Fujitsu ETERNUS CS200c - Integrated Backup Solution
Perhaps very few people, especially on Habré, would have to specifically explain how valuable information is for business in the modern world. Even without understanding the topic, just look at the list of the largest companies. Leaders of the IT industry have firmly established themselves in it, displacing companies related to energy resources and food products. The engine of IT industry suppliers, in fact, is competition, who will offer a more efficient way to receive, process and, of course, store information. Today we will talk about one particular case of storage.
The answer to the tasks of consumers to store information are the development and release, but it will not sound like a tautology - information storage systems, or data, in short - storage systems. In the package of offers from Fujitsu, the line of storage systems is familiar to us by the name of ETERNUS. However, the storage of information is a very general concept, more related to theory.
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On the practical side, abstract “storage” falls into three main tasks — storing current data here and now; creating and storing copies of data for protection (i.e. backup) and / or for version control; and long-term storage of immutable data, i.e. archiving. However, the boundary between the second and third in the sense of hardware implementation is rather arbitrary, the differences lie more in the approach to structuring and the data access scheme, so sometimes with an eye out it is quite possible to talk about two large scenarios, current data access and backup long storage. A typical scheme for implementing these scenarios looks like this:
Different application scenarios cause differences in the performance requirements and functionality of the storage system. Since we are talking about Fujitsu storage systems, the diagram shows the possible applications of specific ETERNUS storage systems, DX series as production storage, and CS (for example, ETERNUS CS800) as storage systems for data backup and storage. Of course, Fujitsu has something to offer in terms of servers, for example, from the Fujitsu PRIMERGY line, but today it’s not about them.
For self-realization of the above scenario, you must first take into account the answers to many questions. Here are just some of them:
Further steps are the choice of hardware and software, acquisition, deployment and configuration, verification, and so on.
Fortunately, there is not always a real need to really work through everything yourself. You can simplify your task by relying on the long experience of the manufacturer of storage systems. So, in the arsenal of Fujitsu, there is a comprehensive solution for backing up and archiving ETERNUS CS200c Powered by Commvault.
As a first approximation, ETERNUS CS200c is a bundle of Fujitsu hardware and software for managing backup and archive Commvault. If you are not familiar with the Commvault brand, just take a look at one of the Gartner "Magic Quadrants" (Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup Software and Integrated Appliances, 15 June 2015, ID: G00266742):
But in fact, before us is not just a joint delivery. Based on Fujitsu's extensive experience in the implementation and operation of data storage systems supplied by the company, the optimum performance was selected. The hardware and software components of ETERNUS CS200c are already preconfigured and configured, as they say, from the factory, in order to simplify and save the customer's time to integrate the solution into their IT environment. The kit includes a set of all necessary licenses. Some features that are not in demand by all customers, such as connecting tape libraries, can be optionally purchased. Fujitsu will also act as a single point of contact for support and service issues.
It is worth mentioning separately about one, perhaps unobvious, but very important detail, which significantly affects economic efficiency. The fact is that although the backup software from Commvault is integrated into the ETERNUS CS200c solution, an exception was made by agreement with Fujitsu - the licensing scheme was changed depending on the amount of data. Software Commvault for backup traditionally involves licensing under the scheme FET (Front-end Terabytes), that is, the amount of data for backup. The licenses that come with ETERNUS CS200c assume the BET (Back-end Terabytes) calculation method, that is, by volume on the storage device. This is important because in fact, with the ETERNUS CS200c storage system, the volume of data for licensing is calculated after deduplication, but the deduplication factor can easily exceed 10.
Storage ETERNUS CS200c comes in several versions. The youngest, CS200c Entry S, is designed for storage from 1 to 2 TB. It would seem quite a bit. But, first, there is a built-in deduplication. Obviously, for example, for backing up several virtual machines of the same type, the deduplication ratio will be very high, so it is quite possible to get by with a small amount of storage. Secondly, ETERNUS CS200c supports replication, so using these integrated storage systems you can build a distributed system with small separate units without spending extra money by placing only one ETERNUS CS200c storage system from the upper series models on the main site.
The most advanced of the Entry models, the Entry L, supports 6 to 36 TB. As usual for Fujitsu storage systems, we are talking about the actual available storage space, and not about the raw volume of the drives in the RAID. In the server rack or ETERNUS CS200c cabinet, the Entry model will occupy only two units.
