If you want to backup over WAN (for example remote office or laptop computers), Avamar might be good. Doesn't like DB's though.
If you'll backup inside your datacenter, Data Domain is a clear winner. It can also be used for remote office with a DD140 in which case only the dedupped info will be put on the WAN (and cross remote offices it is compared so only one remote office sends data and all others will know it).
The entire environment is virtualised and SAN attached.
It contains DBs.
At the moment the backup is local network only.
The choice of data protection has been agreed by the business as the following:
Snapshots. Preferred method of data protection, point in time recovery.
Mount Snapshots to a proxy (backup server)
This takes the load of the ESX servers during backup.
Backup the snapshots using networker (flat file backups)
This eliminates the need for additional modules and licenses.
Moving Forward in the future:
DR is being established as we speak.
Replication of the SAN has been decided.
The data protection above not being a true backup regime I would like to be able at least provide them with a dedupe box integrated to networker that will scale well just in case they decide to do the following:
I believe Data Domain would be a good solution for you (although I am biased since I work with DD a lot and I don't use Avamar but I do know what it is and how it works).
Both integrate nicely with Networker, especially since 7.6.
If using ethernet, a Data Domain can be used with BOOST, which will put part of the deduplication at the storage node level. This would use less of the backup network to the Data Domain, keeping it available for other storage node's that do have "new" data that needs to be send to the Data Domain.
With NMM 2.3, part of the dedup process can even be given to the client, so the "not so new data" doesn't even get send to the storage node.
It gives you a bit of the Avamar source dedup, but with a Data Domain system.
For me, going to Avamar is only interesting if:
1) you want a complete backup solution (since it is both software and hardware, you don't NEED networker but it works well together)
2) you have a lot of remote office backups or you want to backup external user's laptops
3) you want a complete virtual solution (Avamar can be bought in Virtual Edition) and use your own storage with it
You can replicate both avamar and datadomain creating a better DR site
vmware backups are less resource intensive and much faster/efficient with Avamar
dedupe imagelevel backups with CBT
with avamar/DD replication is deduped as well, easy on WAN
1) nowadays primary storage is replicated while backups tend to be on remote site than storage (sort of difficult to grasp once that everything can run on each side an everything is replicated). Customers running initial protection at primary storage do not tend to replicate backups. Having one backup copy in such case is enough.
2) This entirely depends on the sizing and what you backup. I backup at guest level and we have no issues with resources on any of the boxes. We also have more Linux than Windows boxes and since API is limited when it comes to granularity of the Linux platform, VADP is for us no go. For DR we would rely on VM snapshots/storage snapshots, but as far as backup goes, this is still done purely by NW.
ble1
4 Operator
•
14.4K Posts
0
May 23rd, 2011 02:00
D you have anything else then virtual boxes? (or do you plan to have it). Do you have databases running in VMs and how are they sized?
unexpected1
34 Posts
0
May 23rd, 2011 12:00
If you want to backup over WAN (for example remote office or laptop computers), Avamar might be good. Doesn't like DB's though.
If you'll backup inside your datacenter, Data Domain is a clear winner. It can also be used for remote office with a DD140 in which case only the dedupped info will be put on the WAN (and cross remote offices it is compared so only one remote office sends data and all others will know it).
chrisvemc
50 Posts
0
May 23rd, 2011 16:00
The entire environment is virtualised and SAN attached.
It contains DBs.
At the moment the backup is local network only.
The choice of data protection has been agreed by the business as the following:
Moving Forward in the future:
The data protection above not being a true backup regime I would like to be able at least provide them with a dedupe box integrated to networker that will scale well just in case they decide to do the following:
unexpected1
34 Posts
0
May 24th, 2011 11:00
I believe Data Domain would be a good solution for you (although I am biased since I work with DD a lot and I don't use Avamar but I do know what it is and how it works).
Both integrate nicely with Networker, especially since 7.6.
If using ethernet, a Data Domain can be used with BOOST, which will put part of the deduplication at the storage node level. This would use less of the backup network to the Data Domain, keeping it available for other storage node's that do have "new" data that needs to be send to the Data Domain.
With NMM 2.3, part of the dedup process can even be given to the client, so the "not so new data" doesn't even get send to the storage node.
It gives you a bit of the Avamar source dedup, but with a Data Domain system.
For me, going to Avamar is only interesting if:
1) you want a complete backup solution (since it is both software and hardware, you don't NEED networker but it works well together)
2) you have a lot of remote office backups or you want to backup external user's laptops
3) you want a complete virtual solution (Avamar can be bought in Virtual Edition) and use your own storage with it
Hope this helps.
rob_steele
1 Rookie
•
120 Posts
0
March 28th, 2012 11:00
Avamar and DataDomain 100%
Pro's Vs Networker
ble1
4 Operator
•
14.4K Posts
0
April 30th, 2012 03:00
1) nowadays primary storage is replicated while backups tend to be on remote site than storage (sort of difficult to grasp once that everything can run on each side an everything is replicated). Customers running initial protection at primary storage do not tend to replicate backups. Having one backup copy in such case is enough.
2) This entirely depends on the sizing and what you backup. I backup at guest level and we have no issues with resources on any of the boxes. We also have more Linux than Windows boxes and since API is limited when it comes to granularity of the Linux platform, VADP is for us no go. For DR we would rely on VM snapshots/storage snapshots, but as far as backup goes, this is still done purely by NW.
3) That's cool feature.
4) If you use it, yes.