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In search of the best means

In this article I will tell you how I met Quest Netvault Backup. About Netvault Backup, when this software still belonged to Dell, I have already heard a lot of positive feedback, but I have not had to “touch” it with my hands.





Quest Software, also known as Quest, is a software company headquartered in California with 53 offices in 24 countries. Founded in 1987. The company is known for its software used by database professionals, in cloud management, in information security, for data analysis, for backup and recovery. Quest Software was acquired by Dell in 2012. By November 1, 2016 the sale was completed and the company restarted as Quest Software.



Tightly get to know Quest Netvault was not so long ago. In one of the projects, the Customer asked to find an inexpensive and optimal solution to protect their infrastructure. The customer considered various backup software, one of the solutions was Quest Netvault Backup. According to the test results, taking into account the parameters important for the Customer (some of which are given at the end of the article), Quest Netvault Backup was chosen.

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In addition to the basic requirements, the Customer wanted the software to be installed on servers running Linux. Such requirements are not implemented by every backup software, but Quest Netvault Backup can do this.



Baseline and Requirements



The task that the customer set was to design a system that provides data backup in the amount of 62 TB. These data were contained in such application systems as SAP, Microsoft SQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SharePoint, etc. These application systems ran on physical and virtual servers running Microsoft Windows Server, Linux and FreeBSD operating systems. The virtual environment was built on the basis of the VMware vSphere virtualization platform. The infrastructure was located on the same site.



In general, the infrastructure of the Customer is shown in Figure 1.1.







Figure 1.1 - Customer Infrastructure



In the course of the analysis, the possibilities of Quest Netvault Backup applicable to the Customer’s infrastructure were studied, namely: in terms of backup, recovery, management and monitoring of data. Typical functionality and principles of operation do not differ from other software vendors. Therefore, I further want to dwell on the features of Quest Netvault Backup, which distinguish it against the background of other backup tools.



Interesting features



Installation



The size of Quest Netvalt Backup is only 254 megabytes, which allows you to quickly deploy it.



Plug-ins for supported platforms and tasks are downloaded separately, but this has a positive effect on the target state of the system, which will have only the functionality that is necessary to protect a specific infrastructure and will not be overloaded with excessive features.



Control



Netvault is administered via the WebUI shell. Log in by name and password.







Figure 1.2 - Login Window to the Management Console



Connect to the web console from any computer on the network using a browser.



The WebUI uses a simple and friendly interface, administration does not cause any problems, the control logic is accessible and understandable, if there are questions, then the detailed documentation on the product is posted on the vendor’s website.







Figure 1.3 - WebUI Interface



WebUI is designed to manage and control Quest Netvault Backup and allows you to perform the following tasks:









Figure 1.4 - Storage Management









Figure 1.5 - Device Activity Monitoring





Storage devices



Quest Netvault easily implements storage rule 3-2-1, as it can work with devices for online backup storage (disk storage systems), as well as with devices for long-term storage (deduplicating devices, physical tape libraries, autoloaders, virtual tape libraries (VTL) and shared virtual tape libraries (SVTL)). Alienated backups can be stored in the cloud, on a remote site, or on alienable media (for example, on a tape drive).



When working with deduplicating devices, specialized protocols RDA and DD Boost are supported. Using these protocols:





Customers



Quest Netvault Backup supports more than three dozen platforms and applications. You can read more about the list on the vendor's website by reference (Figure 1.7). Checking the compatibility of versions of protected systems with the Quest Netvault Backup is carried out according to the official document “Quest Netvault Backup Compatibility Guide” located at the link .



Support for so many systems allows you to design solutions for complex Enterprise-level infrastructures. Clients are distributed in the form of plug-ins (similar to other vendors - agents), which are installed on servers. As a result, data is protected using a single system with a single point of control.







Figure 1.6 - List of plugins



After downloading the plugins for these platforms, we place them in a shared folder that we connect to Netvault and then install the plugins remotely on the protected servers.



Another one of the advantages I consider is the visibility of the selection of objects to be backed up. For example, in the figure below we select the state of the server system and the logical drive c: \ as objects.







And this figure shows the selection of hard disk partitions.







