Meet Backup Exec 15
Hi, Habr! Today we will talk about our new product, Symantec Backup Exec 15 - easy-to-use backup and recovery software for virtual, physical and cloud environments, integrated with the latest versions of VMware and Hyper-V software for quick recovery of virtual machines, applications and their objects, databases, files and folders.
As the popularity of virtualization and cloud computing technologies grows, corresponding backup tools are also evolving. Deploying virtual machines (VMs) is becoming a common practice for companies of all sizes, however, it is not easy at all to organize backups of the virtual environment at the proper level. Previously, backup tools were not created for virtual environments, and the process of restoring virtual and physical servers is different. Currently, many backup software providers, including leaders in this market, are building support for virtualization environments, especially the most popular ones, in their products.
For a number of reasons, it makes sense to combine the tasks of backing up physical and virtual infrastructures. From the administrative point of view, this option is more convenient and more profitable than a separate application for virtualization hypervisors, especially if the backup management functions are integrated with virtual environment management tools. In addition, almost all customers have an infrastructure that uses both physical and virtual servers. Using a single tool will allow IT administrators to reduce the time allotted to perform this procedure, unify it, reduce the number of potential errors, and also save on licenses by reducing the number of products used.
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Therefore, the solution should be universal and provide backup and recovery of both physical and virtual environments managed from a single console. And in the case of working with virtual environments, support for the newest versions of common hypervisors should be implemented. Backup software manufacturers focus their attention on VMware due to the high popularity of this manufacturer’s solution. According to Gartner polls, 60% –70% of companies in the world prefer VMware software.
Until now, there is a perception that, with all its advantages, virtualization makes backup much more difficult. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why many companies ignore the need to protect the virtual environment: according to information from foreign analytical agencies, backup procedures cover less than 70% of virtual servers. Backing up virtual environments is one of the first places on the list of the most unsuccessful IT initiatives. According to surveys, only slightly more than half of the respondents believe that this procedure works in general at their companies, and one third are not sure that it will be possible to restore from a backup.
The backup problems of the virtual environment include significant backup volumes (it’s very convenient to save all VMs at once) and their verification, ensuring data integrity of various applications and managing the process in a complex virtual environment, especially when backing up should cover a growing number of virtual machines.
Backup / recovery systems developed for virtual environments should not only provide the required target point and recovery time parameters (Recovery Point Objective / Recovery Time Objective, RTO / RPO), but also support new data types and heavy loads. When multiple VMs and a backup application are running on the same server, performance degradation cannot be ruled out. Typically, several VMs use a shared disk array, so simultaneous copying of their data can create a significant load on the storage system. In addition, as the number of VMs on the server increases, its network card must deal with the growing traffic. The backup of the virtual environment is also characterized by a stronger, compared to traditional procedures, impact on the storage area network, it is possible to increase the backup time, space requirements on disks or tapes.
Meanwhile, according to one of the foreign polls, only 10% of respondents believe that organizing a VM backup is more difficult than physical servers. Indeed, the backup procedures of virtual environments in the case of a high-quality software solution deployment are no more difficult than similar procedures for physical machines. Although there are problems. In some companies, hundreds of virtual machines are in use, and scaling storage with an increase in the number of VMs can be a serious problem. In a complex virtualization environment and in large data centers, automated systems are needed to identify new physical and virtual servers and include them in the backup process.
Studies show that the main problems in deploying data protection solutions in a virtual environment are high costs, inefficiency and duration of backup, as well as the complexity of data recovery, so one of the priority tasks is improvement of these processes, performance and ease of use.
Developers are trying to follow the trends of the IT industry and offer solutions to ensure data security in new environments. Suppliers of traditional backup systems complement their new capabilities to protect virtual servers, working closely with the developers of virtualization platforms.
Flexibility, performance and ease of use. These qualities have tried to give the product Backup Exec 15, the developers of Symantec.
In May 2015, Symantec introduced a new version of Backup Exec , its key software solution for backup, archiving and recovery of data. Backup Exec 15 is interesting not only because it provides a holistic approach to protecting information in a physical, virtual and cloud environment with a single backup policy. It became the first (and so far the only) similar product supporting the new version of VMware software - vSphere 6, including vSphere 6 security certificates. Of course, the list of operating systems and virtualization hypervisors it supports is not limited to this.
