Protecting Your Virtualized Data Center with Symantec NetBackup

Transcription

1 White Paper Protecting Your Virtualized Data Center with Symantec NetBackup By Lauren Whitehouse May, 2011 This ESG White Paper was commissioned by Symantec and is distributed under license from ESG. 2011, Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved

2 White Paper: Protecting Your Virtualized Data Center with Symantec NetBackup 2 Contents Introduction... 3 The Impact of Virtualization... 3 Virtualization Adoption... 3 Data Protection Issues... 4 Addressing Data Protection in Each Phase of Virtualization... 6 Basic Level... 6 Progressing Level... 6 Advanced Level... 7 Symantec NetBackup for Virtual Machine Protection... 7 Symantec V-Ray for NetBackup... 7 NetBackup Portfolio Highlights... 8 A Consolidated Strategy for Data Protection... 9 The Bigger Truth All trademark names are property of their respective companies. Information contained in this publication has been obtained by sources The Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) considers to be reliable but is not warranted by ESG. This publication may contain opinions of ESG, which are subject to change from time to time. This publication is copyrighted by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. Any reproduction or redistribution of this publication, in whole or in part, whether in hard-copy format, electronically, or otherwise to persons not authorized to receive it, without the express consent of the Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc., is in violation of U.S. copyright law and will be subject to an action for civil damages and, if applicable, criminal prosecution. Should you have any questions, please contact ESG Client Relations at (508)

3 Introduction White Paper: Protecting Your Virtualized Data Center with Symantec NetBackup 3 There are a number of catalysts for change in the backup environment that necessitate re-examination of backup/recovery processes and technology. Data growth, virtualization, remote and mobile workers, cost reduction initiatives, and new cloud models as well as IT s ongoing objective of mitigating risk are continually driving transformation. From a technology perspective, it s often difficult to keep pace in such a dynamic environment that is, unless you ve got the right technology. This paper will examine a big trend driving changes in data protection virtualization and strategies to best address it, specifically focusing on the Symantec NetBackup portfolio of data protection solutions. The Impact of Virtualization Virtualization Adoption Server virtualization is taking root in many organizations. Among ESG survey respondents, 55% are currently using server virtualization and 34% plan to do so. 1 While a popular topic in IT circles, server virtualization is still relatively immature in most deployments since more than half of large mid-market and enterprise organizations have virtualized 30% or less of their x86 servers. ESG research data does indicate, however, that explosive growth is imminent: increasing the use of server virtualization is the number one IT initiative for 2011 (see Table 1) 2 and within the next two years, 58% of organizations say that they will virtualize 40% or more of their x86 servers. 3 Table Top 10 IT Initiatives 1. Increase use of server virtualization 2. Manage data growth 3. Information security initiatives 4. Major application deployments or upgrades 5. Improve data backup and recovery 6. Desktop virtualization 7. Data center consolidation 8. Business continuity/disaster recovery programs 9. PC refresh 10. Regulatory compliance initiatives Source: Enterprise Strategy Group, Server virtualization adoption and benefits appear to come in waves that are closely correlated with organizational experience with the technology. Organizations typically follow a progression where server virtualization projects proceed from simple to increasingly complex, critical workloads. For example, initial server virtualization projects usually focus on test and development, followed by basic workloads such as Web servers or IT-centric workloads such as file and print services. Beyond these areas, however, server virtualization advances to critical services such as Domain Name System (DNS), Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), and directory services; performanceoriented workloads such as database servers; and transactional applications. Virtualizing these advanced workloads demands greater IT experience and a more enterprise-class server virtualization environment. Based on crucial characteristics and key performance indicators, ESG developed a segmentation model that provides progressive definitions of technology in use. 4 ESG found clear and profound differences among these 1 Source: ESG Research Report, The Impact of Server Virtualization on Data Protection, September Source: ESG Research Report, 2011 IT Spending Intentions Survey, January Source: ESG Research Report, The Evolution of Server Virtualization, November Ibid.

