large volume libraries act as big online storage for less active big data backup, and active archiving software archives big data to tape and can immediately restore them onto high speed disk for analytics runs. This grants data protection to big data without long backup windows.

Virtualization

Backing up virtualized networks is a growing challenge as more and more companies deploy their production environments on virtual machines. Many customers apply physical backup applications to their virtual environment, but multiple VMs on a single physical server produce high levels of I/Os. Backing up hundreds to thousands of VMs quickly becomes untenable. It’s no surprise that fast-growing virtualization fuels major backup sales.

Virtualization leader VMware has made major strides to make backup easier on administrators. Native tools include VMware Consolidated Backup, VMware Data Recovery (VDR), and the new vSphere 5.1 Data Protection (VDP) that it co-developed with EMC. Microsoft Hyper-V also has native backup tools largely based on Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS). However, the larger the virtual network becomes, the more administrators look farther afield for backup and recovery.

Symantec is deeply integrated into the VMware backup market. Its V-Ray technology provides visibility into the VMDK (VMware image) to optimize backup and recovery and NetBackup load-balances across the virtualized environment.

Veeam’s developers architected it to do virtual data protection and virtual only, leaving the physical space to other backup vendors. Its singular focus has enabled it to realize fast growth in SMB and mid-sized environments, and Veeam Backup & Replication 7 just added enterprise scalability. CommVault backs up and archives VMs using Simpana 10 with VM Archiving.

Other virtualized backup makers include Unitrends and IBM: Unitrends Enterprise Backup unifies physical and virtual backup in virtual environments and IBM is in the game with Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtualized Environments. EMC works closely with VMware to develop virtualized backup solutions, and Symantec also offer backup and recovery for physical servers and VMs.

Edge Protection

Edge backup and recovery refers to backing up from desktops, laptops and mobile devices. Desktop and laptop backup was a corporate nice-to-have in the past but with increasing mobile use and ROBO deployments, corporations are turning to the cloud and to edge backup solutions for help.

Two companies are particularly well-known in the edge protection field: CommVault and Druva. CommVault Edge protects data on user computers and mobile devices and offers automatic device discovery and IT central management. Druva inSync pioneered continuous data protection for laptops. It protects these and other mobile devices on-premise and in the cloud and is extending value with file sharing.

Data Copy-Less

Most backup procedures, even ones using snapshot or replication, are based on creating copies of data. Actifio has a different approach: a virtual repository containing globally de-duplicated object file system stores. Actifio provides virtual point-in-time copies from a single repository for use in multiple processes and targets, such as data restore or test-dev environments. The result is sharply diminished need for storage capacity. Incremental-forever backup does not require a backup window

Looking Forward

I truly wish that I could recommend one or two backup applications that do it all: large and small environments, virtual and physical, on-premise and cloud, back office data and big data. But no one application does it all, even the ones bearing the “unified” label.

You first have to understand your compute infrastructure, data protection service levels, and your environment – physical, virtual, cloud, big data. Once you really understand your environment’s needs then you can communicate those needs to vendors. A single unified backup product can be a good choice for simpler environments, while complex environments should be open to purchasing from point vendors to suit critical needs.  Look to integration between your backup vendors, which is happening more often in response to customer requests.

I don’t need a crystal ball to tell you that companies are experiencing incredibly fast rates of data growth. New backup technologies are here today to help you protect this data in all of its incarnations. Take advantage of the best solutions for your environment the way it is today – not the way it used to be.

Christine Taylor is a well-known technology writer who has worked in the storage industry for many years.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.