White Paper

Accelerate Backup and Recovery in Virtual Server Environments with NetApp SnapProtect Management Software
May 2011 | WP-7131

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This white paper explains how NetApp SnapProtect management software addresses the problems associated with protecting applications, data, and virtual infrastructure in complex virtual server environments. SnapProtect is a comprehensive backup and recovery platform that combines NetApp Snapshot replication, and storage efficiency technologies with tape in a single solution that delivers faster backup and recovery, simplified management, and lower long-term costs.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION: DATA CENTERS ARE EVOLVING ......................................................................... 3 2 BACKUP AND RECOVERY NEEDS TO BE MODERNIZED FOR VIRTUAL SERVER ENVIRONMENTS ................................................................................................................................... 3 3 A FORWARD-LOOKING APPROACH TO BACKUP AND RECOVERY ............................................. 5
THE IMPORTANCE OF NETAPP SNAPSHOT TECHNOLOGY TO BACKUP AND RECOVERY ......................................... 5 OVERVIEW: NETAPP SNAPPROTECT BACKUP AND RECOVERY SOFTWARE ............................................................... 5

4 ACCELERATED BACKUP AND RECOVERY FOR VIRTUAL INFRASTRUCTURES ........................ 6 5 ADVANCED BACKUP AND RECOVERY THROUGH VIRTUALIZATION AND APPLICATIONAWARENESS ........................................................................................................................................ 7 6 UNIFIED MANAGEMENT OF FULL-SCALE BACKUP AND RECOVERY PROCESSES .................. 9 7 LOWER COSTS WITH BUILT-IN EFFICIENCIES .............................................................................. 10 8 NETAPP SNAPPROTECT USE CASES ............................................................................................. 11
AUTODISCOVER AND PROTECT VMs ................................................................................................................................. 11 DISASTER RECOVERY IN A VMWARE ENVIRONMENT..................................................................................................... 12

9 CONCLUSION...................................................................................................................................... 15

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1) Summary of NetApp SnapProtect features ................................................................................... 6 Figure 2) SnapProtect in a virtual server environment ............................................................................... 10 Figure 3) Disaster recovery in a VMware environment with cloning for additional business activities14

Accelerate Backup and Recovery in Virtual Server Environments with NetApp SnapProtect

1 INTRODUCTION: DATA CENTERS ARE EVOLVING

Virtual server technology allows enterprises to aggressively drive down costs while delivering expected service levels. Historically, data centers have operated purpose-built silos that remained independent of each other. In this model, some resource requirements remained static while others grew exponentially, with no effective way to share resources among applications. Virtualization shares compute resources among applications in a way that both reduces costs and increases agility, enabling IT to be more responsive to changing demands for resources. Data center evolution is not an event, but an ongoing process. Moving from silos to a virtualized dynamic data center takes time. But its a journey that enterprises are willing to take, and for good reason. The savings are real and the supporting technologies, like virtualization, are quickly becoming mainstream. Virtual Machines (VMs), the applications that run on VMs, and application data must all be protected around the clock. Therefore, as data centers evolve, so must the way in which virtualized IT assets are protected. NetApp delivers flexible, shared storage infrastructures that magnify and extend the benefits of server virtualization to the storage layer. NetApp Integrated Data Protection provides virtualization and application-aware backup and recovery management as part of a comprehensive solution that delivers enterprise-level backup, disaster recovery, high availability, and compliance with a 42% risk-adjusted 1 ROI over 3 years (based on a composite organization). NetApp takes a forward-looking approach to backup and recovery that accelerates and simplifies the way you protect your dynamic virtual infrastructures.

2 MODERNIZING BACKUP AND RECOVERY FOR VIRTUAL SERVER ENVIRONMENTS

The good news is that some or all of your applications and data are running on virtual servers and your savings are accumulating. The challenge is that legacy backup methods, which are highly dependent on physical resources, may not be adequately protecting your virtual infrastructure and vital application data. Backup and recovery must be modernized to adapt to the flexibility of virtual infrastructures. Virtual server implementations maximize the utilization of physical hardware resources to run applications, often as high as 90%. Even new methods of backup, including VMware VADP, are no different from traditional backup solutions. They rely on legacy techniques of copying blocks of data from one environment to another by using a backup server, which results in compute resource overload. This may work for small to medium-size environment, but not for large environments with high server and storage density and small to no backup windows. This approach, based on nightly data transfer, no matter how efficient, is not sustainable in virtualized environments. Compounding this dilemma, overall growth rates are typically 40% to 60% per year 2 using even more resources for protection. Fast-growing unstructured data such as files generated by office productivity applications are of particular concern. Unlike databases or even semistructured data such as e-mail,

The Total Economic Impact on NetApp Integrated Data Protection, a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of NetApp, December 2010.

