Summary

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VERITAS NetBackup

VERITAS Software Corporation is the acknowledged leading provider of storage management software solutions that allow enterprises to protect, access, and manage data. No other company can claim the depth and breadth of heterogeneous solutions, from high availability to backup and recovery to data management. By choosing VERITAS, enterprises are not tied to any proprietary platform-hardware or software. Rather, VERITAS solutions facilitate choice-the implementation of best-of-breed technologies for data protection, access, and management. Of Fortune 500 companies, 86 percent rely on VERITAS solutions.

In 1997, VERITAS acquired OpenVision Technologies and in doing so added VERITAS NetBackup to its product arsenal. Originally developed over 10 years ago to provide scalable backup and recovery services at Chrysler Motor Corporation, NetBackup today remains VERITAS' flagship backup and recovery solution. NetBackup commands the coveted number 1 market share position, based on new license revenue, and a reputation for delivering innovative, visionary functionality that provide real business value today. NetBackup's list of industry firsts and accomplishments includes the following:

• First backup and recovery software solution based on a core three-tier architecture designed for performance and scalability

• First backup and recovery software solution to support multihost tape library sharing between heterogeneous systems

• First backup and recovery software solution to break the 1 TB/hour backup barrier (July 1997)

• First backup and recovery software solution to offer dynamic tape drive sharing between UNIX and Windows systems (June 1999)

• One of only three solutions to back up 1 TB of data in under an hour and restore the same 1 TB of data in under an hour at a Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) benchmarking event (March 2002)

• First backup and recovery software solution to break the 2 TB/hour backup barrier (April 2002)

VERITAS offers two versions of NetBackup to address the needs of the varied customer data centers:

• VERITAS NetBackup DataCenter

• VERITAS NetBackup BusinesServer

NetBackup DataCenter's core three-tier architecture-master server, media server, and client-offers truly flexible deployment options. Companies can create consistent policies across the business, whether data is local, distributed, or remote. Leveraging the intuitive graphical user interfaces to perform all backup and recovery operations centrally, customers can manage more data per administrator.

Based entirely on the code for NetBackup DataCenter, VERITAS NetBackup BusinesServer offers an alternative for companies who require the same enterprise-class backup and restore performance but for smaller, less complex environments. Targeted at heterogeneous (UNIX and Windows) workgroups, departments, and remote offices, NetBackup BusinesServer combines the concept of a master server and media server into a single BusinesServer Server.

Mixed NetBackup BusinesServer and NetBackup DataCenter environments can be administered centrally via VERITAS Global Data Manager. In addition to managing all facets of backup and recovery through the launch of the NetBackup Administration Console, Global Data Manager also provides enhanced monitoring capabilities. Thresholds may be set to alert the administrator to abnormal situations, such as an unusual amount of down tape drives for a given server.

Methodology of Backup

VERITAS NetBackup utilizes the very traditional, tried-and-true method of backup, full and incremental. Incremental backups copy files that have changed since the last backup; this type of NetBackup backup is called a differential incremental. However, in Version 2.0 of NetBackup, engineering introduced True Image Recovery (TIR) that allowed the backup storage administrator to recover a failed disk or a deleted directory or directories to a specific point in time. One of the dilemmas of the old method was the fact that you may recover more data than you have disk space and potentially more files than the user remembered being there when the loss occurred. TIR addresses that problem by maintaining a 'rest-in-peace' database of all the deleted files. This requires very little disk space, typically no more than 2 percent of your total image database. When a TIR restore is invoked, the software determines which tapes are required and which files need to be recovered based on the restore criteria. The ending result is a disk or directory or directories with exactly what the user had anticipated from the last backup, a true image restore.

While this is a significant improvement over the traditional method, it still requires all of those differential incremental backup tapes, which may delay your restore slightly. This is why VERITAS introduced another type of incremental backup, cumulative incremental, a backup that copies all files changed since the last full backup. The benefit of implementing cumulative incremental backup jobs is reducing the number of tapes required for a full recovery. Many customers have blended both differential and cumulative incremental backups to aid in shortening their recovery times from tape.

