How to consolidate backup applications and cloud storage

Are you still backing up your data to an old tape? Is it a disk or is it a disk that has been eliminated? If you are told now that there is a backup device that has no capacity limitations and is very convenient to manage, will you be very happy? This can be done with cloud backup. If you have any doubts about this, please read the following article.

There are many products and services on the market are randomly linked with the cloud-related names. Obviously, everyone wants to be able to make a fuss about the cloud, which seems like everyone has its own definition of the cloud concept itself. It is based on such a background that there is no standard definition, this article aims to discuss the definition of cloud in the form of discussion.

Speaking of clouds, generally refers to the public cloud, refers to you do not have to manage the storage or backup. The public cloud has unlimited storage space and capacity to grow at will, which is much less costly than spending it all. If you need to pay 100TB of storage this month and only need to pay 5TB storage next year, then cloud storage is a good choice. This is not the flexibility to buy a common storage device, but for normal storage, because you've already purchased it, you won't be able to charge a different fee because you're using it.

Of course there are private clouds, the market on the private cloud exaggerated concept of a few. This article only discusses the concept of the public cloud.

Cloud storage vs. Cloud Backup

Although the two proper nouns are often interleaved, there is a difference between cloud backup and cloud storage. Cloud storage actually refers to storing storage as a service. When using cloud storage resources, you first need to get an account from a cloud service provider; they will provide you with their API interface so that you can use the appropriate software to use the corresponding API interface when storing the data. As simple as this, you can easily achieve unlimited capacity. In cloud storage, you don't need to manage the devices that store the data, or even ask for more space, because the capacity itself is unlimited. All you have to do is pay. All cloud storage service providers charge a "data escrow fee", typically based on the amount of gigabytes of data stored on your account each month. In addition, some cloud storage service providers may also charge a corresponding fee based on the amount of data downloaded and uploaded per gigabyte, which is essentially a "bandwidth usage fee". With the help of cloud storage, you still need to manage applications that upload data to cloud storage.

Cloud Backup as a service, it needs to provide all the services including the software that makes the backup start. A cloud backup service typically provides software for backup to different clients. Backups need to be regularly scheduled to start on time, as planned. Backup software usually uses, for example, delta-level backup or total elimination technology to minimize the load on the network.

The service level agreement of the cloud service provider and the price charged will ultimately determine what measures will be taken in case of a situation. At a minimum, the cloud service provider provides a pop-up notification or e-mail message to update the user on the latest developments. The service may also include the ability to automatically elevate the problem to the appropriate person, especially if the information that failed the backup is verified.

The combination of traditional backup software and cloud services

Some companies may use cloud backup services in all of their backup requirements, while some companies tend to retain both traditional backup projects and cloud backup services. This is really a very different way of consolidating traditional backup software and cloud backup services. Users can choose to use both traditional backup software and cloud backup services at the same time, or they can choose to use traditional backup software to back up data to a cloud storage device.

It's easier to make a choice if you're thinking of using cloud backup as a way to be manageable. Users can continue to use traditional backup software to complete most of the backup process, and then use cloud Backup to complete the most needed parts. The most common approach is to take a cloud backup service on a backup of remote sites and notebooks. Many companies have not even started backing up their laptops, and there are even problems with traditional backup software to back up laptops. Most companies will back up their remote sites, but they often use inappropriate methods because of the lack of IT staff. In the context of using cloud backup services, both of these issues can be addressed at the same time, and the only thing to do as a user is to do a check.

The choice of using a cloud storage device as a backup target for traditional backup software is not recommended on the other hand. This is not to say that there is no benefit. This has the same effect as choosing a cloud Backup: unattended, unlimited capacity, and so on. Another advantage is that it can also automate remote backups, which is one of the problems that many companies are currently plagued with.

In fact, when using a cloud storage device as a target for traditional backup software, the problem may be more advantageous than we have seen.

No "too many" data for cloud storage

The first challenge is that traditional backups deliver and store large amounts of data. A traditional backup system usually performs a backup task once a week, and even if the backup application does not fully back up the operating system, it also makes a full backup of its application, such as IBM's TSM software. Even some companies choose to perform a full backup every day. In addition, all traditional backup applications perform incremental backups of all files. This means that if the difference before and after the backup is just a bit, the entire file needs to be backed up.