Backup and Beyond: Rearchitecting Data Recovery, Gartner Data Center Presentation by Dave Russell, December 2010.

Accelerate Backup and Recovery in Virtual Server Environments with NetApp SnapProtect

there is no central owner or administrator for most unstructured data. As a result, it grows organically and unmanaged. For these reasons, IT pros are under pressure to: Shrink backup windows in virtual server environments. Using traditional backup methods, its not unusual to hear from IT managers that daily backups for virtual infrastructures are taking more than 24 hours and weekly backups are taking several days or not finishing at all. The effect of this is that virtualized infrastructures, although doing an excellent job of lowering costs for production workloads, introduce complexity that can expand backup windows. Restore virtual infrastructure and associated applications and data faster, on demand. When data becomes inaccessible, users expect that it can be recovered quickly. Traditional backup and recovery products struggle to meet ever-tightening recovery time objectives (RTOs), and they may not be able to recover application-consistent data easily and quickly. NetApp Snapshot technology resolves these issues efficiently, filling the protection gap left by slower, more compute-intensive backup methods. However, Snapshot copies are not typically integrated into end-to-end backup and recovery processes, leaving IT to manage Snapshot operations and backup in parallel. Minimize impact on production operations that host many virtual servers. Backup is an essential function that can disrupt production operations if it is not managed effectively. IT pros want to maximize the number of VMs per physical server, crunching numbers for memory and network resources to get the most out of every VM. Backup often doesnt figure significantly in these calculations. Therefore its important to deploy a solution that affects virtual hosts as little as possible. Protect information, applications, and virtual infrastructure concurrently. Virtual server farms, number of applications, and network infrastructure have grown immensely, but often the backup approach has not kept pace. Todays virtual server infrastructures have different requirements than traditional physical infrastructures. The ability to back up data at the image, file, and application levels; to back up multiple VMs on the same physical host; and to replicate data among local and remote storage arrays for fast restores and disaster recovery are just a few of the capabilities required of a full-scale backup and recovery solution for virtualized server environments. In addition, it's still necessary to support tape for long-term storage. Reduce time spent managing backup and recovery processes. The amount of time and skill required to keep backup functioning is no small matter. Backup should require much less administrative effort than it often does, and success rates should be much higher and easier to achieve. Multiple-point solutions like virtual server-specific backup tools and database or applicationspecific backup products can make backup management fragmented, inefficient, and ineffective. Lack of easy and complete reporting to prove backup job success is also an ongoing source of frustration. Consolidate backup and recovery in combined virtual-physical (hybrid) server environments. Integration with major virtualization platforms, applications, and databases should be the foundation of a strategic end-to-end backup solution. Furthermore, physical servers and the applications they host shouldnt require separate backup management. Reduce costs associated with backup and recovery efforts. Its not only point solutions for virtual and physical servers and applications that can complicate management and drive up costs. Separate tools and processes for managing backup and disaster recovery as discrete processes can also increase costs. In addition, by today's standards, legacy full plus incremental backup methods use excessive compute resources and storage capacity.

Accelerate Backup and Recovery in Virtual Server Environments with NetApp SnapProtect

3 A FORWARD-LOOKING APPROACH TO BACKUP AND RECOVERY

Objective and Strategy Objective: Accelerate, simplify, and economize backup and recovery for virtual infrastructures. Strategy: Integrate highly efficient NetApp Snapshot and replication technologies into a full-scale backup and recovery solution that integrates with major server virtualization platforms. Top considerations in our strategy are: Speed to keep pace with virtual system changes and to minimize impact on production operations. Simplify management to reduce the time and skill required to protect virtual infrastructures. Efficiency to reduce administrative costs. Application awareness to deliver expected service levels for recovery of mission-critical data. Extensibility from backup to business continuity and primary disk to tape.