The older model ETERNUS CS200c Scale comes in two versions: Capacity and Performance, which is optimized to reduce recovery time. By installing additional disk shelves, Scale models are scaled to 132 and 126 TB, respectively. To maintain high performance, the deduplication database is hosted on solid-state drives (SSD).
Fujitsu ETERNUS CS200c storage systems have two types of licenses. The AFSW (Appliance Foundation Software) license includes backup and archiving for an unlimited number of file clients, virtual machines and storage devices, deduplication, encryption, replication, and basic ESM snapshot support (ETERNUS Snapshot Manager, actually shortened by Commvault IntelliSnap, working with Fujitsu storage systems ). The good news, starting with the S2 generation, connecting cloud storage to the ETERNUS CS200c is also included in the standard license. From the options to the AFSW license - support for tape libraries, full functionality for working with Commvault IntelliSnap snapshots, as well as support for three classes of agents for applications and databases. Class-1 - applications and databases for Windows, Class-2 - for Linux-based and UNIX, including Oracle, Class-3 for SAP.
The AASW (Appliance Advanced Software) license differs from AFSW in supporting applications of all three classes of agents without restrictions.
There is a third option, delivery without a license. It can be useful if the company's IT infrastructure is already using Commvault software with the appropriate licenses in order not to pay for them twice. Or if the customer would prefer to license the Commvault software separately for internal reasons.
As mentioned above, ETERNUS CS200c supports replication, and with the DASH Copy mechanism.
DASH (Deduplication Accelerate Streaming Hash) Copy dramatically reduces communication bandwidth requirements or time for replication, since only changed data blocks are transferred to the storage system with the second copy. Without such a function, organizing replication to a remote site could be very costly.
Now let's recall some of what was said at the beginning, where backup and archive storage are conditionally combined into one script. Of course, a backup copy, it is also a backup, and archived data is not the same thing. In a few words, a backup is a copy of working data, providing the ability to recover from a failure or return a state to a certain point. The archive is not a copy, but the main copy, but little demanded data, and therefore moved to the storage area with lower operating costs. The classical scheme assumes that different processes are responsible for creating backup copies and moving data to the archive. Thanks to Simpana OnePass, the Commvault software component integrated into the ETERNUS CS200c storage system, the required operations are performed in one pass, as a result, the time for their execution is reduced and management is simplified. Another bonus is an integrated approach.
The answer to the tasks of consumers to store information are the development and release, but it will not sound like a tautology - information storage systems, or data, in short - storage systems. In the package of offers from Fujitsu, the line of storage systems is familiar to us by the name of ETERNUS. However, the storage of information is a very general concept, more related to theory.
')
On the practical side, abstract “storage” falls into three main tasks — storing current data here and now; creating and storing copies of data for protection (i.e. backup) and / or for version control; and long-term storage of immutable data, i.e. archiving. However, the boundary between the second and third in the sense of hardware implementation is rather arbitrary, the differences lie more in the approach to structuring and the data access scheme, so sometimes with an eye out it is quite possible to talk about two large scenarios, current data access and backup long storage. A typical scheme for implementing these scenarios looks like this:
Different application scenarios cause differences in the performance requirements and functionality of the storage system. Since we are talking about Fujitsu storage systems, the diagram shows the possible applications of specific ETERNUS storage systems, DX series as production storage, and CS (for example, ETERNUS CS800) as storage systems for data backup and storage. Of course, Fujitsu has something to offer in terms of servers, for example, from the Fujitsu PRIMERGY line, but today it’s not about them.
For self-realization of the above scenario, you must first take into account the answers to many questions. Here are just some of them:
- how much data needs backup;
- backup copies of which OS and applications will be made now and which may be needed in the future;
- the ultimate goal of creating backups, scenarios for their use;
- what will be the backup window and bandwidth requirements;
- do you need archival copies of the data;
- ease of deployment and use of the system and whether special training is required;
- expansion possibilities in the future;
- the choice of supported data carriers and the need for backup in the cloud storage;
- cost of implementation, support and licensing scheme.
Further steps are the choice of hardware and software, acquisition, deployment and configuration, verification, and so on.
Fortunately, there is not always a real need to really work through everything yourself. You can simplify your task by relying on the long experience of the manufacturer of storage systems. So, in the arsenal of Fujitsu, there is a comprehensive solution for backing up and archiving ETERNUS CS200c Powered by Commvault.