Symantec Backup Exec 15 software protects the entire IT infrastructure — the developers' goal was to create a flexible and convenient backup and recovery solution on any platform. The product offers enhanced support for VMware, a higher level of scalability and performance, a simplified upgrade, support for cloud storage, operating systems and applications, and the list of supported OS is updated quarterly. In particular, the product allows you to work with the popular virtualization platform for VMware vSphere servers (5.1 / 5.5 / 6.0) and the Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization system (2008/2012 / 2012R2). As for the clouds, the company adds support only proven cloud platforms that have already won the trust of customers.
Symantec Backup Exec 15 implements unified backup management in a physical, virtual, and cloud environment.
Specially developed technologies are used to speed up cloud backup / restore processes. For example, the choice of data compression rate depends on the available computing power, free storage capacity, and network bandwidth. A differential backup system allows you to quickly add changed blocks to a backup, without overwriting it again.
Backup Exec 15 provides flexible recovery in any volume, including entire servers, virtual machines, applications, files, folders, and individual objects. The technology of selective recovery of individual files helps to quickly restore an accidentally deleted document.
Overall, Backup Exec 15 enhancements covered the following main areas:
Integration with vSphere 6, ESXi 6.0 and vCenter 6.0 actually means supporting the concept of a software-defined VMware data center (Software-Defined Data Center, SDDC), support for Virtual SAN 5.5 / 6.0 and virtual volumes Virtual Volumes allows you to use software-defined storage systems VMware (Software-Defined Storage, SDS), and AWS Storage Gateway VTL support opens up cloud storage capabilities.
The new version of the BE improved scalability and performance: provides granular VM recovery with GPT partitions and volumes with a capacity of more than 2 TB, using the capabilities of high-performance storage systems (VMware Virtual Machine SAN Transport Mode), supports the on-line addition of SATA drives for the guest VM in HotAdd mode. The capacity of a VM disk can reach 16 TB. Improved user interface performance, up to 90% reduced memory requirements when browsing large directories. In addition, the Backup Exec server can be run on a Windows 2012 R2 virtual machine.
New in BE 15: support for the latest versions of VMware, vSAN and vVol data stores.
Deduplication of block-level backups and Change Block Tracking reduce the amount of stored data. Deduplication is performed on the client, on the BE server, or the capabilities of intelligent storage systems are used. The Data Deduplication option in Backup Exec Capacity Edition and Backup Exec V-Ray Edition is free. You can store backups on virtually any device, including disks, tapes, and third-party cloud services. By default, SQL 2014 is used as a repository in BE 15.
To protect virtual environments, the BE 15 implements such advanced functions as backup without the use of agents , granular recovery of Microsoft Exchange, Active Directory, SQL and SharePoint, disaster recovery (Disaster Recovery, DR), dynamic protection of VMs created. Actually, agents for VMware and Hyper-V are used, but only for a deeper integration of Backup Exec and Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) and VMware vStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP), more reliable creation of backup copies of VMs taking into account the features of applications . Agents are not involved in the backup process itself.
The key features of Backup Exec 15 are: enhanced support for virtual and cloud environments, growing data volumes, simplified licensing and product cost-effectiveness due to centralized management, reducing administration costs.
Backup Exec 15 supports recovery directly in the Amazon cloud, and Microsoft Azure support is expected soon. Moreover, it will be possible to use both clouds at the same time, as well as combine backup processes of all types, thereby significantly increasing the level of data protection.
Automated cloud backup and restore. This option is especially useful for backing up small sets or for protecting workstation data.
Moving to the new version of Backup Exec is quite simple: when replacing Backup Exec 2010 R3 SP3 or later, the product uses a single backup policy for several servers and their configuration settings. In addition, customers with a valid Backup Exec, Backup Exec V-Ray or Backup Exec Small Business Edition license are given a discount when upgrading to Backup Exec Capacity Edition.
