Cloud Storage Backup for Storage as a Service with AT&T

Transcription

1 WHITE PAPER: CLOUD STORAGE BACKUP FOR STORAGE AS A SERVICE WITH..... AT&T Cloud Storage Backup for Storage as a Service with AT&T Who should read this paper Customers, Sales Executives, and Technical Support Staff

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3 Content Executive Summary Introducing Symantec NetBackup Open Storage Technology (OST) NetBackup 7.5 Storage Lifecycle Policy s (SLP s) AT&T Synaptic Storage as a Service Synthetic Backups NetBackup Cloud Enabled Appliances Introduction on Features Conclusions

4 Executive Summary As our economy shifts from paper-based to digital information management, Enterprises, and Small and Medium Businesses (SMB) are increasingly relying on the cost effectiveness of cloud computing. Cloud is one of today s most significant IT trends. The Cloud promises to drive significant improvement in employee productivity, while reducing costs and eliminating complexity. As an outgrowth of the dramatic increase of unstructured data and a lack of guidance in an ever increasing regulatory environment, customers are struggling to quantify the total cost of ownership of increased datacenter assets to meet these requirements. Symantec and AT&T have addressed some of these challenges for long term retention, and address ongoing environmental concerns (power, cooling, floor space) through the use of Symantec s innovative NetBackup Cloud enabled OST (Open Storage Technology) module and the groundbreaking AT&T Synaptic Storage as a Service SM. 1

5 Introducing Symantec NetBackup 7.5 Symantec introduces the Symantec NetBackup 7.5 Platform with V-Ray technology that simplifies and unifies the protection of your information driven environment by automating advanced technologies and standardizing operations across applications, platforms, and virtual, physical, and cloud environments. NetBackup with V-Ray provides patented visibility into virtual machines and applications across physical and virtual servers, and optimizes deduplication data streams for fast and efficient backup and recovery. That means customers have the ability to protect completely, store efficiently, recover anywhere, and manage centrally across heterogeneous operating systems and storage hardware, including disk and tape. Integrated Dedupe Everywhere, snapshot replication management and recovery, and patentpending virtual machine protection help customers better manage and protect accelerating data growth, lower infrastructure use and cost, and reduce recovery times to meet the most demanding service level agreements. A single, unified management console offers multi-site monitoring, analytics, and reporting, which allows customers to standardize operations and risk management and deploy best practice Tiered Recovery solutions. The NetBackup 7.5 platform includes some of the following new features: 2

6 Open Storage Technology (OST) Symantec has developed the OpenStorage API which is an innovative disk-based solution which allows NetBackup to take advantage of the new technological advances of intelligent storage devices, such as the AT&T Synaptic Storage as a Service SM. At a high level OST is an API that allows NetBackup Media servers to take advantage of intelligent disk devices as well as cloud storage solutions. The OpenStorage API feature separates backup business logic from storage device implementation. Symantec s NetBackup OpenStorage supports any connectivity, any protocol (FC, TCP/IP, combination), and any file system format. The function of the Open Storage Technology has been tightly integrated to the AT&T Synaptic Storage as a Service SM offering and provides a single point of management and control for cloud based backups. With this technology NetBackup can take advantage of Storage Lifecycle Policies, synthetic backups, their by reducing customers long time storage costs and increase customer energy efficiency. The Open Storage API offers customers a full view of their backup and long term retention of data for improved SLA s and regulatory compliance, when integrated with Symantec s Control Compliance Suite of offerings. 3

7 NetBackup 7.5 Storage Lifecycle Policy s (SLP s) One of the key components of NetBackup 7.5 Cloud Storage integration is the idea of Storage Lifecycle Policy s, which allow administrators to automatically specify where backup data will be stored and for how long. The Storage Lifecycle Policy determines the locations where the backup is initially written and the destinations to which it is subsequently sent, as well as the period of time that each copy of the backup will be retained. A Storage Lifecycle Policy primarily consists of two core components: a list of storage destinations where copies of the backup images will be stored, and the retention period for each copy. A Storage Lifecycle Policy can replace both the conventional duplication and staging processes with a single automated processing sequence by introducing a series of storage locations, or destinations, using different types of storage with different retention periods. Storage Lifecycle Policies ensure backup data always exists at the appropriate locations, and at the appropriate phases of the lifecycle. A Storage Lifecycle Policy is reusable by many NetBackup Backup Policies. If a storage plan changes (e.g. a new regulation is imposed on your business requiring changes to retention periods or the number of copies created), you simply need to change a small number of Storage Lifecycle Policies and all of the backups will automatically employ the changes. 4

8 AT&T Synaptic Storage as a Service AT&T has selected a storage solution for their back-end storage offering that is based on an object-orientated design. It is a multi-tenant architecture that AT&T uses to provide customers, both internal and external with on-demand storage. AT&T is unique in that the customer pays on usage with no minimum or maximum requirement. This makes the AT&T Synaptic Storage as a Service SM a flexible and cost effective offering for those seeking to leverage the cloud. Please Note: AT&T Synaptic Storage as a Service SM accounts - You must obtain a user ID and password for an AT&T account. These are required when you create the Storage Server. Please Note: The format to enter your AT&T Credentials are: UserName = SubtenantID/UID Password = SharedSecret 5