4 White Paper: Protecting Your Virtualized Data Center with Symantec NetBackup 4 different groups of virtualization users. ESG categorized organizations as belonging to basic, progressing, or advanced groups of users based on four dimensions: 1. Percent of servers that have been virtualized 2. Percent of virtual machines in production 3. Consolidation ratio 4. Virtualization deployment across multiple workloads The majority (53%) of adopters fall into the progressing category while 25% are identified as advanced and 22% are classified as basic (see Figure 1). One of the major objectives in examining this phenomenon is to better understand which organizations are most and least successfully deploying server virtualization, and why. Figure 1. ESG Server Virtualization Segmentation Model Basic Low percent of physical servers virtualized (typically less than 20%) Low percent of virtual machines deployed in production (12% average) Low virtual-to-physical consolidation ratio (typically less than 5) Deployment across limited and/or basic workloads (13% have deployed mission-critical production workloads) Progressing Medium percent of physical servers virtualized (typically 10% - 30%) Medium percent of virtual machines deployed in production (35% average) Medium virtual-to-physical consolidation ratio (typically 5-10) Deployment across more workloads, but mostly tier-2 (37% have deployed mission-critical production workloads) Advanced High percent of physical servers virtualized (typically 40% +) High percent of virtual machines deployed in production (67% average) High virtual-to-physical consolidation ratio (typically more than 10) Deployment across many/tier-1 workloads (75% have deployed missioncritical production workloads) Data Protection Issues Source: Enterprise Strategy Group, Organizations face a number of challenges as their server virtualization projects go from simple to complex workloads. For example, since server virtualization encompasses compute, network, and storage technologies, many struggle with performance and security issues that encompass all three areas. Firms also struggle with IT skills and organizational changes required in growing server virtualization environments. And backup and recovery of virtual machines is another pain point. ESG research respondents ranked improve backup and recovery of virtual machines as fourth in priority behind expanding the footprint of virtualization by consolidating more physical servers and virtualizing more applications and replicating virtual machines for disaster recovery (see Figure 2). 5 5 Source: ESG Research Report, 2011 IT Spending Intentions Survey, January 2011.

5 White Paper: Protecting Your Virtualized Data Center with Symantec NetBackup 5 Figure 2. Virtualization Priorities Which of the following would you consider to be your organization s top server virtualization initiatives for 2011? (Percent of respondents, N=161, five responses accepted) Consolidate more physical servers onto virtualization platforms Expand number of applications running on virtual machines Make use of virtual machine replication for disaster recovery 43% 47% 50% Improve backup and recovery of virtual machines Increase security of virtual server environment 31% 34% Improve tools and processes for managing virtual environments Increase consolidation ratios (i.e., number of virtual machines per physical server) Implement virtual machine mobility / HA (high availability) functionality Move more applications from test/development to production environment Purchase next-generation physical server infrastructure to support virtual machines 23% 22% 20% 19% 16% Evaluate alternative hypervisor solutions/vendors 7% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% Source: Enterprise Strategy Group, Looking at virtualization adopters through a data protection lens yields interesting results. Those organizations classified as advanced are twice as likely as those at a basic level (48% vs. 22%) to be very satisfied with backup and recovery of virtual machines, and progressing members are twice as likely as basic (22% vs. 9%) to be very satisfied. Clearly, at the earliest stages of virtualization, IT organizations struggle with backup and recovery issues. One explanation is that virtualization-specific backup strategies are not formulated in earlier stages because either there s a sense of security with in-place solutions or a lack of understanding of virtualization backup needs. Another explanation may be that earlier-stage adopters are most focused on basic consolidation benefits and infrastructure refresh. Organizations at the advanced level are twice as likely (51%) as those at the basic level (26%) to see improvements in backup and recovery processes in virtualized environments. A proof point to this is that over one-third of advanced-level organizations reduced recovery time objectives (RTOs) and improved recovery point objectives (RPOs), while only 18% of basic-level organizations achieved the same results. 6 After initializing basic IT-owned workloads and gaining consolidation benefits, organizations at the progressing phase focus on expanding the virtualization footprint. The growth and scale issues at this stage often expose the inefficiencies of legacy backup solutions. Those in the progressing stage are most likely to be stalled in their virtualization initiative due to data protection challenges by a 2:1 margin over those at the basic stage. 7 6 Source: ESG Research Report, The Evolution of Server Virtualization, November Ibid.