As a first approximation, ETERNUS CS200c is a bundle of Fujitsu hardware and software for managing backup and archive Commvault. If you are not familiar with the Commvault brand, just take a look at one of the Gartner "Magic Quadrants" (Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup Software and Integrated Appliances, 15 June 2015, ID: G00266742):
But in fact, before us is not just a joint delivery. Based on Fujitsu's extensive experience in the implementation and operation of data storage systems supplied by the company, the optimum performance was selected. The hardware and software components of ETERNUS CS200c are already preconfigured and configured, as they say, from the factory, in order to simplify and save the customer's time to integrate the solution into their IT environment. The kit includes a set of all necessary licenses. Some features that are not in demand by all customers, such as connecting tape libraries, can be optionally purchased. Fujitsu will also act as a single point of contact for support and service issues.
It is worth mentioning separately about one, perhaps unobvious, but very important detail, which significantly affects economic efficiency. The fact is that although the backup software from Commvault is integrated into the ETERNUS CS200c solution, an exception was made by agreement with Fujitsu - the licensing scheme was changed depending on the amount of data. Software Commvault for backup traditionally involves licensing under the scheme FET (Front-end Terabytes), that is, the amount of data for backup. The licenses that come with ETERNUS CS200c assume the BET (Back-end Terabytes) calculation method, that is, by volume on the storage device. This is important because in fact, with the ETERNUS CS200c storage system, the volume of data for licensing is calculated after deduplication, but the deduplication factor can easily exceed 10.
Storage ETERNUS CS200c comes in several versions. The youngest, CS200c Entry S, is designed for storage from 1 to 2 TB. It would seem quite a bit. But, first, there is a built-in deduplication. Obviously, for example, for backing up several virtual machines of the same type, the deduplication ratio will be very high, so it is quite possible to get by with a small amount of storage. Secondly, ETERNUS CS200c supports replication, so using these integrated storage systems you can build a distributed system with small separate units without spending extra money by placing only one ETERNUS CS200c storage system from the upper series models on the main site.
The most advanced of the Entry models, the Entry L, supports 6 to 36 TB. As usual for Fujitsu storage systems, we are talking about the actual available storage space, and not about the raw volume of the drives in the RAID. In the server rack or ETERNUS CS200c cabinet, the Entry model will occupy only two units.
The older model ETERNUS CS200c Scale comes in two versions: Capacity and Performance, which is optimized to reduce recovery time. By installing additional disk shelves, Scale models are scaled to 132 and 126 TB, respectively. To maintain high performance, the deduplication database is hosted on solid-state drives (SSD).
Fujitsu ETERNUS CS200c storage systems have two types of licenses. The AFSW (Appliance Foundation Software) license includes backup and archiving for an unlimited number of file clients, virtual machines and storage devices, deduplication, encryption, replication, and basic ESM snapshot support (ETERNUS Snapshot Manager, actually shortened by Commvault IntelliSnap, working with Fujitsu storage systems ). The good news, starting with the S2 generation, connecting cloud storage to the ETERNUS CS200c is also included in the standard license. From the options to the AFSW license - support for tape libraries, full functionality for working with Commvault IntelliSnap snapshots, as well as support for three classes of agents for applications and databases. Class-1 - applications and databases for Windows, Class-2 - for Linux-based and UNIX, including Oracle, Class-3 for SAP.
The AASW (Appliance Advanced Software) license differs from AFSW in supporting applications of all three classes of agents without restrictions.
There is a third option, delivery without a license. It can be useful if the company's IT infrastructure is already using Commvault software with the appropriate licenses in order not to pay for them twice. Or if the customer would prefer to license the Commvault software separately for internal reasons.
As mentioned above, ETERNUS CS200c supports replication, and with the DASH Copy mechanism.
DASH (Deduplication Accelerate Streaming Hash) Copy dramatically reduces communication bandwidth requirements or time for replication, since only changed data blocks are transferred to the storage system with the second copy. Without such a function, organizing replication to a remote site could be very costly.
Now let's recall some of what was said at the beginning, where backup and archive storage are conditionally combined into one script. Of course, a backup copy, it is also a backup, and archived data is not the same thing. In a few words, a backup is a copy of working data, providing the ability to recover from a failure or return a state to a certain point. The archive is not a copy, but the main copy, but little demanded data, and therefore moved to the storage area with lower operating costs. The classical scheme assumes that different processes are responsible for creating backup copies and moving data to the archive. Thanks to Simpana OnePass, the Commvault software component integrated into the ETERNUS CS200c storage system, the required operations are performed in one pass, as a result, the time for their execution is reduced and management is simplified. Another bonus is an integrated approach.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/300836/
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