THE IMPORTANCE OF NETAPP SNAPSHOT TECHNOLOGY TO BACKUP AND RECOVERY

NetApp Snapshot technology is the key to defeating the backup window challenge in dynamic virtual server environments. It enables tight, efficient recovery point objectives (RPOs). It allows you to perform rapid, consistent backups in consolidated, data-dense virtual server environments, with minimal production impact. With NetApp, you can copy your important data more frequently, storing hundreds of Snapshot copies in minimal storage space. Snapshot copies are point-in-time copies that save only incremental changes to the active file system and can be created and scheduled hourly, daily, and weekly according to business objectives and priorities. Not all snapshots are created equal. NetApp introduced its Snapshot technology more than 15 years ago and still offers the most space-efficient snapshots in the industry. Other technologies are limited to a much smaller number of snapshots before a complete baseline of the data image and snapshot must also be copied. Most of these offerings are limited by their use of copy-on-write (COW) technology. COW requires three independent input/output (I/O) operations. The first operation reads the original and metadata blocks; the second operation copies the original and metadata blocks to their new locations; and the third operation overwrites the original and metadata blocks. All of this reading and writing can drag down the performance of primary storage systems, particularly in demanding virtual server environments. NetApp Snapshot technology writes new blocks in new locations on the disk, leaving previous versions of blocks in their original locations. The advantage of this approach is that it requires only one I/O operation to update a block versus the three required with COW technology. This is a major contributor to the NetApp success in meeting backup and recovery requirements in dynamic virtual server environments.

OVERVIEW: NETAPP SNAPPROTECT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

NetApp SnapProtect software manages backup, NetApp Snapshot, and replication processes across virtual servers, physical infrastructures, and enterprise applications from a single interface. SnapProtect controls the entire progression of data through a single workflow, from local Snapshot copies to tape, minimizing management complexity. SnapProtect accelerates virtual infrastructure and application recovery by using virtualization and application-aware software agents. Policies can be set for Snapshot copy destinations, such as nightly incremental backups to reduplicated NetApp FAS systems or SANconnected tape, operating seamlessly across defined storage tiers. SnapProtect simplifies long-term retention, cataloging Snapshot copies for faster search and e-discovery response, as well as managing replication for disaster recovery and business continuity. SnapProtect helps to control costs by leveraging the NetApp Data ONTAP operating system for deduplication and other storage efficiency technologies.

Accelerate Backup and Recovery in Virtual Server Environments with NetApp SnapProtect

Key Capabilities: Delivers application-aware backups of virtual machines and the applications they run for faster backup and recovery in complex virtual server environments. Solves the challenge of legacy backup processes with Snapshot and replication technologies and supports primary and secondary disk and tape for strategic full-scale backup and recovery. Manages backup from a single interface with the ability to set repeatable policies and automate tasks, simplifying protection of virtual infrastructures and application data. Uses highly efficient NetApp Snapshot technology to minimize the I/O load placed on production systems, increasing backup speeds by up to 98%. Leverages APIs from major hypervisors and application providers for automated protection of VMs and granular backups, plus application-consistent restores. Provides catalog and content search capabilities to quickly locate and restore individual files or data objects. Extensible for long-term retention, compliance, and business continuity by using NetApp SnapVault, SnapLock, and SnapMirror technologies. Incorporates NetApp industry-leading storage efficiencies to control costs.

Figure 1) Summary of NetApp SnapProtect features.

4 ACCELERATED BACKUP AND RECOVERY WITH LESS COMPLEXITY

Objective and Strategy Objective: Meet business objectives faster through shorter backup windows and accelerated recovery. Strategy: Integrate technologies into mainstream backup and recovery processes that respond faster in ever-changing virtual server environments and back up hundreds of VMs in minutes, not hours or days.

Accelerate Backup and Recovery in Virtual Server Environments with NetApp SnapProtect