6 White Paper: Protecting Your Virtualized Data Center with Symantec NetBackup 6 Backup and recovery solutions that cannot keep pace with the requirements of a virtualized data center may be abandoned for alternatives. ESG found that advanced groups were more likely (38%) to change backup tools and processes versus 28% of progressing ones and 19% of basic ones. 8 While point solutions may provide short-term relief, the lack of comprehensive protection may prove to be more costly in the long run. Addressing Data Protection in Each Phase of Virtualization The ESG Server Virtualization Maturity Model provides a roadmap for organizations to anticipate problems and to plan accordingly in order to accelerate server virtualization projects and their associated benefits. For example, as firms advance from the basic to the progressing phase, they should have overcome IT skills and organizational issues and be prepared for a new level of scale and complexity. As they move from progressing to advanced, they should set new performance metrics and seek out solutions that help them with orchestration and automation. Characteristics of virtualization adoption at each stage of progression also yield clues to address data protection issues. Basic Level Basic-level organizations virtualized environments are characterized by a low percentage of physical servers virtualized and virtual machines deployed in production, and a low virtual-to-physical consolidation ratio. Virtualized workloads deployed consist of basic applications often limited to those under the IT organization s control and not critical to the business. These organizations are neophytes with virtualization, and, therefore, the skill level is immature. With a focus on consolidation, IT investments target refreshing infrastructure components to optimally operate virtualization technology. Benefits are primarily in capital cost savings and higher hardware resource utilization. Virtual system data protection is primitive typically recycling technology and processes from the physical world with newly virtualized machines. Since IT-owned applications make up the majority of application types at this stage, little negotiation between IT and line-of-business or application owners is required. Leveraging legacy backup applications and processes provides administrators with one less thing to worry about at least for the time being. Progressing Level Organizations hit the progressing level when virtual environments represent up to about one-third of physical servers, mostly tier-2 applications and some mission-critical workloads are deployed, and about one-third of virtual machines are deployed in production environments. Additionally, the virtual-to-physical consolidation ratio is anywhere from 5:1 to 10:1. Over time, and with more virtualization experience and skills, organizations at the progressing phase are characterized by more rapid scaling of the virtualized environment. These firms are using server virtualization in more advanced projects like virtualizing , corporate portals, and industry-specific applications as they begin to see a new level of benefits including improved application availability and greater IT administrative efficiencies, which translate into operational expense savings. These organizations tend to be challenged by the scale and complexity that comes with a progression from tens to hundreds of virtual machines. And, since they ve moved beyond IT-owned workloads, engaging the application owner in virtualization strategies and decision-making may be necessary. The scale and complexity issues at this level also drive organizations to investigate ways to optimize. In addition to management tools and operations undergoing massive changes, IT investments continue in infrastructure with a tendency to look at next-generation technologies. For data protection, IT is seeking ways to deliver on service level agreements (SLAs) while improving operational efficiencies. 8 Source: ESG Research Report, The Evolution of Server Virtualization, November 2010.

7 Advanced Level White Paper: Protecting Your Virtualized Data Center with Symantec NetBackup 7 Organizations crossing the threshold of a more than 10:1 virtual-to-physical consolidation ratio, 40% or more physical servers virtualized, more than two-thirds of virtual machines deployed in production environments, and with deployment across many/tier-1 workloads fall into the advanced level. At this phase, the focus is on optimization of larger virtual environments with thousands of virtual machines on servers often investing in new architectures. Organizations classified as advanced have moved on to virtualizing complex workloads such as databases, backoffice applications such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), and process automation applications such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) while enjoying benefits such as improvements in application performance, enhanced backup/restore capabilities, and more efficient disaster recovery/business continuity metrics. Advanced firms are challenged by the skills, processes, and tools needed for the next level of IT automation. Since advanced-level firms have progressed to virtualizing tier-1 production applications, optimizing the performance and availability of these applications is key. SLAs for operational and disaster recovery are more often improved; however, there may still be management issues resulting from the need for common tools to manage the virtual stack and physical legacy workloads. Symantec NetBackup for Virtual Machine Protection Server virtualization has the potential to introduce new levels of business resiliency as it offers a layer of system protection and improved availability. However, operational and disaster recovery processes and technology are required in order to maintain a high level of service for business applications. Organizations that have implemented or are planning to implement server virtualization have to be aware of how this technology will affect data protection, understand their tolerance for unplanned downtime, and recognize how virtualization differs from the physical world of IT operations preferably prior to rolling out virtualization or further expanding the number of applications running in virtual machines. NetBackup has wide applicability in physical and virtual environments and at various virtualization maturity stages. Symantec V-Ray for NetBackup represents a set of specific capabilities for virtual environments designed to meet the differentiated needs of each maturity level. Symantec V-Ray for NetBackup Regardless of what phase of virtualization maturity an organization is in, it can apply Symantec NetBackup solutions whether implemented in a deploy-as-needed fashion to keep pace with virtualization initiatives or to address specific needs and requirements right from the start. Basic Level The most popular backup approach entails installing an agent in the guest operating system a method that parallels how backup is done in the physical world. The most significant drawback is resource contention since backups demand significant processing power and the added resources needed to execute a backup may compromise the performance of virtual machines. Backup agents place a burden on the VMware host server's CPU, memory, disk, and network components, and transferring backup data across the network can quickly exceed available bandwidth. NetBackup supports the traditional backup agent approach, which is acceptable for virtualized environments with low virtual-to-physical consolidation ratios and non-mixed workloads. By leveraging the NetBackup deduplication client, redundant data can be eliminated at the source, thereby minimizing network bandwidth and backend storage. NetBackup also takes advantage of virtualization-specific backup architectures and strategies as they are needed to accommodate changes introduced by virtualization.

