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StoreOnce

Do you own HPE 3PAR and StoreOnce? You should look at Recovery Manager Central

by Philip Sellers December 21, 2017

written by Philip Sellers

For every StoreOnce customer out there who also uses 3PAR storage, I think you owe it to yourself to take a look at HPE’s Recovery Manager Central (RMC) product and specifically at its Express Protect. RMC Express Protect offers the potential of significantly faster backups, longer term retention, and a huge improvement to the workflow and capabilities of your backup and DR strategies.

What is RMC?

Recovery Manager Central is a product that has existed with 3PAR for a long time. It provides the ability to take application consistent snapshots with a 3PAR array – utilizing built-in software features, like VSS on Microsoft, to coordinate the snapshot ensuring data integrity. HPE currently offers RMC for VMware vSphere, Oracle database, SAP HANA, Microsoft SQL and now Exchange.

Express Protect is a feature of RMC that offers direct integration between the 3PAR and StoreOnce arrays allowing 3PAR snapshots to be offloaded directly to StoreOnce backup storage arrays for longer term backups than array-based snapshots allow using deduplication and Catalyst compression. Once a volume is protected with Express Protect, only the delta changes of a volume need to be transmitted to StoreOnce to create a new recovery point.

HPE says that they are seeing up to 23x better backup speeds and up to 15x better restore speeds compared to traditional backups.

Why is RMC so good?

RMC is just an enabling product, to me, in a customer environment that already includes StoreOnce and 3PAR. It provides the application consistent snapshots needed for data integrity in a DR or backup scenario on 3PAR arrays. And RMC unlocks a native pathway between 3PAR and StoreOnce for direct, fast backups.

With the current threat landscape from ransomware, it can be hard to determine when an infection occurred. To lessen the potential impact of a ransomware attack, a lot of companies are turning to backups and snapshots as mitigating steps. Express Protect gives you both capabilities in the same package – on steroids. Its faster both to backup and restore than traditional methods.

Native replication exists in both the 3PAR and StoreOnce platforms, meaning you can easily leverage this technology in multiple locations for DR purposes. StoreOnce provides a number of other alternatives that 3PAR doesn’t have. Because StoreOnce is software defined, customers can spin up a low-cost StoreOnce virtual appliance in another datacenter on cheap-and-deep storage or even in Microsoft Azure. This can become an offsite replication target.

In DR scenarios, your replicated data can be mounted as a read-only copy from the StoreOnce and data can be pulled and restored from this read-only copy – but this will be SLOW. StoreOnce is not intended to run primary storage workloads and the read-only copy would allow for a restore but not for a workload to run. This means you wouldn’t need a 3PAR on the remote end, however it would work best with a 3PAR on the remote side.

HPE also has an offering called Cloud Bank Storage, which is cloud object storage as another target for StoreOnce replication. This can be Amazon Web Services object store, Azure object store or an on-premises Scality object store as a target.

Integrations with third-party software vendors, like Veaam and Symantec, can also leverage native capabilities of StoreOnce and RMC to orchestrate jobs.

December 21, 2017 0 comments

HPE Discover: What’s new in Storage at a Glance

by Philip Sellers June 8, 2016

written by Philip Sellers

WhatsNew_Page_01

Notes of interest from the HPE Storage keynote and announcements:

Massive new drives – 7.68TB and 15.36TB drives for the 3PAR StoreServ arrays. The new drives are enabled by the 3D SSD technology pioneered by Samsung. The drives also benefit from Adaptive Sparing in the 3PAR OS that allows for additional spare capacity to be tapped for sparing by the array, rather than being reserved.

The massive new drives allow amazing density in the 3PAR arrays. Each disk shelf can accommodate 368 TB of RAW capacity and HP is saying with the magic of thin provisioning and thin dedupe, the density is 563TB of usable capacity per rack unit.

StoreOnce Recovery Manager Central 3.0 – The new release will allow application consistent protection for Oracle and for 3PAR File Personal. Recovery Manager Central leverages snapshots on the 3PAR array and then protects the snapshot data onto StoreOnce arrays. Once the initial snapshot/backup is protected, future backups only need to move difference blocks in between snapshots. All of this occurs directly between 3PAR and StoreOnce without third party software. A simple virtual appliance is deployed to drive this integration and can be tapped into by third party (or HPE) backup solutions.

3PAR File Persona Enhancements – HPE has added features like File Lock and NTFS Security mode to address specific needs of customers with file services. The File Provisioning Group limits have been increased to 64TB in size to accommodate much larger file space on a 3PAR array.

