Thanks for the questions and taking the time to ask the community and voice your concerns about meeting your requirements at a reasonable cost. I think your main question is – why is there not a native software-only deduplication capability for NetWorker?
Here are my thoughts on it. For NetWorker, EMC has chosen a path to deduplication based on utilizing the two very successful deduplication products we already have in the EMC product portfolio - Avamar and Data Domain. If you have within reach capabilities that have proven themselves quite successful for customers – and successful from a business standpoint as well – why not leverage these technologies? If you look around the industry, a similar path was taken by other backup vendors as well.
One thing I believe contributes to confusion sometimes is brand names – why isn’t everything under one name at EMC?! One reason is that for Avamar and Data Domain - and even HomeBase and Data Protection Advisor, each are successful on their own with customers who have other backup solutions in place. My opinion is that if we called these NetWorker there would be a harder time talking with a TSM customer for instance who stands to gain from these technologies.
Software-only dedupe can be cheap versus a combined hardware/software offering – and while we do not wish to underestimate what that means to many customers, we have experience with the challenges customers have in building infrastructure to support a software only implementation. Successful backup with dedupe requires the right mix of hardware and storage. If the right choices are not made, this can be a risk. It is important that the software vendor help customers understand what the right infrastructure is and this guidance is sometimes not provided, or not straightforward. In any case, there's a cost for that infrastructure even though it doesn't come from your backup software provider.
I get your concern about switching infrastructure. I was wondering though – in storage and backup environments, aren't periodical changes and refreshes common (ever moved from one type of tape library to another)?
EMC's approach is to have ready-made and tested appliances accompanied by software that can be distributed in the backup environment. Avamar and Data Domain systems have proven themselves reliable and easy to integrate – and with more of the backup infrastructure supported by a single provider, we think that is a good thing.
Having said all that, I understand what you’re concerns are and that things like budget, size of environment and other factors come into play. How we try to help in cases like this is to show the advantages of the EMC solution(s) vs. others and give an idea of savings from things beyond the acquisition costs so it becomes a more total picture (TCO) rather than one factor (software).
As for BMR - if your primary concern is Windows - you have an in-built solution w/ NetWorker 7.6 SP2 (no extra cost)!
So for now, thanks again - and thanks for using NetWorker. Thanks Hrvoje for your reply as well. Maybe other users can share some thoughts and experiences – especially if you’re using one or more of the EMC products together and can comment.
What kind of implementation to use depends on your current environment, where bottlenecks are and what trend is expected. All of those should be known to you.
Above are starting point to figure out how to proceed. The problem with managers has always been they have to be driven by cheaper solution and personal interest (and politics somewhere in between). I had met only few of them which were good at what they were doing, but let's assume price is the number one issue here. I have no idea about price of these products as this is not my domain, but I have seen too many times cheaper solutions implemented instead of preferred once by technicall people to know there much more than initial price. Wether this is the case or not, you know the best.
On separate note, I feel Avamar is a bit of confusing part of the familly. I agree that it has it's own place under the sun and all of that, but I strongly believe EMC would benefit more from merging Avamar code with NW asap. I know such plans exists and eventually that will happen, but I guess it just takes time.
Simplified, if you have pure fs backups (no database) and loads of slowish WAN clients, Avamar would be nice solution (you can take even VM edition so no appliance needed). Otherwise I would go for DD. But perhaps cheapest way might be investing to WAN infra link?
You have got my main idea succesfully...Why netwoker do not implement software-only deduplication ? What I like very much with networker is that I can choose my "server", my "array", and of course a lot of other things...
I understand that combining hardware/software deduplication method will offer better dedupe ratio which means lower disk space requirement but it means also more expensive solution.
You have right about 7.6 SP2 and BMR for windows...I'm waiting the release...also for VADP (vmware Api Data protection integration)
Why do not implement soft deduplication with ADV_file device into 7.6 SP3 ? (please please)
Concerning the large products portfolio and the none possible merging of them, i can understand customer that use only "homebase" or "avamar" or "networker"...but networker will integrate a kind of "homebase" BMR capabilities for windows, right ? and if I remember me correctly, when you install a recent networker client, it will install automatically the "homebase" agent.