8 White Paper: Protecting Your Virtualized Data Center with Symantec NetBackup 8 To alleviate issues related to resource contention, capturing the virtual machine as a whole and offloading the processing from the virtual machine running production applications makes sense. Leveraging the hypervisor s snapshot capability by integrating with the hypervisor APIs optimizes the process and eliminates the need to install a NetBackup backup agent in every virtual machine. Features in VMware enable NetBackup to directly connect to virtual storage targets to back up virtual machines. In addition, NetBackup closes protection gaps by automatically discovering new unprotected virtual machines via vcenter integration and assigning applicable backup policies. Progressing Level One of the big themes in the progressing level of virtualization is addressing data protection requirements for IT- or business-owned tier-2 workloads. Therefore, employing techniques that enable data and systemlevel recovery as well as transaction-consistent application backup and recovery is a high priority. By ensuring non-disruptive backup and rapid recovery of virtual machines running tier-2 applications, IT organizations can meet negotiated SLAs. NetBackup can capture specific files or whole virtual machines while allowing recovery at the virtual machine- or file-level in a single step. Application-specific NetBackup agents facilitate transaction-consistent backup and recovery. The other priority for organizations at the progressing level is to optimize for scale. Since organizations typically experience an increase in the volume of data after virtualizing and because a high degree of redundancy exists across virtual machines, deduplication is an ideal feature to implement. NetBackup delivers deduplication at the source (virtual machine), at the backup server, or at the target storage device to meet the performance requirements of the application. Advanced Level The advanced level of virtualization requires strategies for adequately and optimally protecting tier-1 workloads. This could mean using backup approaches from the previous stages and employing more advanced solutions such as continuous data protection or replication. The NetBackup portfolio includes continuous data protection useful for eliminating backup windows and improving recovery time and recovery point objectives. Replicating virtual machines locally or remotely to a second site facilitates disaster recovery. NetBackup also supports cloud data protection deployment methodologies for the more advanced level members. With organizations focus on optimization of larger virtual environments (hundreds to thousands of virtual machines), data protection management is an important component of the overall strategy. Providing management visibility across virtual and physical systems data protection processes delivers efficiency for operational staff, and can reduce risk. NetBackup management and reporting solutions provide a lens and a single point of monitoring for physical and virtual environments. NetBackup Portfolio Highlights Symantec V-Ray for NetBackup represents a group of technologies that allow customers to have greater insight into their virtual environments. The additional insight provided by V-Ray can enhance the value of backup and recovery of virtualized environments, regardless of virtualization maturity, and includes the following features: Unified data protection. The NetBackup portfolio is geared and optimized for both physical and virtual servers. Efficiency is introduced via management of hybrid environments from a single, unified console. Virtual machine- or file-level restore in a single pass. NetBackup provides granular file-level restore from any type of backup, including block-level incremental backups, without having to mount the entire virtual machine image and then search for a specific file, saving significant time and greatly simplifying administration of the backup and restore process. This recovery capability exists regardless of whether the data is written to disk or tape.

