As the Senior Director of Product Marketing and Business Development Jeff is focused on building CommVault's cloud solutions and partner ecosystem to extend customer value using Simpana software.

Prior to joining CommVault, Jeff spent six years at Dell where he worked in a variety of roles including outbound marketing, PowerVault product management and analyst relations.

Jeff has his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin.

Virtual Server Recoveries Done Right

Friday, March 25, 2011

Guest post by Phil Curran

Much is being made these days about the ability to backup virtual server environments. In the recent past, we've seen many data protection and backup vendors trumpet their ability to backup virtual servers, often through integration with hypervisor tools VADP or VSS to run various backups.

However, a recent conversation with a customer brought an interesting perspective home to me. The point this person made was that the failed backup is not what puts his job at risk, but rather the failed recovery and subsequent application downtime. Yes, that's exactly right, and it's a factor missed by many vendors delivering virtual server backup solutions.

As IT shops continue to expand the scope and scale of their virtual environments, this point becomes even more critical. In my mind, advanced recovery capabilities have already become a set of must have capabilities.

Rapid Expansion of Virtual Server Environments

The benefits of server virtualization are undeniable and they are compelling. So much so, that many customers today are looking to rapidly expand the scope and scale of their virtual server environment to encompass the full spectrum of applications and services that IT is delivering to customers and end users.

This rapid expansion is being driven by the recognition of the dramatic benefits in cost reduction and business flexibility inherent in most virtualization initiatives. We're seeing many virtualization users see a 10 to 1 or even greater consolidation ratio. This means a dramatic reduction in both up front hardware purchase costs for physical infrastructure, and it means a commensurate reduction in all the associated operating costs – power, cooling, administration and management – that goes along with reducing the physical server foot print.

To take the most advantage of these benefits, most customers we work with are expanding the scope and scale of their virtual server initiatives into as many areas of their environment as they can. In many cases, this means stretching the server consolidation ratio even higher. In most cases this also means encompassing more and more applications and services delivered by IT – including Exchange and database environments.

However, most customers we see have a few key requirements that must be met before that critical database app is deployed inside their virtual server environment. What is near the top of the list? Perhaps not surprisingly, it is data protection and recovery.

Recovery Requirements

IT shops looking to deploy critical apps inside their VMs are asking new questions about the backup solution they are using. It is no longer enough to simply say – it's backed up.

What about recovery? IT shops are increasingly asking pointed questions about restores and how their solution will help meet the Service Level Agreements with end users. This includes questions like:

• My business critical RPO is measured in hours or minutes, not days – how are we going to meet this?
• I have business-critical RTOs that must be met – how is your solution helping me deliver this? When the CEO calls, I can't spend all day browsing through backup sets and manually restoring VMs for my Exchange environment. I need to quickly search those lost emails and immediately restore them back online. Of course for most backup and storage pros, these questions are not new. In the physical world, we've been dealing with these questions and issues for decades. What is new is the challenge of delivering a solution that meets these same requirements for the virtual server environment.

Meeting these restore requirements is a key barrier (or enabler) to deploying larger virtual server environments that encompass more business-critical applications. If your virtual server backup solution provider does not have a compelling answer to these questions, chances are you are leaving yourself and your business open to increased risk.

Meeting Business Level Recovery Requirements for Virtual Server Environments

The following are key features necessary to ensure you can meet recovery requirements for virtual servers:

• Meet business level recovery points – Recovery points for a database or exchange environment are being measured in hours or minutes. Any backup solution must deliver very rapid, recovery-ready copies with minimal impact to product machines. As Curtis Preston recently pointed out in the January issue of Storage Magazine: "The true value...is demonstrated during operational recovery. The RPO can be measured in minutes and the RTO is measured by how long takes to point the application from the primary storage system to the secondary storage system."
  
  This of course is referring to snapshot-based protection and recovery strategies and we couldn't agree more. Simpana 9 is the first solution that is extending persistent hardware-based snapshot capabilities into a data protection and recovery strategy for virtual server environments using VMware and HyperV with SnapProtect for Virtual Servers. In this way, Simpana 9 delivers a solution for meeting the tightest of RPO and RTO requirements.
   
• Easy, integrated search & recovery – Of course rapid recovery capabilities are not very meaningful if an admin still has to run a scripted or manual operation to mount a snapshot and browse through virtual machines to find the specific files, emails or other data that must be recovered. So a fast and easy search capability that includes a fully indexed catalog of application data that is being protected is critical.
  
  The integrated snapshot management and indexing capabilities as well as the intuitive search interface built in to Simpana 9 helps alleviate this concern. Virtual machine snapshot data captured through SnapProtect can be quickly and easily indexed and then searched to facilitate integrated, rapid restores.
  
  Browse and restore virtual machines through the CommVault Simpana 9 console
  
  
   
• Granular recoveries (files, volumes or VMs) – The ability to restore exactly what is needed, when it is needed is another of those capabilities long delivered in the physical world that is only now starting to be delivered for virtual server backups. Combining the right level of granularity along with the right Recovery Point is the key to ultimately delivering the SLA back to application and business owners.
  
  Simpana 9 delivers the options required to meet these SLAs. Users can restore full VMs, volumes of individual files and application objects as needed. What really makes Simpana 9 different and compelling in this area is the integrated nature of the restores. Irrespective of the application, VM environment or protection copy (either snapshot, traditional backup, or even archive copy) restores are fully integrated into the console. No manual steps, no complicated scripts to handle.
  
  Browse folders and files inside VMs using the CommVault Simpana 9 console
  
  
   
• Application aware recoveries – The final key to a solid recovery strategy that ensures application continuity is the delivery of application consistent protection and application aware restores. The ability to restore application data into a currently running environment with zero or minimal downtime is a critical requirement. A restore operation that required business critical apps to go offline for hours is simply not acceptable. So application aware restore capabilities that can restore individual entries back into applications running within the virtual environment is the final key to ensuring a recovery strategy that meets business critical application requirements.
  
  Simpana 9 integration points into key applications such as Exchange, SQL and Oracle deliver exactly this requirement. Through this application awareness and integration with the virtual environment, Simpana 9 can restore application data running inside and VMware or HyperV environment to meet the application continuity requirements.

For details on the restore options available in CommVault Simpana software for virtual server environments, please see our latest documentation at:
http://documentation.commvault.com/commvault/release_9_0_0/books_online_1/ english_us/prod_info/vs_vmware.htm

Or visit us on the web at: www.commvault.com/virtualization.

Submit a Comment

Please note that your comments will be sent directly to the author of this blog, and will be published upon approval per CommVault's comment policy.

The content of this blog reflects the thoughts and opinions of the author, and does not represent the thoughts, opinions, plans or strategies of CommVault Systems, Inc. ("CommVault") and CommVault undertakes no obligation to update, correct or modify any statements made by the author of this blog. Any and all third party links provided by this blog are not affiliated with, nor endorsed by, CommVault.