Why unify "client" side and exclude an unified "server" side ? In addition, networker management console can "manage" avamar product...It is very confusing for me...
For storage environnement, EMC goes to an "unified" product called VNX I think...Why do not create an unified backup product that will include all the good things of each individual product into a single with for example licencing activation ? (Networker + Avamar + "homebase" ?)
That's not very big and if this is pure file system environment it might be easily addressed by Avamar (as you have remote offices). The question now is the volume and change rate of data to be backed up. I believe with Avamar there used to be a simulator which you could install and check progress on dedupe to come up with calculation... or you could easily install demo and check how it performs.
If you have smaller databases, Avamar might be good, but if dealing with something larger (500GB and more) that's where NW takes over (I believe there is either some sort of mix now where these two can use each other or something like that - haven't been in Avamar waters for at least 2 years). So, if your expansion is going towards bigger volumes, then NW would be choice. But from what you have said, with all those VMs and rest... it feels as Avamar would be something that should fit you.
Also, let's not forget when using NMM 2.3, part of the dedup process can already be done at the client! When using BOOST, the backup server can dedup as well, freeing up the network to the Data Domain for other storage nodes to use it.
I think Data Domain would be good for your problem. It does need it's own storage, the gateway systems are EOL.
ecarter11
2 Intern
•
177 Posts
0
April 27th, 2011 11:00
Thanks for the questions and taking the time to ask the community and voice your concerns about meeting your requirements at a reasonable cost. I think your main question is – why is there not a native software-only deduplication capability for NetWorker?
Here are my thoughts on it. For NetWorker, EMC has chosen a path to deduplication based on utilizing the two very successful deduplication products we already have in the EMC product portfolio - Avamar and Data Domain. If you have within reach capabilities that have proven themselves quite successful for customers – and successful from a business standpoint as well – why not leverage these technologies? If you look around the industry, a similar path was taken by other backup vendors as well.
One thing I believe contributes to confusion sometimes is brand names – why isn’t everything under one name at EMC?! One reason is that for Avamar and Data Domain - and even HomeBase and Data Protection Advisor, each are successful on their own with customers who have other backup solutions in place. My opinion is that if we called these NetWorker there would be a harder time talking with a TSM customer for instance who stands to gain from these technologies.
Software-only dedupe can be cheap versus a combined hardware/software offering – and while we do not wish to underestimate what that means to many customers, we have experience with the challenges customers have in building infrastructure to support a software only implementation. Successful backup with dedupe requires the right mix of hardware and storage. If the right choices are not made, this can be a risk. It is important that the software vendor help customers understand what the right infrastructure is and this guidance is sometimes not provided, or not straightforward. In any case, there's a cost for that infrastructure even though it doesn't come from your backup software provider.
I get your concern about switching infrastructure. I was wondering though – in storage and backup environments, aren't periodical changes and refreshes common (ever moved from one type of tape library to another)?
EMC's approach is to have ready-made and tested appliances accompanied by software that can be distributed in the backup environment. Avamar and Data Domain systems have proven themselves reliable and easy to integrate – and with more of the backup infrastructure supported by a single provider, we think that is a good thing.
Having said all that, I understand what you’re concerns are and that things like budget, size of environment and other factors come into play. How we try to help in cases like this is to show the advantages of the EMC solution(s) vs. others and give an idea of savings from things beyond the acquisition costs so it becomes a more total picture (TCO) rather than one factor (software).
As for BMR - if your primary concern is Windows - you have an in-built solution w/ NetWorker 7.6 SP2 (no extra cost)!
So for now, thanks again - and thanks for using NetWorker. Thanks Hrvoje for your reply as well. Maybe other users can share some thoughts and experiences – especially if you’re using one or more of the EMC products together and can comment.