Native Container Integration – HPE has announced storage drivers for Docker to be able to natively talk to 3PAR and StoreVirtual over iSCSI. This will allow Docker to tap directly into storage and present it to containers and persist the storage over time.

June 8, 2016 0 comments

Datacenter Storage

Is the StoreOnce Recovery Manager Central native data protection better than ISV methods?

by Philip Sellers December 10, 2015

written by Philip Sellers

Almost a year ago, I was introduced to a new backup technology that worked natively between 3PAR and StoreOnce. HP called it Express Protect and Flat Backup and targeted VMware environments with the technology. I must have missed the fact that when it was shown off it was branded as StoreOnce Recovery Manager Central. VMware backups are a large percentage of our overall enviroment and so its a particular pain point, so I was very interested to see if this could solve some of the pain.

What is StoreOnce Recovery Manager Central?

The StoreOnce RMC story begins within the 3PAR software line with the 3PAR Recovery Manager software. This was optional software that allowed application aware snapshots on 3PAR arrays for data protection. These snapshots were a way to do application consistent protection and rollback with the the storage array. StoreOnce Recovery Manager Central is an extension of this technology that takes the same application consistent 3PAR snapshots and ships those over to the StoreOnce data protection arrays. Now, in true StoreOnce style, the snapshots on 3PAR are tracked and deduplicated and only changes are ever sent over to the StoreOnce array, making for efficient and fast backups.

While 3PAR Recovery Manager has specific version for many different products including VMware, Oracle, Microsoft SQL and other products, StoreOnce Recovery Manager Central is strictly for VMware at this time.

How does it work?

According to HP staff I spoke with, StoreOnce Recovery Manager Central a typical backup with StoreOnce RMC would look like this:

The StoreOnce RMC uses the vCenter API to snapshot all of the VM’s on a particular 3PAR Virtual Volume.
Once snapshots complete, the 3PAR takes an array snapshot of the VMFS datastore.
Another call is made to the VMware API and the VM-level snapshots are removed. You no longer need them because you have snapshot at the array level.

If this is the first backup, then all of the data is shipped over to the StoreOnce and deduplicated as it arrives.
If this not the first backup, only the changed blocks from the snapshot are then shipped to the StoreOnce backup device directly from the 3PAR.

What are the advantages of this versus ISV software?

It is much more efficient than backups with ISV software for a combination of reasons. The first is the change tracking between the StoreOnce and 3PAR to know what blocks were altered and need to be moved to the StoreOnce. The second is the nature of the StoreOnce deduplication, which is purpose built for deduplicating and rehydrating data for backup applications. The third is it is over native storage protocols without a separate piece of software in between – the actions happen directly between the 3PAR array and the StoreOnce array.

A second advantage is that the control of backups moves from a backup administrator to the application owners – like the VMware administrator and appears in their native management tools. The current StoreOnce Recovery Manager Central for VMware puts a plugin into the VMware Web Client that allows the VMware administrator to setup, scheduled, control and monitor their own backups in a view they are very familiar with.

But what about tape? And what about my existing backups?

Ok, you’ve got me there. If you have compliance or policies that dictate you need tape or archival copies of data, you’ll need your ISV software to handle that. But HP is also thinking of those use cases and as long as your ISV software supports a single API, they will be able to pickup and handle data stored by StoreOnce RMC from any of its supported primary storage arrays and move it to tape. But that’s all future and its up to the individual ISV to add support for this capability. At this time, even HP’s own Data Protector doesn’t offer this.

HP’s vision is to take a single control appliance and make it work across their line of storage platforms and may also extend to third parties in the future. Here’s a HP ChalkTalk that explains more about StoreOnce Recovery Manager Central and about the vision moving forward. Its fairly clear, other applications beyond VMware are slated for support in the future.

December 10, 2015 2 comments

Datacenter Storage

HP announces new Flat Backup direct from 3PAR to StoreOnce

by Philip Sellers December 2, 2014

written by Philip Sellers

Today, at HP Discover EMEA, HP announced new flat backup capabilities allowing 3PAR snapshots to be directly backed up to StoreOnce deduplicated backup arrays. The new capability is called Express Protect and allows for direct backup without third party backup software for VMware vSphere deployments. Snapshots taken on 3PAR arrays can be initially moved to StoreOnce for long term retention, eliminating several layers of software currently required to protect the same workloads.

To enable the feature, a virtual appliance called the StoreOnce Recovery Manager Central is deployed which connects to vCenter, StoreOnce and 3PAR arrays allowing for array-based snapshots with application aware consistency using Microsoft’s VSS technology. Recovery Manager Central integrates directly with VMware vCenter allowing administrators to control flat backups from their familiar vCenter view. In addition, administrators may also initiate flat backups from the StoreOnce RMC console. StoreOnce RMC allows users to restore a snapshots stored on StoreOnce to the original or a third party 3PAR array. The backups occur at the LUN level for the array and would backup all virtual machines in the LUN.