The customers will be pleased with the cost of BE 2015 - in the Capacity Edition version it is reduced by more than 40% compared to the previous version of the product. And those who have enough basic functions can take advantage of the even cheaper version of the BE 2015 Capacity Edition Lite. Recall that in addition to Backup Exec for small and medium-sized companies, Symantec offers a version of Symantec NetBackup for large corporate customers.
Licensing options for various Backup Exec 15 options.
Overall, Backup Exec offers a wide selection of functionally different options to suit different requirements: Backup Exec 15, Backup Exec 15 Small Business Edition, Backup Exec 15 V-Ray Edition, Backup Exec 15 Capacity Edition Lite (new version 15), and Backup Exec 15 Capacity Edition. These options provide different licensing options: “per module” (agent / option), “per terabyte”, or “per socket”. The list of BE supported 15 operating systems and software platforms is also extensive .
Traditional backup and disaster recovery products are improving with the transition of companies of all sizes to virtualization and cloud platforms. The BE 15 developers managed to create a product capable of protecting today's rapidly changing IT environments while maintaining a balance between functionality and ease of use of a backup solution. It is also important that, according to Symantec, compared with the previous version, the performance is drastically improved: it is increased by 100% when creating backups and by 180% when restoring.
Now Symantec is in the process of restructuring and separating the business of the once-acquired Veritas company into a separate structure. The newly created company Veritas plans to complete the separation process in 2016 and has already formed a strategy for the development of its data management products in the enterprise. That is, the future Veritas product line is not limited to backups. Two directions are declared: information management itself (Information Orchestration) and data research (Information Intelligence). Customers will receive tools not only to protect the accumulated data, but also to understand them. The future Veritas Velocity platform will become a copy data management (CDM) system. Veritas eDiscovery platform is also planned to be developed on the basis of Clearwell technology purchased by Symantec. This platform offers an enterprise search service. So in the future there will be even more interesting new products.
Thank you for your attention, we are ready to answer your questions in the comments.
As the popularity of virtualization and cloud computing technologies grows, corresponding backup tools are also evolving. Deploying virtual machines (VMs) is becoming a common practice for companies of all sizes, however, it is not easy at all to organize backups of the virtual environment at the proper level. Previously, backup tools were not created for virtual environments, and the process of restoring virtual and physical servers is different. Currently, many backup software providers, including leaders in this market, are building support for virtualization environments, especially the most popular ones, in their products.
Backup in virtual environments
For a number of reasons, it makes sense to combine the tasks of backing up physical and virtual infrastructures. From the administrative point of view, this option is more convenient and more profitable than a separate application for virtualization hypervisors, especially if the backup management functions are integrated with virtual environment management tools. In addition, almost all customers have an infrastructure that uses both physical and virtual servers. Using a single tool will allow IT administrators to reduce the time allotted to perform this procedure, unify it, reduce the number of potential errors, and also save on licenses by reducing the number of products used.
')
Therefore, the solution should be universal and provide backup and recovery of both physical and virtual environments managed from a single console. And in the case of working with virtual environments, support for the newest versions of common hypervisors should be implemented. Backup software manufacturers focus their attention on VMware due to the high popularity of this manufacturer’s solution. According to Gartner polls, 60% –70% of companies in the world prefer VMware software.
Until now, there is a perception that, with all its advantages, virtualization makes backup much more difficult. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why many companies ignore the need to protect the virtual environment: according to information from foreign analytical agencies, backup procedures cover less than 70% of virtual servers. Backing up virtual environments is one of the first places on the list of the most unsuccessful IT initiatives. According to surveys, only slightly more than half of the respondents believe that this procedure works in general at their companies, and one third are not sure that it will be possible to restore from a backup.
The backup problems of the virtual environment include significant backup volumes (it’s very convenient to save all VMs at once) and their verification, ensuring data integrity of various applications and managing the process in a complex virtual environment, especially when backing up should cover a growing number of virtual machines.
