![\"Protection\"](\"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/bigStock-Protection-Umbrella.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nNetWorker 9<\/h3>\n
NetWorker 9 of course was a big\u00a0part to the changes in\u00a0the data protection landscape in 2015, but that’s not by any means the\u00a0only<\/em>\u00a0advancement we saw.\u00a0I covered some of the advances in NetWorker 9 in my initial post about it (NetWorker 9: The Future of Backup<\/a>), but to summarise just a\u00a0few<\/em> of the key new features, we saw:<\/p>\n It’s difficult to summarise\u00a0everything that came in NetWorker 9 in\u00a0so few words, so if you’ve not read it yet, be sure to check out my essay-length ‘summary’ of it referenced\u00a0above.<\/p>\n In the world of mission critical databases where impact minimisation on the application host is a must yet backup performance is equally a must, ProtectPoint is an absolute\u00a0game changer<\/em>. To quote Alyanna Ilyadis, when it comes to\u00a0those\u00a0really<\/em> important databases within a business,<\/p>\n “Ideally, you’d want the performance of a snapshot, with the functionality of a backup.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Think about the real bottleneck in a mission\u00a0critical database backup: the data gets\u00a0transferred (even best case) via fibre-channel from the storage layer to the application\/database layer before being passed across to\u00a0the data protection storage. Even\u00a0if you direct-attach data protection storage to the application server, or<\/em> even if you mount\u00a0a snapshot of the database at another location, you\u00a0still<\/em> have the fundamental requirement\u00a0to:<\/p>\n ProtectPoint\u00a0cuts the middle-man out of the equation<\/em>. By integrating\u00a0storage level snapshots with application layer\u00a0control, the process effectively becomes:<\/p>\n That in itself is a good starting point for performance improvement \u2013 your database is only in hot backup mode for a few seconds at most.\u00a0But then the real power of\u00a0ProtectPoint kicks in. You see, when you first configure ProtectPoint, a block based copy from primary storage to Data Domain storage starts in the background straight away.\u00a0With Change Block Tracking incorporated into ProtectPoint, the data transfer from primary to protection storage\u00a0kicks into high gear \u2013 only\u00a0the changes between\u00a0the\u00a0last copy and the current state at\u00a0the time of the snapshot need to be transferred. And<\/em> the Data Domain handles creation of a virtual synthetic full from each backup \u2013 full backups daily at the cost of an incremental.\u00a0We’re literally seeing backup performance improvements in the order of 20x or more with ProtectPoint.<\/p>\n There’s some great videos\u00a0explaining what ProtectPoint does<\/a>\u00a0and the sorts of problems it solves<\/a>, and even it integrating into NetWorker 9<\/a>.<\/p>\n I’ve been in\u00a0the data\u00a0protection business for nigh on 20 years, and if there’s one thing that’s remained\u00a0remarkably consistent\u00a0throughout that time\u00a0it’s that many DBAs are unwilling to give up control over the data protection configuration and scheduling\u00a0for their babies.<\/p>\n It’s actually understandable for many organisations. In some places its entrenched habit, and in those situations you can integrate data protection for\u00a0databases directly into the backup and recovery software. For other organisations though there’s complex scheduling requirements based on batch jobs, data warehousing activities and so on which can’t possibly be controlled by a regular backup scheduler. Those organisations need to initiate the backup job for a database not at a\u00a0particular time<\/em>, but when it’s\u00a0the right time<\/em>, and based on the amount of data or the amount of processing, that could be a highly variable time.<\/p>\n The traditional problem with backups for databases and applications being handled\u00a0outside<\/em> of the\u00a0backup product is the chances of the backup data being\u00a0written to primary storage, which is\u00a0expensive<\/em>. It’s normally more than one copy, too.\u00a0I’d hazard a guess that 3-5 copies is the norm for most\u00a0database backups when\u00a0they’re being written to primary storage.<\/p>\n The\u00a0Database and Application agents for Data Domain allow a business to sidestep\u00a0all these problems by centralising the backups for\u00a0mission critical systems\u00a0onto highly protected, cost effective, deduplicated storage.\u00a0The plugins work directly with\u00a0each supported application (Oracle, DB2,\u00a0Microsoft SQL Server, etc.) and give the DBA full control over managing the scheduling of the backups while ensuring those\u00a0backups are stored under management of the data protection team. What’s more, primary storage is freed up.<\/p>\n Formerly known as “Data Domain Boost for Enterprise Applications” and “Data Domain Boost for Microsoft Applications”, the Database and Application Agents respectively reached version 2 this year,\u00a0enabling new options and flexibility for businesses. Don’t just take my word for it though: check out some of the videos about it here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n CloudBoost<\/a> version 1 was released last\u00a0year and\u00a0I’ve had many conversations with\u00a0customers interested in leveraging it over time to reduce their reliance on tape for long term retention.\u00a0You can read my initial\u00a0overview of CloudBoost here<\/a>.<\/p>\n 2015 saw the release of CloudBoost 2.0.\u00a0This\u00a0significantly extends the storage capabilities for CloudBoost, introduces the option for a local cache, and adds the option for a physical appliance for businesses that would prefer to keep their data protection infrastructure physical. (You can see the tech specs for CloudBoost appliances here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n With version 2, CloudBoost can now scale to 6PB of cloud managed\u00a0long term retention, and every bit of that data pushed out to a cloud is\u00a0deduplicated, compressed\u00a0and<\/em> encrypted for maximum protection.