The StoreOnce RMC does not allow for file level restoration in the way that traditional backup software does, so it may not be a complete backup replacement, but it should allow for better and more flexible backups for VMware environments. For static servers whose data is kept in a database, this solution may become a great fit by eliminating multiple layers of software currently used for the same protection. Realistically, third party software and StoreOnce Recovery Manager Central will need to coexist to fully protect environments, but StoreOnce RMC may allow for faster protection on more frequent intervals than third party backups for many virtual machines.

StoreOnce RMC is licensed on a per rack basis with prices starting at $2500 for the VMware solution. StoreOnce RMC also requires a Catalyst license on the StoreOnce arrays. (I incorrectly reported that StoreOnce RMC was freely available. I apologize for this error.)

In the initial release, the StoreOnce Recovery Manager Central is limited to VMware vSphere but the capability is planned to expand to other software in the future.

Disclaimer: HP invited and paid for my trip to attend HP Discover EMEA. The views and opinions I’ve written were not dictated or approved by HP and are my own.

December 2, 2014 2 comments

Datacenter Storage

HP introducing Federated Catalyst to StoreOnce

by Philip Sellers June 10, 2014

written by Philip Sellers

b6500 This week at HP Discover, HP announced a new Federated Catalyst feature for the StoreOnce family of disk to disk backup arrays. The new capability will allow backup administrators to make large Catalyst stores on a StoreOnce and allow for data to be striped across all the back-end service sets in the array. Federated Catalyst is available immediately on the StoreOnce B6500 line and will be coming in a few weeks to the StoreOnce B6200 line.

Federated Catalyst overcomes a previous limitation in the StoreOnce family that tied a Catalyst store to a single service set within a StoreOnce device. The same limitation exists for a CIFS store or a virtual tape library store in a StoreOnce array. This is another advantage for HP’s Catalyst technology since it assists administrators who are managing many Catalyst stores.

Previously, within a StoreOnce with 2 couplets and 4 service sets, a minimum of 4 Catalyst stores would be required to use all the available resources in the device. This added additional management points and coordination for the backup administrator within the backup software. By striping the data across all the available service sets, a single large Catalyst store is possible to utilize all the available data.

There are other considerations such as deduplication ratios for stores and the number of backup streams that go into architecting the best possible backup environment but breaking Catalyst stores away from service set boundaries will let IT shops make better decisions about how to lay out stores within StoreOnce for backup. This also provides more scalability for medium sizes shops that may want to purchase a StoreOnce with a smaller initial sizing and grow it over time.

Compared to VTL technology, Catalyst offers a simplified approach to managing backup data. With VTL’s, a library is built and it is populated with emulated tape cartridges. Like physical cartridges, each one has a bar code and media label and other properties that dictate when the data on the cartridge expires and may be re-used. Within a VTL, however, if there are more cartridges than needed, the un-used cartridges will be used before any cartridges are recycled and reused based on backup policies. This leads to inefficiency and extra storage utilization within VTL libraries.

On the flip side, if the VTL has too few cartridges, then the library runs out of space and backups stop. This leads to a big management point for administrators to size and ensure the correct number of cartridges. Catalyst also improves the VTL situation by improving performance. VTL emulates physical tape and so backup software talks with it and expects a certain amount of time before a tape is loaded or unloaded and this adds time to backups. With Catalyst aware software, the D2D backup device is seen for what it really with all of its native capabilities instead of being seen as tape.

Disclaimer: HP invited me to HP Discover as a blogger and covered my expenses to attend the event. I also spoke at a session during the event. As always, the views and opinions stated on this blog are my own. HP was given no editorial control over content or topics for my posts.

June 10, 2014 1 comment

Compute Datacenter Storage

HP Discover 2012: HP introduces third generation of StoreOnce D2D backup devices

by Philip Sellers June 18, 2012

written by Philip Sellers

HP unveiled a third generation of StoreOnce devices targeted at improving backup and restore performance, StoreOnce redundancy and introducing a new interface to handle backups. The new StoreOnce B6200 was introduced last week at HP Discover. With the new B6200, customers will get a 2-node base configuration configured as a couplet (cluster) with seamless failover in case a single node fails. The B6200 can scale up to 4 couplets or 8 nodes in total with 768TB of raw storage (512TB usable). But the real magic of the new architecture if what customers will receive — improved speeds.