Industry analysts are advising their clients to use snapshot technology to improve backup and recovery SLAs and to fill the gap left by traditional backup and recovery processes that cant keep pace with virtual server proliferation. Many enterprises have discovered that snapshot technology can speed protection of VMs and application data but have been hampered by non-integrated solutions that require point technologies for management of snapshots, replication, reduplication, and support of tape. Integration of SnapProtect with NetApp Snapshot copies and with APIs from major virtualization and application vendors plays an important role in the ability of SnapProtect to shrink backup windows in virtual server environments. The SnapProtect comprehensive management platform integrates high-speed Snapshot and replication technologies as a single process to protect the datastores containing VMs. The beauty of this approach is that by leveraging NetApp Snapshot copies, SnapProtect uses minimal production resources when backing up VMs and can protect hundreds of VMs in minutes. This speed can translate into a significant advantage in meeting stringent SLAs and improving recovery time objectives (RTOs) in virtual server environments. Recovery point objectives (RPOs) can also be improved through this method because Snapshot copies can be taken multiple times per day, increasing the number of available recovery points. Recovery is further enhanced because accessibility remains the same regardless of where data resides within defined data tiers. No longer required are manual mount and browse or scripting techniques that use timeconsuming configuration files that can take hours of administrative time per host. Recoveries are completed by using a single-pass routine across Snapshot copies, disk, and tape. Indexed recovery points enable cataloging and searching that can assist with and improve e-discovery processes. Business Advantages: A single solution that can protect both physical and virtual server environments, improve backup windows, cut complexity, and lower administrative overhead. Accelerates backup and recovery for complex virtual server infrastructure; hundreds of VMs can be protected in minutes. Multiple recovery points per day provide enhanced recoverability to better meet RTOs and RPOs. Protects even the largest virtual server environments by using Snapshot copies; scales to protect thousands of VMs. Snapshot copies take only seconds to minutes to complete backups and restores. Limited impact on production operations and virtual infrastructure due to the efficiency and speed of NetApp Snapshot technology. Catalog and search function speeds up finding specific data objects, improving e-discovery Accelerated recovery through virtualization and application awareness via integration with APIs.

5 ADVANCED BACKUP AND RECOVERY THROUGH VIRTUALIZATION AND APPLICATION AWARENESS

Objective and Strategy Objective: Meet business objectives faster through shorter backup windows and accelerated recovery. Strategy: Integrate technologies into mainstream backup and recovery processes that respond faster in ever-changing virtual server environments.

NetApp SnapProtect management software integrates with hypervisors as well as major enterprise applications and databases such as Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, and SQL Server, Oracle, SAP, and DB2. One Snapshot copy enables VM, file, database, mailbox, SharePoint document, and Oracle table-level restores. SnapProtect allows off-production server backups while retaining granular levels for restores. This is particularly advantageous in virtual server environments because SnapProtect

Accelerate Backup and Recovery in Virtual Server Environments with NetApp SnapProtect

provides visibility into VM disk format and application-level information without leveraging primary system processor resources. In VMware environments, using our virtual server agent plus Snapshot copies is a high-speed alternative to legacy backup processes. The SnapProtect virtual server agent calls ESX servers to quiesce each of its guests. When guest VMs are consistent, a Snapshot copy is generated. VM guests remain online during this short process, and policy-based settings allow automated discovery and protection of VMs. SnapProtect enables VM backups with granular recovery options. To do this, the appropriate Snapshot copy is mounted to an available ESX server. Once mounted, VMDKs (VMware disks) and guest VM information register with the proxy ESX server and VADP to execute off-host protection and metadata collection of each guest operating system internal to the datastore. Backups can be executed to disk or tape. Flexible recovery options include search and recovery of individual data objects, LUN revert for mass recovery of an entire datastore, and recovery of individual VMDKs from a backup copy or a Snapshot copy. SnapProtect automatically determines the optimal restore-from location based on retention and the point-in-time requested. You can recover your application data in a consistent state with SnapProtect application-aware features that integrate with major enterprise applications and databases. SnapProtect initiates Snapshot copies of application and database together to confirm that all data captured by the Snapshot copy is in a known, consistent state. This generates a point-in-time consistent image of an application running in a VM. For Microsoft applications and databases such as Exchange, SharePoint, and SQL Server, this is accomplished through coordination with the Volume Shadow Services (VSS) subsystem to capture and truncate log files. For Oracle, SnapProtect puts the database in hot backup mode and coordinates with Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN) and Automated Storage Manager (ASM) so that databases are quiesced properly. For restores, SnapProtect gives you a view into the backup so that you can recover just what you need, down to the file and object levels. Business Advantages: Automatically discover and protect new virtual machines based on predefined criteria. Works with applications running in the VMs to quiesce the dataset and make sure that all data is written to disk so no data is lost. Recover application data to a known consistent state with application-aware agents that integrate with major enterprise applications and databases: Exchange, SharePoint, SQL Server, SAP, Oracle, and DB2. Recover at any level of granularity: VM, VMware Disk (VMDK) or Virtual Hard Disk (VHD), or VM guest files. Quickly identify and load requested database tables, documents, or specific data objects that reside in VMs, such as individual e-mails and documents. Achieve granular restores at the file image or incremental level. Recover applications and data from any datastore or storage tier on which they reside. Unlike virtualization-only backup solutions, SnapProtect works equally well in hybrid infrastructure environments.

