Symantec NetBackup 7.5 Strikes Delicate Balance between Backup Acceleration, Ease of Management and OPEX Reduction

Enterprise shops are like their small and midsize counterparts in that they share a similar desire to speed up and simplify backups in their respective environments. However the techniques required to meet these demands requires the use of backup software that is more sophisticated beneath the surface, easier to use and reduces operational expenses (OPEX). The enhancements found in this week's release of Symantec NetBackup 7.5 strike a good balance in accomplishing those exact objectives.

Yesterday I examined some of the new techniques that Backup Exec 2012 introduced to expedite and simplify backups for small and midsize shops to include:

• Making its management interface easier to understand and navigate
• Bundling its software licenses for one flat fee
• Creating two distinct offerings for small businesses
• A new V-Ray edition for 100% virtualized environments
• A new option to recover physical servers into virtual environments

Unfortunately the backup challenges that enterprise shops face are a few magnitudes greater than what small and midsize organizations tend to encounter. So backup software intended for the enterprise has to employ even more sophisticated techniques to simplify and expedite backups in these environments without making it easier for enterprises to take advantage of them. This is exactly what this week's enhancements to NetBackup 7.5 provide.

• NetBackup backup acceleration. Symantec's Senior Product Marketing Manager, Danny Milrad, summed it up pretty well when he described the feedback that Symantec is getting from customers about their struggles with backup. He says, "They have service level agreements (SLAs) that they do not have a snowball's chance in hell of meeting due to the volume and size of data that they have to manage."

This is why many enterprise backup administrators should welcome with open arms the new NetBackup Accelerator feature. Symantec aggregated multiple features from its existing portfolio of intellectual property to create NetBackup Accelerator, which delivers backup speeds that are up to 100x faster than today's backups.

To accomplish this, NetBackup Accelerator first looks at changed log files on the initial backup run as well as only scans file systems that have changed files. To know which ones do and do not have changed files, NetBackup will now remain in regular contact with file systems between backups.

Then, as the time for the next backup approaches, NetBackup has a pretty good idea of which files have changed since the prior backup. To optimize the backup job, it deduplicates the data to ensure that blocks of data being sent are not transmitted multiple times.

Symantec already found NetBackup Accelerator to deliver when it tested it internally. It ran a 61 GB, 500,000 file backup from its Roseville, MN, to its Beijing, China, data center and found that the time to complete the backup went from about four (4) hours to under two (2) minutes.

• NetBackup adds NetApp Snapshot™ to its list of supported array snapshot features. NetBackup's ability to manage storage array snapshots and do recoveries is in and of itself nothing new. NetBackup has done that for years. But new in NetBackup 7.5 are the storage array snapshots that NetBackup supports and how it manages these snapshots.

The big addition to NetBackup's already extensive support for storage array snapshots is its new support for the Snapshot feature found on NetApp FAS storage arrays. Two items make NetBackup's support and integration with the NetApp Snapshot feature noteworthy.

First, since NetApp uses its Data ONTAP OS across all of its FAS storage arrays from its enterprise FAS6200 series down to entry level FAS2000 series, enterprises may now manage NetApp snapshots on any of these arrays using NetBackup. Second, and maybe more significantly, it moves the management of the snapshots and the recovery of the data within the snapshots to the backup admin.

One of the challenges associated with using snapshots on storage arrays is that without backup software integration, the storage admin is left to setup snapshots and then also manage recoveries. In the case of shops that use NetApp, this can become particularly problematic as it is estimated up to 50% of NetApp customers use its Snapshot feature. This caused some overlapping of responsibilities between backup and storage administrators in these shops.

Adding NetApp to NetBackup's list of supported array snapshots brings back into alignment the more natural break in responsibilities between these administrators. Further, the integration between NetBackup and NetApp extends well beyond just simple management of NetApp array snapshots.

For instance, NBU 7.5 will immediately enable administrators to do recoveries from NetApp snapshots down to the file level. As Symantec finds that 90% of restore requests are for single file recoveries, due to NetBackup's integration with the NetApp Snapshot feature, it will have knowledge of NetApp file system down to the file names and their attributes. Now backup admins may restore a single file through NetBackup from the NetApp snapshot without requiring a storage admin to get involved.

• Expansion of NetBackup's integration with OpsCenter. Reducing the operational costs associated with backup and recovery by up to 80% over the next 3-5 years is one of Symantec's top priorities. Making that a reality means making all functions associated with backup and restore much easier to accomplish though in NetBackup 7.5, restore gets attention in particular.

Doing individual file restores from NetApp snapshots hints at broader initiative under way at Symantec. Symantec's ultimate objective is to make restores so simple that the responsibility for doing them may move from backup administrators to first line support staff.

In anticipation of this move, NetBackup integrates with Symantec's OpsCenter console so that administrators may access the OpsCenter console and perform a number of tasks. These include searching for data that is subject to an eDiscovery or locating a particular file and then restoring it to the correct location.

Over the longer term enterprises should envision the OpsCenter console becoming both more expansive and more powerful as it starts to assume tasks that administrators perform now. As these are assumed by OpsCenter, expect first line support staff to leverage it to eventually assume more responsibilities currently done by backup administrators.

The level of sophistication needed in today's enterprise backup software products is only matched by the demands placed on backup software providers by enterprise to make their products easier to implement and manage. NetBackup 7.5 strikes a pretty good balance in delivering on those objectives in this release.

The introduction of NetBackup Accelerator coupled with NetBackup 7.5's new support for NetApp FAS storage systems provides the new backup and recovery speeds that today's enterprises seek. However by also enhancing NetBackup 7.5's integration with OpsCenter, enterprises begin to immediately reduce some of their OPEX expenses associated with backup and recovery and should anticipate much greater reductions in OPEX costs in the years to come.