9 White Paper: Protecting Your Virtualized Data Center with Symantec NetBackup 9 Integration with VMware vstorage APIs for data protection. NetBackup s highly efficient backup and recovery of VMware environments leverages vsphere vstorage APIs, which enable granular change tracking for efficient backup and rapid recovery and the ability to directly back up to and recover from virtual machine storage. Virtual Machine Intelligent Policy. NetBackup automatically discovers and stays aware of virtual machines locations at all times even if moved via vmotion, Storage vmotion, or a Distributed Resource Scheduler. By doing so, NetBackup can ensure complete virtual machine protection and optimize backup with load balancing. Replication and disaster recovery. NetBackup RealTime delivers continuous data protection, block-level asynchronous or synchronous replication, and near-instant recovery. This is ideal for large virtualized environments and applications with aggressive recovery time and recovery point objectives. Auto Image Replication. NetBackup automatically replicates backup images from one NetBackup domain to another, allowing the NetBackup catalog within a new domain to be both aware and ready to recover newly replicated data. NetBackup OpsCenter provides reporting and alerting visibility across these domains to deliver an additional layer of management and control. Finally, these duplicates are policy-driven and support dissimilar retention times at the primary and remote locations allowing customers to more efficiently manage disk at their data centers and centralize disaster recovery data at an alternate site. Application-consistent backup and recovery. Continuous data protection with NetBackup RealTime delivers near-instant recovery of applications with transactional consistency. Backup monitoring, reporting, and auditing. NetBackup OpsCenter provides a comprehensive view of the NetBackup environment, allowing administrators to centrally monitor and report on backup and recovery operations. Audit data collected by NetBackup is duplicated in OpsCenter, providing an added measure of visibility and support for audit requests. Content-aware data deduplication. NetBackup s deduplication eliminates redundancy within and across both virtual and physical machines at a sub-file level. This accelerates backup and recovery since there s less data to transfer. It also lowers storage capacity and network bandwidth requirements. A Consolidated Strategy for Data Protection Another factor to consider when selecting a data protection solution is whether to take an integrated strategy or best-of-breed path. Since few IT organizations have achieved 100% virtualization nirvana only a few will ever fully realize this goal it s important to debate if a single solution strategy for backup and recovery of mixed virtual and physical workloads outweighs deploying separate solutions for each environment. ESG research found that, today, most organizations (56%) use separate backup applications for virtual and physical server environments. However, more than three-quarters (77%) of survey respondents cite a preference for a single backup application for both virtual and physical environments. 9 The main arguments driving a single solution include: IT organizations benefit by leveraging existing licenses and skill sets from physical deployments as a shift is made to a more dominant virtual machine ratio. Employing a single solution for both physical and virtual machines eliminates the need to manage the environment via multiple interfaces. It is not necessary to introduce niche solutions or the management overhead of operating more than one backup application. A single-vendor approach is in keeping with the drivers and benefits of a consolidation strategy realized via virtualization. Consolidation benefits are extended to data protection solutions and processes. Redundancy in separate virtual and physical storage pools drives up storage costs. 9 Source: ESG Research Report, The Impact of Server Virtualization on Data Protection, September 2010.

10 The Bigger Truth White Paper: Protecting Your Virtualized Data Center with Symantec NetBackup 10 There are a lot of choices when it comes to data protection technology solutions, so finding ones that claim to fit specific needs is not difficult. However, the wrong decision can turn out to be confusing operationally and wind up costing too much. As business user demands change and technology advances; organizations need to regularly review their data protection solutions with regard to total cost of ownership, operational compliance and efficiencies, and return on investment. Moreover, augmenting a chosen solution with piece parts from other vendors while temporarily addressing a pain point or area of risk could introduce new challenges with respect to integration, management, the ability to scale and, ultimately, complexity. As organizations expand virtualization initiatives, the conundrum they face is managing data protection of physical and virtual assets in the environment. With today s extreme focus on the benefits of consolidation, standardizing on a single-vendor solution to address physical and virtual machine backup and recovery makes sense. The Symantec NetBackup portfolio has several solutions that are highly applicable in the virtualized data center that can help organizations at any stage of virtualization maturity to address immediate and future requirements.

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