What is BoostFS?

Question

Within the Data Domain community, the popularity of DD Boost is at an all-time high with an over 70% attach rate. You might wonder: With all this success why did Dell/EMC create BoostFS? The answer is simple: to make the benefits of DD Boost immediately available to hundreds applications by introducing a single feature. Introduced in DD OS 6.0, the DD Boost File System Plug-In (BoostFS) resides on the application system, presenting a standard file system mount point to the application. With direct access to a BoostFS mount point, the application can leverage the storage and network efficiencies of the DD Boost protocol for backup and recovery. Only simple qualification is needed for the application to support BoostFS, shortening the time to market. Also, the file system interface makes BoostFS easy to deploy, allowing it to be up and running in minutes. By leveraging the DD Boost technology, BoostFS helps reduce bandwidth usage, can improve backup-times, offers load-balancing, in-flight encryption, and supports the Data Domain multi-tenancy feature set. As a file server system implementation, the BoostFS workflow is similar to NFS but also leverages the DD Boost protocol. In addition, BoostFS improves the backup times compared to NFS and various copy-based solutions. Redirecting NFS workloads to BoostFS is easy and non-disruptive to the environment in addition to being transparent to users. BoostFS is now available for customers with active licenses for the DD Boost Software Option or Data Domain Virtual Edition. Are you interested?  Intrigued?  What do you want to know? Stay tuned to this space for information.

Philip_Fote · Answer

Linux O/S Support - RHEL, SUSE, Ubuntu and CentOS

umichklewis · Answer

Any plans for BoostFS on large-endian systems like AIX, HP-UX and Solaris? Thanks!

Philip_Fote · Answer

Karl, Next year,  there is plans for  a windows plug-in.  After that we will look at unix platforms. Philip

dynamox · Answer

Philip, where can i find admin guide/release notes for BoostFS ?

Philip_Fote · Answer

BoostFS content is included in the 6.0 documentation and release notes.

dynamox · Answer

Philip,

I am trying to understand if i can leverage BoostFS in this scenario:

I have a RedHat 6.5 system where i am running Oracle 11g. We use DDBoost for RMAN for your typical RMAN backup but in addition to RMAN my DBAs like to perform data pump (expdp) to export database to an NFS export on Data Domain. Will BoostFS "intercept" this activity to NFS export and send new/change blocks only ?

Thank you

dynamox · Answer

Thank you Andy.  How's BoostFS licensed ? If my DD is licensed for Boost, am i automatically licensed for BoostFS for unlimited number of clients ?

vinesh_pandit · Answer

How data expiry and deletion happens in BoostFS? Is it something similar to DDBEA? we have any expirytool?

rugby01 · Answer

BoostFS should be treated as a NFS mount and you use the same process you would use for any file system. YOu could write a simple Linux or Powershell script to trim older files on the mount.

wkorb · Answer

Any update AIX/Solaris support? We very much need that in our environment. Thanks!

rugby01 · Answer

Nothing released to the public about new OS support, but i know there is a beta test out there for a new OS running currently.

wkorb · Answer

We'd be willing to beta test on AIX, if you need another beta tester.

PiterN · Answer

How BoostFS is secured against malver encryption attack - it is not goods idea having both production data and backups encrypted.

Is the performance comparable to DDBOOST? how many objects are supported on boostFS?

Alicerb · Answer

• BoostFS is 100% free feature of Data Domain 6.0+ • Everyone who has Data Domain 6.0 or higher and. – BOOST license on Data Domain box. or. – Data Domain Virtual Edition (DDVE has BOOST license.

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