Backing up your virtual environment best practices
- 1. Backing Up Your Virtual Environment – Best Practices George Pradel: Sr. Director Strategic Alliances Vizioncore
- 2. Introduction • Nearly 25 years experience in IT – 13 years in Virtualization (Citrix, VMWare, Vizioncore) – 12 years in corporate IT • VMWare SE of the year 2005 • Speaker at VMWorld’s US and Europe, Interop and Virtualization Summit
- 3. Drivers of Virtualization Adoption • Initial virtualization strategies highlighted Server Consolidation – Cost savings • Hardware purchases • Cooling/Electricity • Floor space – Hardware resource optimization – Simplified provisioning
- 4. Drivers of Virtualization Adoption • Recent shift towards Disaster Recovery becoming a primary focus – Virtual Machines are very portable – Working “underneath” the OS and Applications – Hardware Independence • Server platform • Storage infrastructure – Decreased downtime (Live Migration) – Rapid recovery if done correctly
- 5. Drivers of Virtualization Adoption
- 6. Virtualization Adoption Trends • According to recent Gartner analysis*: – 16% of server workloads are running in virtual machines • It took approximately 6 years to get to this point – Predicts to an increase to 50% of server workloads by the end of 2012 • To a total of 58 Million deployed virtual machines – This does not include virtual desktop workloads * Gartner Press Release - Gartner Says 16 Percent of Workloads are Running in Virtual Machines Today – October 21, 2009
- 7. Virtualization Adoption Trends • Why this rapid growth? – Shift from simple Server Consolidation to Data Protection being the primary virtualization driver • Not all workloads need to be consolidated • All workloads can benefit from enhanced DR processes – Better performing hardware – Enhanced hypervisor software – Simplified workload provisioning – More comfort with High-Performance workloads
- 8. Where Does Disaster Recovery Enter? • Organizations must have a stable virtual environment before they implement DR – If DR is a driver of virtualization, it must be considered during infrastructure design • DR is a “Stage 2” virtualization challenge – Not fully realized until the virtual environment is considered “Production Ready” • Typically 6-9 months into virtualization in my experience – Has a tendency to blindside organizations • Many organizations don’t realize how virtualization impacts traditional backup strategies
- 9. Obstacles to Virtualization Adoption
- 10. Why is Backup an Obstacle? • Backup processes and meeting backup windows has historically been a challenge in the “traditional” physical world • Virtualization introduces new challenges to data protection and DR that didn’t exist in the physical world
- 11. Physical Typical Virtualization Growth Systems Physical Footprint Still 3:1 Administrative Workload x 4 Consolidated Storage Requirements x 4 Virtual Machines Timeline of Virtualization Deployment Initial Adoption 3-6 Months In 6-9 Months In 3:1 Consolidation VMs Double VMs Double Again
- 12. What Happens in High Density VM Deployments? • What happens if the backup jobs try to run concurrently? • How does this get scheduled? • What happens to VM performance levels? • Are all VMs in your dev/test environment being protected? • Are these challenges limiting your deployment options?
- 13. New Challenges from Virtualization • Server capacity for backup processing – Highly efficient systems – Processing and Disk capacity optimized from consolidation – Rapid virtualization growth leads to more systems to protect and more data to transfer – Backup job scheduling impacts workload performance • Parallel job processing will impact performance • Must perform serial backup • Scheduling challenges multiplied
- 14. The Root Problem • “The one time that you needed all of that server capacity was during backup.” Teneja Group • “Traditional backup loads are a worst-case scenario for virtual servers.” Blogger
- 15. Acronyms You Should Know RTO RPO
- 16. Taking Advantage of Images • What’s in an Image? • An image is a completely encapsulated system stored as a binary file • Point-in-time copy of OS, Applications, Data, and Configurations • Captures running systems • Image-based Data Protection is called Backup 2.0 • No agents • Faster to capture • No disruption – no window
- 17. Are Image-Level Backups Safe? • Consider recoverability of Backup 1.0 to Backup 2.0 – Entire system encapsulated in an image – Granular restore – Rapid recovery • Fewer Moving Pieces – Small number of larger files vs. very large number of smaller files – Hardware platform independence – Registry and driver issues are a thing of the past!
- 18. Backup Methods & Opportunities • Selective Backup of Running VMs versus Powered Off VMs • vCenter Notes Amendment • Test of Storage Free Space • Support of Platform Advancements • Utilize Multi-Tier Storage Devices on the Network • Custom Backup Groups • Backups at Multiple Virtualization Levels
- 19. B2.0: Simply Better Data Protection
- 20. What is Image-Based Protection? • An image can be recovered on any system, anywhere – including on-premise, to cloud, and on dissimilar hardware • Enables point-in-time DR for environments, whole systems, single files, and application objects • Enables new levels of protection that were previously cost-prohibitive
- 21. What is Image-Based Recovery? • Three things are recoverable from an image: Recovered – Image (reconstituted server) Object – File – Object (e.g.: email) Stored Image Recovered File • Files and objects can be recovered without image reconstitution
- 22. Recovery Methods & Opportunities • Hot Copy of a VM for Test and Troubleshooting • Preserve Disk Mapping Best Practices • Selecting Network • Recovering a LUN-full of VMs • Traditional Backup Agent can be Recovered as part of the VM • Recover-As VM Renaming
- 23. Two Methods for B2.0 Direct-to-Target SAN Proxy-Based Direct-to-Target Benefits: Proxy-Based Benefits: • No Backup Servers • LAN-Free Movement of Data • No Performance Bottleneck • Preserves SAN Investment • Maximum Performance Throughput • Enables Sweep-to-Tape for All Data for Networks, I/O, Storage • Shortest Possible Backup Windows • Shortest Possible Recovery Times
- 24. The Big Picture - Tiered Environment
- 25. Best Practices for a Small Environment • Implement image-based backups to offset traditional costs • Static servers – Weekly or bi-weekly full image backups • Dynamic servers – Weekly or bi-weekly full image backups – Incremental or differential daily • Line of business servers – Weekly or bi-weekly full image backups – Incremental or differential daily – Software replication on or off-site • Scrape Long-Term storage to tape regularly • Investigate cloud storage for Long-Term storage
- 26. Best Practices for Mid-Sized Environment • Consider recovery SLA requirements per workload/application • Displace traditional agents to save costs • “P2V” Disaster Recovery • Static Servers – Weekly full image backup • Dynamic servers – Weekly or bi-weekly full image backups – Incremental or differential daily • Line of business servers – Weekly or bi-weekly full image backups – Incremental or differential daily – Storage array-based snapshots and replication on and off-site • Secondary storage costs become a concern for long-term data storage
- 27. Best Practices for Large Environments • Consider recovery SLA requirements per application • Dynamic mix of technologies to meet defined SLAs • Infrastructure server/Tier 3 applications – Weekly or bi-weekly full image backups • Tier 2 applications – Monthly/bi-weekly image backups – Incremental or differential daily – Regular storage snapshots – Software replication on or off-site • Tier 1 applications – Monthly/bi-weekly image backups – Incremental or differential daily – Regular storage snapshots – Storage-array replication on or off-site
- 28. One Size Does Not Fit All • Tiered Environment = Tiered Protection and Management • SLAs Determine Your “Best Fit” Backup/Replication Methodology • Be Creative = Virtualization Allows You to Reinvent Data Protection and Disaster Recovery