Accelerate Backup and Recovery in Virtual Server Environments with NetApp SnapProtect

6 UNIFIED MANAGEMENT OF FULL-SCALE BACKUP AND RECOVERY PROCESSES, EXTENSIBLE FOR DISASTER RECOVERY
Objective and Strategy Objective: Improve productivity for backup and recovery management in complex virtual infrastructures. Strategy: Simplified, automated backup and recovery management for virtual infrastructures, applications, data, and locations that can extend to include disaster recovery, all managed from a unified interface.

SnapProtect software unifies management and monitors all backup and recovery operations. Data is indexed into a common virtual pool, available for viewing across virtual and physical infrastructure, applications, locations, and all of your NetApp storage systems. This equips you with a single policy backup solution across a multi-tiered storage architecture. Snapshot copies are no longer managed separately from the legacy backup process. SnapProtect merges these into a full-scale, strategic backup and recovery solution, optimized for virtual server environments, which can be easily extended to include disaster recovery (DR). It offers a common set of tools for recovering applications and data, VMs or entire datastores. Policy-based settings allow simplified, automated data protection, including automatic discovery and protection of VMs. SnapProtect is extensible for long-term retention, business continuity, and compliance. You can replicate Snapshot copies with NetApp SnapVault for high speed, cost-effective remote recovery. You can also manage and configure highly efficient NetApp SnapMirror replication policies for greater protection against data loss while leveraging VMware Site Recovery Manager for automated site failover for reduced downtime. For compliance requirements, SnapProtect software can be used in conjunction with NetApp SnapLock compliance software, our WORM (write once, read many) storage feature. When properly configured, SnapLock enables compliance with SEC 17a-4, Sarbanes- Oxley, HIPAA, and other regulations. SnapLock does not require a separate infrastructure and can be activated on any NetApp system, enabling compliant and noncompliant data to coexist in the same unit. You can audit Snapshot execution as well as backup and recovery success with comprehensive reporting for all applications and data availability throughout their lifecycle. Reports can be sent to mobile devices or to Microsoft System Center. Storage Resource Management (SRM) for virtual infrastructures can obtain file-level analytics without the need for an agent for each VM on any NetApp NAS system. No data collection operation is required because SRM leverages information generated by backup indexes during the SnapProtect backup process. This means that no additional load is placed on the virtual infrastructure to analyze the exact contents of each VM with an eye toward data growth trends and cost metrics. This information can be used to reallocate storage to mission-critical, potentially under-allocated VMs. Business Advantages: Operations are handled from a single interface, reducing the amount of time spent managing processes and allowing faster response to requests. Controls and monitors Snapshot copy creation and movement over time and across tiers, supporting disk-to-disk-to-tape strategies and DR. Policy-based settings, including automatic discovery and protection of VMs, help keep up with fastgrowing virtual server infrastructures and reduce the possibility of human error. Rapid search for specific VMs, files, and images by using catalog and index functions gets this job done faster, so staff can concentrate on strategic initiatives. Comprehensive auditing of Snapshot copies and reporting on the status of backup jobs, including when and by whom backups are accessed, drives accountability and accuracy into backup processes.

Accelerate Backup and Recovery in Virtual Server Environments with NetApp SnapProtect

Consolidated reporting across virtual server environments, including all applications and data availability throughout their lifecycle, helps eliminate unprotected and orphaned VMs so you can rest assured that your data is protected and that you can potentially reclaim storage and compute resources. Manage long-term retention of weeks or months of backups by using NetApp SnapVault replication software, and improve your ability to restore what users need and improve the reach of e-discovery applications.

Figure 2) SnapProtect in a virtual server environment

7 LOWER COSTS WITH BUILT-IN EFFICIENCIES

Objective and Strategy Objective: Effectively control opex and capex across backup and recovery processes. Strategy: Leverage NetApps extensive suite of efficiency technologies.

