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Netting Out NetBackup

Showing posts tagged with Backup and Archiving remove filter
Showing posts by Daniel Hoffer remove filter
Frosted Flakes, and NetBackup's Support for ESX ... and ESXi
Daniel Hoffer | 14 Jan 2009 | 1 comment

I bought a box of Frosted Flakes recently - this was a departure from my usual diet of Froot Loops, I make my life very exciting with these spontaneous bursts of adventure. One thing I noticed on my box of Frosted Flakes was a big bright bubble that said, "Less sugar!" and in much smaller letters beneath it, "than original Frosted Flakes." This is of course a meaningless comparison. Less sugar than the original may still mean "way too much sugar." 

 

In the technology industry, one of the tactics software companies sometimes use to increase the chance of closing a sale is "FUD": Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt, which basically means injecting misleading information into a sale process. There has been some interesting FUD circulating around backup vendor support for VMware's ESX and ESXi platforms. ESXi and ESX are essentially identical from a functionality perspective. To quote VMware.com, "...

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What “Granular Recovery” in VMware Backups Really Means
Daniel Hoffer | 07 Jan 2009 | 0 comments

I have a few New Year’s resolutions: 1) Eat less, 2) exercise more, and 3) share some thoughts around the term “granular recovery” when it comes to VMware and VCB backups. Hopes are high and I am confident I will be able to achieve at least one of my three resolutions.

 

Most folks are already familiar with the “2 for 1” idea behind NetBackup for VMware – the idea that based on a single VCB backup pass, it is possible to restore either an entire VM image or an individual file. This is advanced patent-pending technology for Symantec and no other vendor can do this. However, some of our competitors claim that they have this functionality, while in reality what they have is actually far more primitive and far less useful.

 

The chart below outlines the steps involved in restoring a single 1 MB file from a VCB image-level backup using NetBackup, and compares...

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IT Budget Squeezed? Dedupe Your VMware Environment
Daniel Hoffer | 20 Nov 2008 | 0 comments

Once you're running VMware, new VMs pop up like moles in the game, "Whack-A-Mole." And kind of like the moles, many of the VMs are identical, because they were all cloned from the same gold image. What does that mean from a backup perspective? It means that you're backing up the contents of that same gold image over and over again. These duplicate copies take up a lot of space, and your CFO, if he is savvy enough about data center technologies, will beg you to install some deduplication software (like PureDisk), which will cut your IT expenses dramatically.

 

Why? Two reasons. First, with PureDisk, you'll only backup one copy of each unique block, rather than multiple copies. The savings on storage from doing this are incredible - we've seen as high as 99%. Next, PureDisk puts less of a load on your ESX server than a traditional client inside the Guest VM does. What does that mean? Lower load per VM per ESX Server means you can put more VMs on each ESx...

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Thinking about VCB incrementals: Burning dollar bills makes me feel rich
Daniel Hoffer | 05 Nov 2008 | 0 comments

But why would you do such a thing?? You'd have to be really frickin' stupid to burn dollar bills to light a fire!!

 

Yeah, I knew you'd agree with that. Fortunately, NetBackup customers are smarter than the average bear (or, let's say, the average backup administrator). NetBackup customers know that backing up ESX servers twice (once for the VM image, once for all the individual files) is like burning dollar bills, and additionally, backing up without using incrementals is like throwing a few twenties on top.

 

Let's explore the incrementals angle a bit. NetBackup 6.5.2 is the only backup product available that supports incremental backups with VCB. How does this work? Using VCB at the VMDK level, a full image is backed up initially, and then catalogued on the proxy server. Subsequently, incremental backups are performed by comparing the contents of a VM against the stored catalog of the initial full image. If changes are detected, then VCB is...

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NetBackup for VMware's Two-For-One Deal
Daniel Hoffer | 07 Oct 2008 | 0 comments

I was shopping at a shoe store recently for a new pair of dress shoes, and finally found what I was looking for and brought my purchase to a counter. "Don't you know about our 2-for-1 deal?" the woman at the counter asked me. "With this purchase, you could buy a second pair of shoes for only $5 more."

 

I mulled it over and realized that I really had no need for a second pair of shoes. The temptation was there, for sure - what a deal! But I've been actively trying to reduce the clutter in my home, and I really needed only a replacement pair of shoes - not to augment my otherwise-sufficient collection.

 

Many two-for-1 deals get you an extra set of something that you don't really need. But I've been surprised to discover recently that, despite a great deal of effort to describe our product (bolstered by Symantec's powerful marketing machine), many of our customers don't realize that NetBackup for VMware even has a 2-for-...

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Virtual Victory at VMworld
Daniel Hoffer | 24 Sep 2008 | 0 comments

And I'm not just talking about the vibrant visuals at the VMworld party, or the visceral visual experience of Danica Patrick (the car racing superstar) within feet of me as she kicked off the party.  No, what I'm talking about was the vindication of NetBackup winning a slot in the Best of VMworld awards in the Data Protection category for the second year in a row. Why vindication? Because for over a year, we've been telling our customers that we had industry-leading technology. Victorious yet again, NetBackup's 3rd party validation lent credence to the claims we have been making. And verily, that deserve some van-fare.

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Are Symantec and VMware like Batman and Robin?
Daniel Hoffer | 18 Aug 2008 | 1 comment

As a Product Manager for NetBackup for VMware, one of the biggest challenges I face is around prioritization. Where does it make the most sense to spend my time? On the one hand, assisting customers on a one-on-one basis is very attractive. When I do that, I can help, say, Batman identify which product within the NetBackup for VMware suite (NetBackup Enterprise Client, PureDisk, or PureDisk Deduplication Option) is best suited to his multiple batcaves. Batman may well prefer Enterprise Client for his headquarters beneath the mansion due to its enhanced VMDK image-level DR support, but may elect to use PureDisk in his remote batcave in the Hamptons, and then use PDDO to shrink the VMDK files transferred over by Enterprise Client and VCB.

 

But sometimes it seems to make more sense to spend time on other activities, and most recently VMware has been especially friendly. Their office is only a few miles away from ours in...

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