These traditional backup methods bring not only a large amount of data transfer on the network, but also a high storage target. If the storage target is a cloud backup device, it will require greater bandwidth and a corresponding higher cost of cloud storage. What you need to know is that it's the kind of flaw that makes the de-duplication technology now in use. A backup application that backs up 1GB of data on the primary storage will create 20GB space-size data. By this calculation, a 10TB capacity data center will need to pay 200TB capacity storage costs each month. It should be noted that, as of this article, data de-duplication technology is not yet applied to cloud storage.

Remove the costs associated with disk capacity and data transfers that need to be paid to the cloud storage vendor to ensure that there is sufficient bandwidth to transmit data and charge a corresponding fee. Choosing a cloud storage provider will not be a good option if you need to continue and periodically transfer all 10TB full backups. However, even if the user's backup needs are not so extreme, the traditional way of backup will still make the cost of the cloud storage is not small.

Remote Storage of data: strengths and weaknesses

The second great challenge for cloud backup services comes from storing backup data to remote sites. Assuming you've solved the problem of storing local data at a remote site, what happens if you encounter data and the server is not in the same location? Obviously, this will significantly affect the parameters of recovery Point-in-time (RTO). This means that any data stored on the cloud will be just a copy, in other words, that the copy will no longer be a dependent copy of traditional data recovery in the event of a recovery. The only way to maximize data recovery from a cloud storage device is to dramatically increase the likelihood of disaster.

It all sounds like it's all for data deduplication, but it's not really. Many backup software can implement data de-duplication before data transfer. This can partly reduce user concerns about backing up data to cloud storage, but that does not mean that the recovery of data will be more convenient. As a result, the fact that you didn't just back up the data to the cloud storage was a good thing.

Application backup can choose cloud storage

Many companies now have software or hardware that can support the operation of backup to cloud storage. The industry's first company to support Cloud Backup is Zmanda, a commercial company that provides open source backup programs. Amanda Enterprise 3.1 enables backup between data to Amazon's S3 cloud storage device.

The CommVault Company's Simpana is able to support the backup of user data to any cloud service provider's device that supports the rest (presentation State transfer) protocol. This allows users to use different cloud storage as target devices for CommVault Simpana backup or archiving, such as Amazon, Iron Kings, Microsoft Azure, Nirvanix, or Rackspace. In the case of cloud storage, it may be more appropriate to protect it in an archived way because the archive itself does not perform repetitive full backups and they are embedded with object-based de-duplication technologies.

EMC and Symantec companies have made a corresponding effort to back up their products. EMC's Networker products use EMC's atoms cloud storage architecture to back up data to the storage of a variety of cloud service providers, while Symantec's Backup Exec also enables data to be backed up to Symantec homeowner Receptacle.

If the backup application that the user is currently using is not supported to back up data to the cloud storage, consider using the Nasuni company's file server, which provides a NAS gateway based on an NFS or CIFS protocol, which enables the process of backing up to the cloud storage. Any backup can be easily backed up to cloud storage via an NFS or CIFS mount.

Despite all the limitations, it is recommended that you consider duplicate data deletion when applying backup to cloud storage. Both Legato's Networker products and Zmanda do not embed data de-duplication technology into their products. CommVault's Simpana and Symantec Company's Backup Exec can perform a duplicate data deletion before transferring the backup to the destination. Simpana provides data deduplication based on storage media, which means that once the data is sent to the media agent, it immediately begins to perform a duplicate-deletion operation. For Backup Exec, it implements a data de-duplication operation based on the source end, which means that the data is deleted before it is transmitted. Based on their own characteristics, many users are willing to use them as part of a combination with cloud storage. Users with IBM TSM backup software are also interested in Nasuni because TSM itself has duplicate data deletion capabilities.

Suggest testing before choosing

Cloud backup services can be a powerful complement to traditional backup systems, especially when these cloud backups and traditional backups are somewhat integrated. As a cloud backup service, it is almost no longer necessary to do any hardware deployments locally, so it is relatively easy to use real data in the Proof-of-concept (PoC) to complete the test. This is especially important because the implementation itself may require a large amount of investment to decide how much license to buy, which has a significant impact on the user's backup environment. In essence, for any backup product or service, we should do a good job of testing the process.

Combining backup applications with cloud storage: Product comparisons

Some backup applications and other products have developed ways to integrate into the cloud backup services. The table below is an introduction to some of the mainstream products.