NetApp storage efficiencies enable you to back up the maximum amount of data in the smallest possible space, at the lowest possible cost. NetApp Snapshot technology, introduced in 1992, was the first widely
10 Accelerate Backup and Recovery in Virtual Server Environments with NetApp SnapProtect

used storage efficiency feature available on disk-based open systems enterprise storage arrays. 3 Today we offer an extensive suite of virtualized tools that enable IT staff to efficiently and cost effectively back up, securely share, provision, clone, and replicate NetApp storage and reduce overall volume requirements by eliminating redundant data blocks. The storage supporting your virtual server infrastructure naturally accumulates duplicate data over time, increasing costs and management overhead. Data ONTAP deduplication can be used on all NetApp storage devices to reduce cost and capacity requirements by as much as 90%. To further improve storage utilization, NetApp thin provisioning helps keep costs in check by largely eliminating the need to preallocate storage based on forecasted demand, saving you the expense of acquiring unnecessary disks. To complement the efficiencies inherent in your virtual server environment, you can share a common storage infrastructure securely across applications, business units, or departments as a way to drive down costs. Secure multi-tenancy using NetApp MultiStore software is designed so that no information on a secured virtual partition can be viewed, used, or downloaded by unauthorized users. You can logically partition physical NetApp storage into multiple virtual storage arrays and divide up your storage resources securely by SLA, application workload, protection tier, and more. Thin replication, using NetApp SnapMirror software, replicates volumes or qtrees from source to destination, transferring only unique changed blocks in 4KB increments. SnapMirror can reduce bandwidth requirements for replication by up to 70% with native network compression. Business Advantages: NetApp Integrated Data Protection delivers enterprise-level backup, disaster recovery, high availability, and compliance with a 42% risk-adjusted ROI 4 over 3 years. Minimize capacity requirements for backup by as much as 90% and reduce traffic over busy networks by using NetApp FAS and V-Series systems. Reduce backup sizes by using Snapshot copies that store only new or changed blocks. Significantly minimize network usage with thin replication. Divide up storage resources securely in virtual infrastructures and move data quickly and easily with secure multi-tenancy. Consolidate and use less storage by leveraging NetApp deduplication and thin provisioning. Use NetApp RAID-DP technology in combination with high-density disks for better protection at lower cost. Storage efficiencies apply to primary and secondary tiers for backup, disaster recovery, and compliance.

8 NETAPP SNAPPROTECT SOFTWARE USE CASES

AUTODISCOVER AND PROTECT VMs
In VMware environments, VMs are added or moved frequently, making it difficult to determine whether newly created or moved VMs are protected. You can reduce the administrative overhead required to configure backup jobs in virtual server environments by allowing SnapProtect to automatically discover

3 4

"The NetApp Storage Efficiency Guide," NetApp white paper. Larry Freeman, November 2010. ROI based on a composite organization. The Total Economic Impact on NetApp Integrated Data Protection, a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of NetApp, December 2010.
Accelerate Backup and Recovery in Virtual Server Environments with NetApp SnapProtect

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and add VMs to default protection policies. This saves time and provides immediate protection, removing the need to manually deploy and configure protection policies for each new or moved VM. A number of discovery rules are available, including manual discovery override if needed. You can use protection policies to customize SLAs to automatically optimize your virtual server resources, including adding new VMs to backup policies based on predefined rules. SnapProtect offers several options for automatically discovering virtual machines. You can browse all VMs and their policies and check for VMs added since your last Snapshot copy. Or you can add all new or moved VMs or a select group of VMs that satisfy particular criteria to the backup job. There is even a catch-all policy that protects VMs that dont qualify for any predefined policy. For example, using a discovery rule of Datastore Affinity automatically protects new virtual machines on specific datastores. The following simple steps in the SnapProtect console are all thats required to automatically protect VMs with the Datastore Affinity policy. So that new VMs are automatically added to the subclient, configure datastore affinity in the backup set. Right-click to access the backup set and select Properties.

Enable rule-based discovery and select DataStore Affinity. Click the Configure button.

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Accelerate Backup and Recovery in Virtual Server Environments with NetApp SnapProtect

Use the Discover Data Stores button to assign the datastore to the subclient. Newly created or moved VMs are automatically discovered and protected by the policy associated with the selected subclient.