Regards,
Eric
ble1
4 Operator
•
14.4K Posts
1
April 27th, 2011 01:00
What kind of implementation to use depends on your current environment, where bottlenecks are and what trend is expected. All of those should be known to you.
Above are starting point to figure out how to proceed. The problem with managers has always been they have to be driven by cheaper solution and personal interest (and politics somewhere in between). I had met only few of them which were good at what they were doing, but let's assume price is the number one issue here. I have no idea about price of these products as this is not my domain, but I have seen too many times cheaper solutions implemented instead of preferred once by technicall people to know there much more than initial price. Wether this is the case or not, you know the best.
On separate note, I feel Avamar is a bit of confusing part of the familly. I agree that it has it's own place under the sun and all of that, but I strongly believe EMC would benefit more from merging Avamar code with NW asap. I know such plans exists and eventually that will happen, but I guess it just takes time.
Simplified, if you have pure fs backups (no database) and loads of slowish WAN clients, Avamar would be nice solution (you can take even VM edition so no appliance needed). Otherwise I would go for DD. But perhaps cheapest way might be investing to WAN infra link?
sedilbur
3 Posts
0
May 3rd, 2011 13:00
Hi Hrvoje Crvelin,
My actual environnement includes large amont of netwoker client:
- ~60 clients (30 "virtual", 30 "physical")
- convertion to vmware infrastructure
- recycle physical server to virtual server as possible
- 10 To of data to backup
- Data grow evry day
- More and more virtual machines
- I think that at the end of the year, 90% of own servers will be VM (actual and newer)
- WAN backup capabilities is a requirement to protect own remote offices
What emc backup product do you suggest to me to fill my "desiredata" ?
Something I missed about avamar is that "virtual appliance" exists. thank you for this information.
-----------------------
Hi Eric Carter,
You have got my main idea succesfully...Why netwoker do not implement software-only deduplication ? What I like very much with networker is that I can choose my "server", my "array", and of course a lot of other things...
I understand that combining hardware/software deduplication method will offer better dedupe ratio which means lower disk space requirement but it means also more expensive solution.
You have right about 7.6 SP2 and BMR for windows...I'm waiting the release...also for VADP (vmware Api Data protection integration)
Why do not implement soft deduplication with ADV_file device into 7.6 SP3 ? (please please)
Concerning the large products portfolio and the none possible merging of them, i can understand customer that use only "homebase" or "avamar" or "networker"...but networker will integrate a kind of "homebase" BMR capabilities for windows, right ? and if I remember me correctly, when you install a recent networker client, it will install automatically the "homebase" agent.
Why unify "client" side and exclude an unified "server" side ? In addition, networker management console can "manage" avamar product...It is very confusing for me...
For storage environnement, EMC goes to an "unified" product called VNX I think...Why do not create an unified backup product that will include all the good things of each individual product into a single with for example licencing activation ? (Networker + Avamar + "homebase" ?)
Thanks to you for your replies.
David
ble1
4 Operator
•
14.4K Posts
0
May 5th, 2011 06:00
That's not very big and if this is pure file system environment it might be easily addressed by Avamar (as you have remote offices). The question now is the volume and change rate of data to be backed up. I believe with Avamar there used to be a simulator which you could install and check progress on dedupe to come up with calculation... or you could easily install demo and check how it performs.
If you have smaller databases, Avamar might be good, but if dealing with something larger (500GB and more) that's where NW takes over (I believe there is either some sort of mix now where these two can use each other or something like that - haven't been in Avamar waters for at least 2 years). So, if your expansion is going towards bigger volumes, then NW would be choice. But from what you have said, with all those VMs and rest... it feels as Avamar would be something that should fit you.
unexpected1
34 Posts
0
May 23rd, 2011 12:00
Also, let's not forget when using NMM 2.3, part of the dedup process can already be done at the client! When using BOOST, the backup server can dedup as well, freeing up the network to the Data Domain for other storage nodes to use it.
I think Data Domain would be good for your problem. It does need it's own storage, the gateway systems are EOL.