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10 7 Cloud Storage Backup for Storage as a Service with AT&T

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13 As stated above the AT&T Synaptic Storage as a Service SM offering is based on an Object Storage module, and while not new, an Object-based Storage Device (OSD) can be described as a computer storage device, similar to disk storage but works at a higher level. Instead of providing a block-oriented interface that reads and writes fixed sized blocks of data, an Object Storage Device organizes data into flexible-sized data containers, called objects. Each object has both data (an uninterrupted sequence of bytes (the file information) and metadata (the attributes describing the object). The command interface to the OSD includes commands to create and delete objects, write bytes and read bytes to and from individual objects, and to set and get attributes on objects. The OSD is responsible for managing the storage of objects and their metadata. By way of definition, Object Storage is the process of storing and accessing data based on object names and metadata that describe the concept or objects. Client interfaces are handled through the use of object API s over SOAP and REST. SOAP is defined as Simple Object Access Protocol and is a protocol specification for exchanging structured information in the implementation of web services in computer networks. It relies on Extensible Markup Language (XML) as its message format. REST is defined as Representational State Transfer which is a style of software architecture for distributed hypermedia systems such as the World Wide Web. The NetBackup Open Storage Technology (OST) module supports the REST Protocol. 10

14 Synthetic Backups NetBackup Cloud Storage supports NetBackup Accelerator and NetBackup Optimized Synthetics. Encryption, metering, and throttling are functional and supported when you enable NetBackup Accelerator or NetBackup Optimized Synthetic backups. You can enable both NetBackup Accelerator and NetBackup Optimized Synthetic backups in the same way as non-cloud backups. During a traditional full backup, all files are copied from the client to a master server or a media server in the NetBackup environment. The files are copied even though those files may not have changed since the last incremental backup. An option for the cloud environment is to create a synthetic backup. When NetBackup creates a synthetic full backup, NetBackup detects whether new or changed files have been copied to the media server during the last incremental backup. The client does not need to be running to combine the full backups and the incremental backups on the media server to form a new, full backup. The new, full synthetic backup is an accurate representation of the clients file system at the time of the most recent full backup. Because processing takes place on master and media servers instead of the client, synthetic backups help to reduce the network traffic. Files are transferred over the network only once. After the backup images are combined into a synthetic backup, disk target that contains the component images can be recycled or reclaimed. Synthetic backups can reduce the amount of disk space in use. Synthetic backups can be written to disk storage units, or a combination of both disk and tape. 11

15 NetBackup Cloud Enabled Appliances According to Rachel Dines of Forrester Research (September 2010) the following are requirements when Selecting an Enterprise Backup Solution: Move to a disk-based backup solution today. Avoid multiple point products to solve individual backup challenges as this creates islands of data protection. Select a backup application that supports your entire IT environment; remote office, regional office and data center. Stay current with backup application updates, and use the advanced agents with application awareness. Use cloud recovery or storage services to fill in the gaps of your current DR strategy or for long-term data retention. Within the backup solution, Symantec provides flexibility; at the client, on the media server or the target device. Secondly, Symantec offers a choice of form factor. This provides the flexibility to implement NetBackup as a software solution, or as a fully integrated hardware appliance. These integrated backup appliances allow Customers to simplify their backup experience and reduce costs wherever possible by reducing integration risk and streamlining the buying and support experience. Introducing the NetBackup Appliances: 12