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Accelerate Backup and Recovery in Virtual Server Environments with NetApp SnapProtect

DISASTER RECOVERY IN A VMWARE ENVIRONMENT

NetApp SnapProtect extends to protect VMware virtual infrastructures against a regional disaster by using SnapMirror replication technology. SnapMirror replicates data over LAN or WAN to a remote site, providing high data availability and fast disaster recovery for mission-critical applications running on either virtual or physical servers. SnapMirror supports synchronous replication, assuring zero data loss; semisynchronous replication that supports RPOs in seconds with minimal impact on the host application; and asynchronous replication that can meet RPOs ranging from a minute to a day. The most comprehensive disaster recovery plan includes a secondary or tertiary site* at a remote location that is geographically different from the primary and secondary sites. The DR site looks similar to a single, independent data center, equipped with high-availability features. Figure 3 shows a sample DR configuration in a VMware environment. SnapProtect provides point-in-time local Snapshot copies of the datastores and manages SnapMirror policies to replicate the datastores from the (primary) protected site to the (DR) recovery site. With data replicated to a DR site, it's important to resume operations as soon as possible following a disaster. VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM) recovers the protected inventory of VMs at the DR site, accessing the data replica at the DR site, to bring up the failed VMs, reinstating the mission-critical applications. The DR environment is now ready to provide the same services as the primary site. By using SnapMirror to mirror data to one or more NetApp storage systems, you can use the mirrored data wherever and whenever you need it. A strategic and cost-saving option is to host a variety of VMs running applications at the DR site to make productive use of otherwise idle DR assets by using NetApp FlexClone technology. With FlexClone, you can extend the value of your DR site by cloning your DR data, instantly creating replicas of data volumes and datasets without requiring additional storage space at the time of creation. SnapProtect generates FlexClone clones for NAS systems and LUN clones for SAN systems. Both types of clones are based on a Snapshot copy and use no additional storage. The difference is that a LUN clone is generated within a volume and is based on a particular LUN, whereas a FlexClone clone is based on an entire volume. For LUN clones only, the best practice is to copy clones to a new volume at the DR site to prevent subsequent Snapshot copies on primary systems from becoming locked. FlexClone clones and LUN clones can be used for essential enterprise operations such as: Development and testing Training and reporting Off-site tape archiving (replicate to remote site and then back up to tape) Online data migration

*If you are running a high-availability cluster, such as NetApp MetroCluster software, mirrored to a cross-campus or other local but separate site, this use case considers that as your secondary site.
Figure 3) Disaster recovery in a VMware environment with cloning for additional business activities

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Accelerate Backup and Recovery in Virtual Server Environments with NetApp SnapProtect

9 CONCLUSION
The NetApp SnapProtect unified backup and recovery platform lowers costs while minimizing risk in dynamic virtual server environments. SnapProtect leverages the best capabilities of new and existing backup technologies to improve service levels, reduce downtime, and minimize risk of data loss. With SnapProtect management software, you can protect hundreds of virtual servers with minimal impact on production operations and scale to handle even the largest, most demanding virtual server environments. Application-aware backups and object-level restores in densely consolidated virtual infrastructures deliver better response times. Combined with full-scale backup and recovery from a single interface, this ability saves time and simplifies protection of your virtual data assets. Extensible for long-term retention, compliance, and business continuity, SnapProtect is part of the NetApp Integrated Data Protection family that delivers enterprise-level backup and recovery, disaster recovery, high availability, and compliance with a 42% risk-adjusted ROI 5 over 3 years.

ROI based on a composite organization. The Total Economic Impact on NetApp Integrated Data Protection, a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of NetApp, December 2010.
15 Accelerate Backup and Recovery in Virtual Server Environments with NetApp SnapProtect

NetApp provides no representations or warranties regarding the accuracy, reliability or serviceability of any information or recommendations provided in this publication, or with respect to any results that may be obtained by the use of the information or observance of any recommendations provided herein. The information in this document is distributed AS IS, and the use of this information or the implementation of any recommendations or techniques herein is a customers responsibility and depends on the customers ability to evaluate and integrate them into the customers operational environment. This document and the information contained herein may be used solely in connection with the NetApp products discussed in this document.

2011 NetApp, Inc. All rights reserved. No portions of this document may be reproduced without prior written consent of NetApp, Inc. Specifications are subject to change without notice. NetApp, the NetApp logo, Go further, faster, Data ONTAP, FlexClone, MetroCluster, MultiStore, RAID-DP, SnapLock, SnapMirror, SnapProtect, Snapshot, and SnapVault are trademarks or registered trademarks of NetApp, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Microsoft, SharePoint, and SQL Server are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation. SAP is a registered trademark of SAP AG. VMware is a registered trademark and vCenter is a trademark of VMware, Inc. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. WP-7131-0511

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Accelerate Backup and Recovery in Virtual Server Environments with NetApp SnapProtect