<\/p>\n Cloud is a big topic, and a big topic within\u00a0that big topic is SaaS \u2013\u00a0Software as a Service. Businesses of all\u00a0types are\u00a0placing core services in the Cloud to be managed by providers such as Microsoft, Google and Salesforce. Office 365\u00a0Mail is proving very popular for businesses who need enterprise class\u00a0email but don’t want to run the services themselves, and\u00a0Salesforce is probably the most likely\u00a0mission\u00a0critical SaaS application you’ll find in use in a business.<\/p>\n So it’s absolutely\u00a0terrifying<\/em> to think that SaaS providers\u00a0don’t really backup your data.\u00a0They protect their infrastructure from\u00a0physical<\/em> faults, and\u00a0their\u00a0<\/em>faults, but their SLAs around data deletion are pretty straight forward: if you deleted it, they can’t tell whether it was intentional or an accident. (And if it was an intentional delete they certainly can’t tell if it was authorised or not.)<\/p>\n Data corruption and data deletion in SaaS applications is far too common an occurrence, and for many businesses sadly it’s only\u00a0after<\/em> that happens for the first time that people become aware of what those SLAs do and don’t cover them for.<\/p>\n Enter Spanning<\/a>. Spanning integrates with the native\u00a0hooks provided in Salesforce, Google\u00a0Apps and Office 365 Mail\/Calendar to protect the data\u00a0your business relies on so heavily for day to day operations. The interface is dead simple, the\u00a0pricing is straight forward,\u00a0but the peace of mind is priceless. 2015 saw the introduction of Spanning for Office 365, which has already proven hugely popular, and you can see a demo of just how simple it is to use Spanning here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Avamar got an upgrade this year, too, jumping to version 7.2.\u00a0Virtualisation got a big boost in Avamar 7.2, with new features including:<\/p>\n That wasn’t all though \u2013 Avamar 7.2 also introduced:<\/p>\n Already\u00a0the market leader\u00a0in data protection storage,\u00a0EMC continued to stride forward with the Data Domain 9500<\/a>, a veritable beast. Some of the quick specs\u00a0of the Data Domain 9500 include:<\/p>\n Actually it wasn’t just the Data Domain 9500 that was released this year from a DD perspective. We also saw the release of the Data\u00a0Domain 2200 \u2013 the replacement for the SMB\/ROBO DD160 appliance. The DD2200\u00a0supports more streams and more capacity than\u00a0the previous entry-level DD160, being able to scale from\u00a0a 4TB entry point to 24TB raw when expanded to 12 x 2TB drives. In short: it doesn’t matter whether you’re a small business or a huge enterprise: there’s a Data Domain model to suit your requirements.<\/p>\n The traditional ES30 Data\u00a0Domain shelves have 15 drives.\u00a02015 also saw the introduction of the DS60 \u2013\u00a0dense<\/em> shelves capable of holding\u00a0sixty<\/em> disks. With support for 4 TB drives, that means a single 5RU data Domain DS60 shelf can hold as much as 240TB in drives.<\/p>\n The benefits of high density shelves include:<\/p>\n Data Domain OS 5.7 was also released this year, and includes features such as:<\/p>\n DPS for VMware<\/a> is a new socket-based licensing model for mid-market businesses that are highly virtualized and want\u00a0an\u00a0effective enterprise-grade data protection solution.\u00a0Providing Avamar,\u00a0Data Protection Advisor\u00a0and RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines, DPS for VMware is priced based on\u00a0the number of CPU sockets (not<\/em> cores)\u00a0in the environment.<\/p>\n DPS for\u00a0VMware is ideally suited for organisations that are either 100% virtualised or just have a few remaining machines that are physical. You get the full range of Avamar backup and recovery\u00a0options, Data Protection Advisor to monitor and report on\u00a0data\u00a0protection status,\u00a0capacity and trends within the\u00a0environment,\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0RecoverPoint for a highly efficient\u00a0journaled replication of critical\u00a0virtual machines.<\/p>\n There was at least one other bit of data protection news this year, and that was me finally joining EMC. I know in the grand scheme of things it’s a pretty minor point, but after years of wanting to work for EMC it felt\u00a0like I was coming home. I had worked in the system integrator space for almost 15 years and have a great appreciation for the contribution integrators bring to the market. That being said, getting to work from\u00a0within<\/em> a company that is so focused on bringing excellent data protection products to the market is an amazing feeling.\u00a0It’s easy from the outside to think everything\u00a0is done for profit or\u00a0shareholder value, but EMC\u00a0and its employees have a\u00a0real passion for their products and the change they bring to IT, business and the community as a whole. So you might say that personally<\/strong>, me joining EMC was the biggest data protection news for the year.<\/p>\n I’m willing to bet I forgot something in the list above. It’s been a\u00a0big<\/em> year for Data Protection at\u00a0EMC. Every time I’ve turned around there’s\u00a0been new releases or updates, new features or functions, and new options to ensure that no matter\u00a0where<\/em> the data is or how critical the data is to the\u00a0organisation, EMC has an\u00a0effective data protection strategy for it. I’m almost feeling a little bit exhausted having come up with the list above!<\/p>\n So I’ll end on a slightly different note (literally).\u00a0If after a long year working with or thinking about Data Protection you want to chill for five minutes, listen to Kate Miller-Heidke’s cover of “Love is a Stranger”. She’s\u00a0one of the best artists to emerge from Australia in the last decade. It’s hard to believe she did this cover over two years ago now, but it’s still great listening<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n
ProtectPoint<\/h3>\n
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Database and Application Agents<\/h3>\n
CloudBoost 2.0<\/h3>\n
Spanning<\/h3>\n
Avamar 7.2<\/h3>\n
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Data Domain 9500<\/h3>\n
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Data\u00a0Domain Dense Shelves<\/h3>\n
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DDOS 5.7<\/h3>\n
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Data Protection Suite (DPS) for\u00a0VMware<\/h3>\n
…And one minor thing<\/h3>\n
In Summary<\/h3>\n