In addition to plug-ins for platforms running on separate servers, Quest Netvault Backup has plug-in versions with support for various cluster systems. In this case, the cluster nodes are grouped into a virtual client, on which the plugin is installed with cluster support. Cluster nodes will be backed up and restored through this virtual client. The table below shows the cluster versions of the plugins.



Table 1.2 Plugins with cluster systems



Plugin

Description

Plug-in for FileSystem

This plugin is used when setting up file system data backup on the following platforms:

- Windows Server Clusters;

- Linux clusters;

- Sun clusters (Solaris SPARC)

Plug-in for Exchange

This plug-in is used when configuring backup of Microsoft Exchange server using Database Availability Group (DAG) technology.

Plug-in for Hyper-V

This plugin is used when setting up backup for a Hyper-V failover cluster.

Plug-in for oracle

This plugin is used when setting up Oracle Database backup on Oracle's Real Application Clusters (RAC)

Plug-in for SQL Server

This plugin is used when setting up a backup of a Microsoft SQL Server failover cluster.

Plug-in for mysql

This plugin is used when setting up MySQL Server backup in a failover cluster.



Result of implementation



The project resulted in the deployment of a backup system based on the Quest Netvault Backup software with the architecture shown in Figure 1.8.







Figure 1.7 - Target system state



All components of Netvault Backup were deployed on a physical server with the following characteristics:





Operational backups were stored on Quest Qorestor Standard (back end 150TB). Work with Qorestor was carried out according to the RDA protocol. The deduplication rate at Qorestor at the end of the trial operation of the system was 14.7 to 1.



For long-term storage, a tape library with four LTO-7 standard drives was used. The tape library was connected to the backup server via SAS. Periodically, cartridges were alienated and moved to storage in one of the remote branches.



All necessary plugins were downloaded and placed on a network folder for remote installation. The deployment time and configuration of this system was nine days.



findings



According to the results of the project, I can say that Quest Netvault Backup was able to fulfill all the requirements of the Customer and this solution is one of the means for building a backup system for both small companies and Enterprise-level Customers.



Most of the parameters that were used to evaluate solutions are given in the comparative table.



Table 1.3 - Comparison Table



Criterion

Commult

IBM Spectrum Protect

Micro Focus Data Protector

Veeam Backup & Replication

Veritas netbackup

Quest netvault

Microsoft Windows OS support for backup server

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Microsoft Windows OS support for backup server

Not

Yes

Yes

Not

Yes

Yes

Multilingual interface

Yes

Yes

Not

Not

Yes

Yes

Functional WEB control interface

6 out of 10

7 out of 10

6 out of 10

5 out of 10

7 out of 10

7 out of 10

Centralized management

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Role-based administration

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Agent for Microsoft Windows OS

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Agent for Linux OS

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Agent for Solaris OS

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Agent for AIX OS

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Agent for FreeBSD OS

Yes

Not

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Agent for MAC OS

Yes

Yes

Yes

Not

Yes

Yes

Agent for Microsoft SQL

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Agent for IBM DB2

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Not

Yes

Agent for Oracle DataBase

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Agent for PostgreSQL

Yes

Yes

Yes

Not

Yes

Yes

Agent for MariaDB

Yes

Yes

Yes

Not

Yes

Yes

Agent for MySQL

Yes

Yes

Yes

Not

Yes

Yes

Agent for Microsoft SharePoint

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Agent for Microsoft Exchange

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Agent for IBM Informix

Yes

Yes

Yes

Not

Yes

Yes

Agent for Lotus Domino Server

Yes

Yes

Yes

Not

Yes

Yes

Agent for SAP

Yes

Yes

Yes

Not

Yes

Yes

VMware ESXi support

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Microsoft Hyper-V Support

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Tape storage support

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

DD boost protocol support

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Catalyst protocol support

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Not

OST protocol support

Yes

Not

Yes

Not

Yes

Not

RDA protocol support

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Encryption support

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Client-side deduplication

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Server side deduplication

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

NDMP support

Yes

Yes

Yes

Not

Yes

Yes

Usability

6 out of 10

3 out of 10

4 out of 10

8 out of 10

5 out of 10

7 out of 10



The authors:

Mikhail Fedotov - Backup Systems Architect

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/444858/



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