Principles of Recovery

VERITAS views recovery in terms of information availability. How much do down systems cost your business? VERITAS offers integrated solutions that can deliver as much as 95 percent uptime to 99.9999 percent uptime or more. Via backup, Replication, Clustering, and global clustering, the VERITAS product suite supports the creation of comprehensive disaster recovery plans based on the required level of information availability.

Through VERITAS Software's recent acquisition of The Kernel Group, it now has added Bare Metal Restore (BMR) to their product offerings. BMR utilizes the TIR function of NetBackup to completely recover systems to full operation without administrator intervention beyond a few clicks of the mouse via the browser-based interface. During a BMR installation, OS images are installed to the BMR server for the clients that are being protected by the NetBackup servers. Next, disk partition information is saved to the BMR server for the clients that will have BMR protection to facilitate the complete and total recovery.

Bare Metal Restore protects systems running HP-UX, IBM AIX, Sun Solaris, and Microsoft Windows NT 4.0/2000, with additional platform support planned for future releases.

At the base level of any disaster recovery plan, however, is backup and recovery with off-site tape vaulting. The essence of vaulting is the process of creating duplicate backup tapes, which are brought from the primary site to an off-site location (vault). If the primary site is rendered inaccessible and data and applications are no longer available, the duplicate tapes at the remote location may be used with backup hardware to recover data and restore information availability.

NetBackup Vault is now tightly integrated within NetBackup 4.5. Vault automates the duplication, tracking, and reporting for the purposes of offsite storage as a disaster recovery component. In the event of a complete facility loss or on-site media failure, a Vault-protected environment has the option of retrieving duplicated media for recovery. NetBackup 4.5 now supports up to 10 copies of a backup image versus the previous version two-copy limitation.

High Availability

Keeping with VERITAS' end-to-end solutions of data and storage management, VERITAS Cluster Server provides you proactive management of service groups (application services) and protection against hardware failures, power outages, and other disasters. A Java-based management GUI provides a single point of administration for multiple VERITAS Cluster Server clusters. VERITAS Cluster Server provides a comprehensive availability management solution designed to minimize both planned and unplanned downtime.

VERITAS NetBackup has also been tested with Microsoft Cluster Server, and support for additional clustering technologies is planned for future releases.

Key Differentiators

VERITAS' key differentiators obviously rest in their ability to say they are an end-to-end solution provider, from the operating system to the application. It can also be integrated with other VERITAS products such as the VERITAS File System, VERITAS Volume Manager, VERITAS Cluster Server, and VERITAS Bare Metal Restore. The key differentiators are as follows:

• Is the number 1 backup and recovery software solution worldwide.

• Offers unparalleled performance and scalability.

• Offers a core three-tier architecture that provides the foundation for unparalleled backup and restore performance.

• Supports heterogeneous environments.

• Offers comprehensive data protection across operating systems, databases and applications, storage devices, and network topologies.

• Offers application-specific backup and recovery.

• Supports the broadest range of database/application/platform combinations and leverages native (nonproprietary) utilities and APIs on all accounts.

• Features tools that allow for ease-of-use and ease-of-administration.

• For an enterprise-class solution, provides an unmatched suite of wizard-driven interfaces that simplify installation, configuration, and administration. A plethora of standard reports deliver critical information, such as the status of backup jobs, without the administrator having to parse transaction logs, and an integrated troubleshooting wizard offers online access to remedies for various errors.

• Features industry-known, 'bulletproof' catalog scales to address the largest environments while commanding comparatively the smallest amount of reserved space among leading competing solutions.

• Relies on the establishment of key partnerships to help drive integration and success among hardware and software solutions. Where applicable, VERITAS NetBackup is a recognized solution in partner programs, such as Sun Microsystems SunTone Certification program, IBM ServerProven, and more.

Through acquisition, innovation, and partnerships, VERITAS has been able to set themselves clearly apart from the list of industry leaders.

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