Still based on the industry-leading Proliant architecture, the latest generation pushes for speed in backups and recovery. In native backup mode, the StoreOnce B6200 will achieve speeds of 40TB per hour in backup and in restore in VTL mode. HP Storage vice president David Scott was quick to point out that the competition’s D2D backup devices take a 50% hit on restores versus the native backup speeds. The latest generation of StoreOnce is architected to ensure there was no performance loss for restores, when enterprise is really counting on the speed.

In addition to the impressive speeds, the StoreOnce B6200 also includes HP’s StoreOnce Catalyst software, which will allow for an incredible 150% improvement on backups speeds using the new native API, which sees the D2D devices for exactly what it is, rather than emulating virtual tape libraries. HP showcased this new technology on the showroom floor during HP Discover, last week, equating the speed of backup that would allow a customer to backup the Library of Congress three times in a single night. And those, are pretty impressive numbers.

The configurations use 2TB SAS drives in the storage enclosures. Each couplet scales up to 192TB of raw storage and 128TB of usable storage. But best of all, when fully populated, all 4 couplets are managed as a single device.

For existing customers, I spoke with engineers on the showroom floor that say the Catalyst software will likely come to older StoreOnce devices, though there is not a timeline. The Catalyst version of StoreOnce OS is based on a standard Linux kernel as opposed to earlier StoreOnce OS distributions that were based on a customized Linux distribution. HP is expected to unify these releases in the future.

Disclosure: HP sponsored my trip to HP Discover, covering all travel expenses, however HP does not control the content of the posts that I write based on my attendance to the show. The thoughts, impressions and information contained in this post are my own.

June 18, 2012 0 comments

Cloud Datacenter Software Storage

HP Discover 2012: Driving better backups with StoreOnce Catalyst

by Philip Sellers June 18, 2012

written by Philip Sellers

You no longer have to think of your disk-to-disk (D2D) backup device as a virtual tape library (VTL) or a file share repository. HP has introduced a software API, StoreOnce Catalyst, to the StoreOnce backup line and this new API will see the D2D and deduplication product for what it really is. No longer will you have to wait for tape seeks and loads/unloads for VTL’s that finish in milliseconds instead of minutes.

That will have a big impact on backup routines and will decrease the amount of time needed for backups and increase the throughput of backups to the StoreOnce to benefit from the full capabilities of the hardware. Along with these new capabilities, the StoreOnce Catalyst API also allows for a tremendous amount of backup data to be pushed across to the StoreOnce devices – up to 100TB per hour in backup. The speed is achieved with the newest generation StoreOnce device, the B6200, and HP’s Data Protector 7 backup software working together.

“That is equal to being able to backup the Library of Congress three times overnight,” said HP’s David Scott, vice president of the storage division, during his keynote last week.

StoreOnce Catalyst will work alongside existing fiber channel VTL backups or NAS backups to the StoreOnce device and will provide a new alternative for backup moving forward. The downside for fiber channel shops is that the backups will need to swap over to 10Gb Ethernet to make use of the StoreOnce Catalyst API’s. I suspect that many shops large enough to need multi-terabyte per hour backups would be a fiber channel shop, but 10Gb Ethernet should also be available in most of those datacenters, too.

Third parties will also be able to integrate the StoreOnce Catalyst API’s into their backup software. At the announcement last week, HP has signed Symantec on to integrate StoreOnce Catalyst into their NetBackup software and the BackupExec line of software will support Catalyst in August.

At the same time, HP also announced Data Protector 7, the latest revision of their backup and recovery software product which is the first product on the market to fully integrate the StoreOnce Catalyst capabilities into their software product. Data Protector 7 will include a number of additional new features, such as Granular Restore Extension (GRE) for Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint, supporting brick level restores from the same database level backups that were previously available. The new Data Protector 7 brings the StoreOnce deduplication algorithm to the backup software, providing for source and cell manager deduplication of data before it even streams to the D2D backup device.

Building on HP’s focus to cloud computing, Data Protector 7 adds cloud as a new backup destination, meaning companies can capitalize on cloud storage to allow offsite backups for the enterprise. These clouds are able to scale up to 50 Petabytes of storage and be managed from within the Data Protector 7 consoles.

Most interestingly for the Data Protector 7 announcements, HP has integrated Autonomy’s IDOL technology into Data Protector – allowing for contextual search of your backup sets. Aimed at helping customers provide discovery data for legal situation or even find a file based from an unknown location, the technology is also seeking to capitalize on the technology HP acquired from Autonomy last year. Integrating this into a different product line in under a year is also a sign of strengthening cooperation between teams and divisions at HP.

June 18, 2012 1 comment