Nature Of Logic And Perception

Situational Analysis

Enterprise Backup Solution

This document was prepared to analyze the backup infrastructure, and prepare an action plan, for the Ridgefield location.

Content

1 Situation Analysis 3

2 Objective 3

3 Situation Fact 3

4 Options 4

4.1 Option # 1: Veritas Netbackup 4

4.2 Option # 2: Legato Networker 5

4.3 Option #3: Commvault Galaxy 7

4.4 Enterprise Backup Solution - Evaluation Analysis 8

4.5 Summary of options available 11

4.6 Updated analysis of Legato Networker subsequent to inclusion of Visual Storage Resource Migrator and Alphastor 11

5 Recommendation 17

1 Situation Analysis

This document was prepared to analyze the current backup environment and prepare an action plan, for the Ridgefield location regarding the incorporation an Enterprise Backup Solution.

2 Objective

Our objective is to determine the best course of action regarding the selection and implementation of an Enterprise Backup Solution.

3 Situation Fact

The current network environment has been outgrown the ability of Veritas BackupExec, the backup software platform used by BI Ridgefield- Production Services, in terms of amount of data being backed up, functionality, and reliability. At the time of its initial purchase approximately six years ago (with BackupExec 7.x), the server infrastructure consisted of approximately 80 clients with one TB of data captured on a weekly full backup. This small-business level backup solution provided a good fit for the environment and served the company's data protection needs well. Accordingly, we continued to leverage BackupExec 8.x - 9.x in our organization as the network infrastructure expanded though out the years.

The server environment has now grown to the point where there are 370 servers with approximately 16 Terabytes of data captured on a weekly full backup. In light of this, meeting the established backup/restore service agreement is becoming increasingly challenging. Some of the functionality/features required to address this challenge includes:

-The ability to direct multiple streams of data to one media device simultaneously (Multiplexing).

-A provision for re-starting backup jobs from the point at which they failed (Checkpointing).

-Descriptive reporting on backup media content.

-Automation of Media Duplication and Vaulting tasks.

-Compete compatibility with SANs and NAS support

As a result, Production Services has evaluated a number of solutions from the leading backup software manufacturers. The final list was narrowed down to three competitors we thought could best meet our outlined requirements. They are: Veritas NetBackup, Legato Networker, and Commvault Galaxy. The tables below list the details of the evaluations.

4 Options

The reviews of the three options are listed in the following table:

4.1 Option # 1: Veritas NetBackup

Option Table # 1:

Pros Cons

Administrative/management tasks performed from a centralized location. (Familiar Microsoft Management Console style interface).

Provides the ability to browse resources through Graphical User Interface when creating backup and restore jobs, reducing the possibility of typographical errors.

Provides straightforward media management. Multiple media erased, moved and exported at once.

Existing BackupExec 9.1 tape media can be imported / read in NetBackup. Eliminates need to keep BackupExec media servers in environment.

Remote agents can be deployed remotely to many servers at once. Only requires one agent install for all applications (SQL,Oracle.Sybase).

One can view real-time alert and job status (Byte Count, Rate, Files backed up, Errors, etc). There is also a troubleshooter option to provide error explanations and recommended actions.

Limited Grooming capability. The application requires Storage Migrator component for advanced features.

Pre and post job scripted commands are difficult to implement into job.

Synthetic backups allow for quick client backups restore from a single backup image. This is essentially the process of combining multiple incremental/differential backups into one image.

Robust backup / restore performance with the use of streams and multiplexing. Up to 32 streams per drive supported.

Disk to tape staging for increased backup performance. Inline tape copy is also supported (write to multiple media simultaneously).

Restarting a backup job can be from the point of failure is accomplished with the Checkpoint feature.

Log purge subsequent to a SQL full recovery backup can be performed NetBackup can also invoke RMAN for Oracle on-line backups.

Open File Option (Veritas Snapshot Provider) is included with product. Windows 2003 Server backups use Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service.

Fully supports VMWare ESX/GSX Virtual Server host / instance backups. The application requires Bare Metal Recovery component for OS and System State recovery. This is an additional cost item.

Comprehensive reporting which includes:

Media=ServerResource report

Server=Media needed for recovery report

Vaulting tasks can be set up to automatically