Backup / recovery systems developed for virtual environments should not only provide the required target point and recovery time parameters (Recovery Point Objective / Recovery Time Objective, RTO / RPO), but also support new data types and heavy loads. When multiple VMs and a backup application are running on the same server, performance degradation cannot be ruled out. Typically, several VMs use a shared disk array, so simultaneous copying of their data can create a significant load on the storage system. In addition, as the number of VMs on the server increases, its network card must deal with the growing traffic. The backup of the virtual environment is also characterized by a stronger, compared to traditional procedures, impact on the storage area network, it is possible to increase the backup time, space requirements on disks or tapes.
Meanwhile, according to one of the foreign polls, only 10% of respondents believe that organizing a VM backup is more difficult than physical servers. Indeed, the backup procedures of virtual environments in the case of a high-quality software solution deployment are no more difficult than similar procedures for physical machines. Although there are problems. In some companies, hundreds of virtual machines are in use, and scaling storage with an increase in the number of VMs can be a serious problem. In a complex virtualization environment and in large data centers, automated systems are needed to identify new physical and virtual servers and include them in the backup process.
Studies show that the main problems in deploying data protection solutions in a virtual environment are high costs, inefficiency and duration of backup, as well as the complexity of data recovery, so one of the priority tasks is improvement of these processes, performance and ease of use.
Developers are trying to follow the trends of the IT industry and offer solutions to ensure data security in new environments. Suppliers of traditional backup systems complement their new capabilities to protect virtual servers, working closely with the developers of virtualization platforms.
In May 2015, Symantec introduced a new version of Backup Exec , its key software solution for backup, archiving and recovery of data. Backup Exec 15 is interesting not only because it provides a holistic approach to protecting information in a physical, virtual and cloud environment with a single backup policy. It became the first (and so far the only) similar product supporting the new version of VMware software - vSphere 6, including vSphere 6 security certificates. Of course, the list of operating systems and virtualization hypervisors it supports is not limited to this.
BE 15: what's new?
Symantec Backup Exec 15 software protects the entire IT infrastructure — the developers' goal was to create a flexible and convenient backup and recovery solution on any platform. The product offers enhanced support for VMware, a higher level of scalability and performance, a simplified upgrade, support for cloud storage, operating systems and applications, and the list of supported OS is updated quarterly. In particular, the product allows you to work with the popular virtualization platform for VMware vSphere servers (5.1 / 5.5 / 6.0) and the Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization system (2008/2012 / 2012R2). As for the clouds, the company adds support only proven cloud platforms that have already won the trust of customers.
Specially developed technologies are used to speed up cloud backup / restore processes. For example, the choice of data compression rate depends on the available computing power, free storage capacity, and network bandwidth. A differential backup system allows you to quickly add changed blocks to a backup, without overwriting it again.
Backup Exec 15 provides flexible recovery in any volume, including entire servers, virtual machines, applications, files, folders, and individual objects. The technology of selective recovery of individual files helps to quickly restore an accidentally deleted document.
Overall, Backup Exec 15 enhancements covered the following main areas:
- Expanding the range of tools for working with virtual and cloud environments. In addition to the already mentioned VMware vSphere 6, this is ESXi 6.0, vCenter 6.0, Virtual Volumes, vSAN 5.5 and 6.0, VMware EVO converged infrastructure support: RAIL, Amazon VLT and EC2 cloud platforms. Existing and new backup jobs can be migrated to the cloud storage environment through integration with AWS Storage Gateway VTL. Thus, administrators can use the ability to store data in the cloud directly from Backup Exec. They do not need to learn and customize new products or upgrade their IT environment.
- Work with large amounts of data. GRT (Granular Restore Technology) technology allows you to use virtual disks with a capacity of more than 2 TB, and work with storage area networks (SANs) and non-stop drives (vSphere SATA in HotAdd mode). Recovery from vSphere SAN helps you realize the benefits of high-performance storage.
- Efficiency and simplicity. The possibility of centralized deployment and maintenance of data backup, a simple transition to a new version of software from any version of Backup Exec, starting with BE 2010 R3, as well as reduced storage costs. A single solution and a single management console for a virtual and physical environment can reduce costs and simplify the protection of the entire IT environment.
Integration with vSphere 6, ESXi 6.0 and vCenter 6.0 actually means supporting the concept of a software-defined VMware data center (Software-Defined Data Center, SDDC), support for Virtual SAN 5.5 / 6.0 and virtual volumes Virtual Volumes allows you to use software-defined storage systems VMware (Software-Defined Storage, SDS), and AWS Storage Gateway VTL support opens up cloud storage capabilities.
