Many backup vendors support vSphere, VMware’s flagship virtualization platform. Â But now, HP’s Data Protector platform supports the extended vCloud layer directly with integration against VMware’s vCloud Director. Â Workloads in highly virtualized datacenter are much more dynamic than traditional IT and the addition of vCloud Director to an environment only accellerates the ebb and flow of virtual machines. The new integration in Data Protector offers the ability to setup dynamic backups which can encompass changing workloads by integrating that the top level, vCloud layer.
Data Protector can be pointed directly at a particular vCloud organzation and will be able to backup anything under that organization with a single checkbox. Â Regardless of how much or how often the systems under that organization changes, Data Protector will still protect it completely. Â The integration fully supports the vCloud vStorage API’s which allows for full, application consistent backups by utilizing VMware’s snapshot capabilities. Â The snapshots will call into the VM’s tools and will even coordinate a consistent snapshot with the OS running inside of the VM. Â This ensures the most reliable data recoveries possible.
The new vCloud Director integration joins a slew of additional new capabilities within the Data Protector 7 release, including support for the StoreOnce deduplication technology at any level within the backup process. Â StoreOnce deduplication has been fully baked into the software in Data Protector 7 allowing for deduplication at the end-point, in transit or at rest on the StoreOnce deduplication device. Â It also allows for portability of thin backups without the need for rehydration, saving both bandwidth and time.
A picture is worth a thousand words. Â Below is a video demo of the vCloud Director integration into HP Data Protector. Â You can get a good idea of how simple the interface for the vCloud integration is within the backup console. Â To an existing customer, the interface looks almost identical to the vSphere integration that has existed for several years.