16 Introduction on Features The NetBackup Cloud Storage module when installed enables you to back up and restore data from the AT&T Synaptic Storage as a Service SM. NetBackup Cloud Storage enablement is integrated with Symantec s OpenStorage module and provides features that can enhance the operational experience of Backup and Recovery from the cloud. An example of this is the following NetBackup 7.5 features: 1) A Configuration Wizard - A new integrated Cloud Storage Configuration Wizard is incorporated to facilitate the cloud storage setup and storage provisioning. Cloud storage provisioning now happens entirely through the NetBackup interface. 2) Encryption - NetBackup Cloud Storage Encryption encrypts the data inline before it is sent to the cloud. Encryption interfaces with the NetBackup Key Management Service (KMS) to leverage its ability to manage encryption keys. The encryption feature uses an AES 256 cipher feedback (CFB) mode encryption. 3) Throttling - NetBackup Cloud Storage throttling controls the data transfer rates between your network and the cloud. The throttling values are set on a per NetBackup media server basis. In certain implementations, you want to limit WAN usage for backups and restores to the cloud. You want to implement this limit so you do not constrain other network activity. Throttling provides a mechanism to the NetBackup administrators to limit NetBackup Cloud Storage traffic. By implementing a limit to cloud WAN traffic, it cannot consume more than the allocated bandwidth. NetBackup Cloud Storage Throttling lets you configure and control the following: Different bandwidth value for both read and writes operations. Maximum number of connections that are supported for the cloud provider at any given time. Network bandwidth as a percent of total. 4) Metering - The NetBackup Cloud Storage metering reports enable you to monitor data transfers within NetBackup Cloud Storage. Cloudbased storage is unlike traditional tape or disk media, which use persistent backup images. Your cloud storage vendor calculates cloud-based storage costs per byte stored and per byte transferred. The NetBackup Cloud Storage software uses several techniques to minimize stored and transferred data. With these techniques, traditional catalog-based information about the amount of protected data no longer equates to the amount of data that is stored or transferred. Metering allows installations to monitor the amount of data that is transferred on a per media server basis across one or more cloud-based storage providers. Metering reports are generated through NetBackup OpsCenter. 5) Key Management - If you do not have Key Management Service (KMS) configured, the Cloud Storage Server Configuration Wizard includes steps to create and enable KMS. You can also use the command line to configure KMS. Use the following procedure to configure KMS from the command line. 6) Cloud Storage service - The NetBackup Cloud Storage Service Container (nbcssc) process performs the following functions: Controls the configuration parameters that are related to NetBackup Cloud Storage Generates the metering information for the metering plug-in Controls the network bandwidth usage with the help of throttling plug-in On Windows, it is a standard service installed by NetBackup. On UNIX, it runs as a standard daemon. 13

17 Conclusions In the expanding digital universe 1.8 trillion gigabytes of information will be created and stored in 2011 up 47% over 2010, reaching 7 trillion gigabytes in This is a staggering amount of data. All of it must be stored, backed up, managed and in many cases analyzed. Enterprises are challenged to reduce costs, and yet take on the challenge of ever increasing data demands. Symantec s NetBackup Open Storage Technology and the AT&T Synaptic Storage as a Service SM platform can assist customers in managing the entire lifecycle of structured and un-structured data, with a highly secure, robust and innovative storage platform that address the need for long term secure and cost effective storage. Requirements: 1) To leverage the features identified within this document, your NetBackup environment must be upgraded to the current release, NetBackup version ) The NetBackup media server platform support s NetBackup Cloud Storage on the following OS s: AIX HP-UX RedHat Solaris 10 SUSE Windows 2008 R2 3) Cloud storage provider account - You must have an account created with your preferred cloud storage provider before you configure NetBackup Cloud Storage. You can create this account in the Cloud Storage Configuration Wizard. 4) NetBackup Cloud Storage licensing - NetBackup Cloud Storage is enabled through the Enterprise Disk License. No additional cloudspecific license key is required for the basic cloud features. If you plan to use NetBackup Accelerator with NetBackup Cloud you must upgrade to the Data Protection Optimization Option which includes the NetBackup Accelerator feature. 14

18 5) Cloud provider configuration panel for AT&T On the cloud storage device panel, specify the required information for AT&T and click "Next". Field name Required content Select the name of your media server from the drop-down list. If your media server is not shown in the list, confirm it is displayed correctly in the NetBackup Administrative Console under Host Properties > Media servers. Additionally, confirm the cloud binaries are present in the ost-plugins folder and the nbcssc service or daemon is running. Media server name - Select "I have an AT&T Synaptic Storage account to enter the required account and storage pool information". Check box. Enter your AT&T user name. If you do not have an account, click: "Create an account with the service provider link". :User - Name :Password - Enter your AT&T password. Click "Advanced Settings" to specify the storage server name (if it is different from the default) or to make changes to the maximum network connections. Create cloud storage volume for AT&T. AT&T uses storage volume for the storage it creates. In the Create Cloud Storage Volume panel, enter a volume name and click "Create". Be sure to review and follow the restrictions for volume names. 15

19 The Cloud Storage properties apply to currently selected media servers. The Cloud Storage properties contain information about metering, bandwidth throttling, and network connections. Reporting and monitoring cloud backups All monitoring and reporting for NetBackup Cloud is handled through NetBackupOps Center. Please refer to the NetBackup OpsCenter Administrator s Guide for details on cloud monitoring and reporting. References For complete information on limitations and setups please refer to your NetBackup 7.5 Guides: Symantec NetBackup Cloud Administrator's Guide 7.5 Symantec NetBackup Administrator's Guide, Volume I Windows Symantec NetBackup Administrator's Guide, Volume I UNIX and Linux 16

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21 About Symantec Symantec is a global leader in providing security, storage, and systems management solutions to help consumers and organizations secure and manage their information-driven world. Our software and services protect against more risks at more points, more completely and efficiently, enabling confidence wherever information is used or stored. Headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., Symantec has operations in 40 countries. More information is available at For specific country offices and contact numbers, please visit our website. Symantec World Headquarters 350 Ellis St. Mountain View, CA USA +1 (650) (800) Copyright 2012 Symantec Corporation. All rights reserved. Symantec, the Symantec Logo, and the Checkmark Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Symantec Corporation or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. 12/