The new version of the BE improved scalability and performance: provides granular VM recovery with GPT partitions and volumes with a capacity of more than 2 TB, using the capabilities of high-performance storage systems (VMware Virtual Machine SAN Transport Mode), supports the on-line addition of SATA drives for the guest VM in HotAdd mode. The capacity of a VM disk can reach 16 TB. Improved user interface performance, up to 90% reduced memory requirements when browsing large directories. In addition, the Backup Exec server can be run on a Windows 2012 R2 virtual machine.
Deduplication of block-level backups and Change Block Tracking reduce the amount of stored data. Deduplication is performed on the client, on the BE server, or the capabilities of intelligent storage systems are used. The Data Deduplication option in Backup Exec Capacity Edition and Backup Exec V-Ray Edition is free. You can store backups on virtually any device, including disks, tapes, and third-party cloud services. By default, SQL 2014 is used as a repository in BE 15.
To protect virtual environments, the BE 15 implements such advanced functions as backup without the use of agents , granular recovery of Microsoft Exchange, Active Directory, SQL and SharePoint, disaster recovery (Disaster Recovery, DR), dynamic protection of VMs created. Actually, agents for VMware and Hyper-V are used, but only for a deeper integration of Backup Exec and Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) and VMware vStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP), more reliable creation of backup copies of VMs taking into account the features of applications . Agents are not involved in the backup process itself.
Backup Exec 15 supports recovery directly in the Amazon cloud, and Microsoft Azure support is expected soon. Moreover, it will be possible to use both clouds at the same time, as well as combine backup processes of all types, thereby significantly increasing the level of data protection.
Migration and Licensing
Moving to the new version of Backup Exec is quite simple: when replacing Backup Exec 2010 R3 SP3 or later, the product uses a single backup policy for several servers and their configuration settings. In addition, customers with a valid Backup Exec, Backup Exec V-Ray or Backup Exec Small Business Edition license are given a discount when upgrading to Backup Exec Capacity Edition.
The customers will be pleased with the cost of BE 2015 - in the Capacity Edition version it is reduced by more than 40% compared to the previous version of the product. And those who have enough basic functions can take advantage of the even cheaper version of the BE 2015 Capacity Edition Lite. Recall that in addition to Backup Exec for small and medium-sized companies, Symantec offers a version of Symantec NetBackup for large corporate customers.
Overall, Backup Exec offers a wide selection of functionally different options to suit different requirements: Backup Exec 15, Backup Exec 15 Small Business Edition, Backup Exec 15 V-Ray Edition, Backup Exec 15 Capacity Edition Lite (new version 15), and Backup Exec 15 Capacity Edition. These options provide different licensing options: “per module” (agent / option), “per terabyte”, or “per socket”. The list of BE supported 15 operating systems and software platforms is also extensive .
Veritas: back to the future
Traditional backup and disaster recovery products are improving with the transition of companies of all sizes to virtualization and cloud platforms. The BE 15 developers managed to create a product capable of protecting today's rapidly changing IT environments while maintaining a balance between functionality and ease of use of a backup solution. It is also important that, according to Symantec, compared with the previous version, the performance is drastically improved: it is increased by 100% when creating backups and by 180% when restoring.
Now Symantec is in the process of restructuring and separating the business of the once-acquired Veritas company into a separate structure. The newly created company Veritas plans to complete the separation process in 2016 and has already formed a strategy for the development of its data management products in the enterprise. That is, the future Veritas product line is not limited to backups. Two directions are declared: information management itself (Information Orchestration) and data research (Information Intelligence). Customers will receive tools not only to protect the accumulated data, but also to understand them. The future Veritas Velocity platform will become a copy data management (CDM) system. Veritas eDiscovery platform is also planned to be developed on the basis of Clearwell technology purchased by Symantec. This platform offers an enterprise search service. So in the future there will be even more interesting new products.
Thank you for your attention, we are ready to answer your questions in the comments.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/261577/
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