EMC Avamar: Improving Data Protection for Vmware vSphere ...

White Paper Improving Backup and Recovery for VMware vSphere Environments By Mark Bowker, Senior Analyst and Jason Buffington, Senior Analyst

February 2012

This ESG White Paper was commissioned by EMC and is distributed under license from ESG. © 2012, Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

White Paper: Improving Backup and Recovery for VMware vSphere Environments

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Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 3 Server Virtualization ..................................................................................................................................... 3 Impact on Backup and Recovery .............................................................................................................................. 5 Virtualization Acceleration ....................................................................................................................................... 7

EMC Avamar Efficiently Addresses VMware vSphere Data Protection Needs ............................................ 8 The Bigger Truth ........................................................................................................................................... 9

All trademark names are property of their respective companies. Information contained in this publication has been obtained by sources The Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) considers to be reliable but is not warranted by ESG. This publication may contain opinions of ESG, which are subject to change from time to time. This publication is copyrighted by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. Any reproduction or redistribution of this publication, in whole or in part, whether in hard-copy format, electronically, or otherwise to persons not authorized to receive it, without the express consent of the Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc., is in violation of U.S. copyright law and will be subject to an action for civil damages and, if applicable, criminal prosecution. Should you have any questions, please contact ESG Client Relations at (508) 482-0188.

© 2012, Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.


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Introduction This paper details the trends in server virtualization and examines challenges presented when protecting VMware vSphere environments. More importantly, it addresses the potential for backup improvements when compared to physical environments by offering insight into how EMC and its integration with vSphere technology provide more efficient data protection.

Server Virtualization Server virtualization enables multiple virtual machines to run on a single physical server and share numerous computing resources, eliminating the economic and operational issues often introduced by infrastructure “silos.” Deploying a dedicated physical infrastructure for an application isolates it from outside impact—it also results in lower resource utilization, the need for high availability safeguards, workload spikes, and inflexibility. Server virtualization addresses the issues of siloed infrastructure by improving hardware utilization, consolidating physical servers (which helps to lower operating costs through optimized power, cooling, and space consumption), increasing operational agility, and facilitating higher availability. Due to the many benefits it provides, server virtualization continues to be the new standard for servers; the question is no longer about if IT environments will adopt server virtualization, but when, how quickly, and in what order. ESG research found that 79% of research respondents are currently using server virtualization and another 19% have plans to (see Figure 1). 1 Those using server virtualization—even with only a fraction of their total production servers—have plans to expand. This entails driving consolidation ratios higher and deploying more applications in virtual machines. Figure 1. Server Virtualization Use and Interest Is your organization currently using server virtualization technology, in which multiple virtual machines can be run on a single physical server? (Percent of respondents) We have not yet deployed server virtualization technology and we have no current plans to, 1% We have not yet deployed server virtualization technology but we plan to, 19% Yes, we are using server virtualization technology, 79%

Source: Enterprise Strategy Group, 2012.

1

Source: ESG Research Report, 2012 IT Spending Intentions Survey, January 2012.



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ESG research shows that the two most commonly-cited IT priorities in 2012 are improving backup and recovery and increasing the use of server virtualization, each identified by nearly one-third of respondent organizations (see Figure 2). 2 Figure 2. Top Ten Most Important IT Priorities for 2012 Which of the following would you consider to be your organization's most important IT priorities over the next 12-18 months? (Percent of respondents, N=614, ten responses accepted) Improve data backup and recovery

30%

Increased use of server virtualization

30%

Major application deployments or upgrades

29%

Manage data growth

27%

Information security initiatives

27%

Business continuity/disaster recovery programs

25%

Data center consolidation

24%

Desktop virtualization

23%

Mobile workforce enablement

22%

Deploying a "private cloud" infrastructure

22% 0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%


As server virtualization adoption continues, the challenges presented when protecting and recovering data and platforms in a virtualized infrastructure become even more visible, and the difficulties exacerbated. As new virtual machines are routinely brought online, one challenge becomes discovering them and ensuring that new computing instance is protected -- either as a whole or at least the data that is now being created by the VM. Along with the raised complexity of protection virtualized environments, another byproduct of server virtualization is often a net growth in total storage volume due to proliferation and redundancy. While virtualization enables the easy creation of new virtual machines for any number of purposes, each of of those new machines will require storage for their operating systems and their core applications, as well as its unique configuration information and data.

2

Ibid.



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As shown in Figure 3, ESG found the average amount of storage capacity required to support virtual server environments has grown significantly over the last four years. 3 Figure 3. The Impact of Server Virtualization on Overall Volume of Storage Capacity Approximately how much total storage capacity is currently used to support your virtual server environment (including storage of virtual machine images, applications, and associated data)? (Estimated average) 200

177

180 160

Terabytes

140 120 100 80 60 40

15

20 0

2007 storage capacity

2011 storage capacity Source: Enterprise Strategy Group, 2012.

It should be noted that while Figure 3 shows the increased storage consumption for virtual environments, it does not include the additional increased storage required to back it up. Disk-based protection typically requires some baseline copy of the data (or virtual machines in this case) and incremental changes throughout its retention window – often resulting in at least 2X the production storage being required within the backup solution, unless some form of deduplication can be leveraged.

Impact on Backup and Recovery Organizations deploying server virtualization often struggle with the backup challenges resulting from the transition from a physical to a virtual environment (see Figure 4). The aforementioned increase in the volume of data could result in more time required for backup processes—often stressing already-stressed backup windows. While it does create challenges, server virtualization also creates opportunities to improve backup and recovery methodologies. Encapsulating the virtual machine workload into a single file containing the operating system, applications, and data enables mobility and removes hardware dependencies. The ability to capture the virtual machine system state enables bare-metal-like recovery.

3

Source: ESG Research, Virtualization’s Impact on Storage Survey, April 2011.



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Figure 4. Difficulty Backing Up Virtual Servers Relative to All Data Protection Challenges Relative to all of your organization’s data protection challenges, how would you rate implementing backup and recovery processes for virtual servers? (Percent of respondents, N=183)

Don’t know, 1%

Our most significant data protection challenge, 9%

Not a top data protection challenge, 13%

One of our top 10 data protection challenges, 27%

One of our top 5 data protection challenges, 51% Source: Enterprise Strategy Group, 2012.

Figure 4 reveals that 60% of ESG survey respondents believe that protecting virtual machines is a top 5 priority, while only 13% don’t believe it is a challenge. This realization is particularly interesting when considering that other ESG research revealed that the top two IT Priorities for 2012 are 1) improving backup and 2) increasing the use of virtualization. Along with the challenges of doing the backups themselves, there are implications for sharing physical resources as well: individual physical servers often have low resource utilization, but plenty of bandwidth for backup. The new paradigm of consolidating multiple virtual servers on fewer physical hosts, on the other hand, results in higher resource utilization with less spare bandwidth for backup. Simultaneous resource-intensive processes occurring on one physical virtualization host could cause resource contention—potentially impacting the pool of application workloads sharing common resources and causing performance issues (see Figure 5). 4

4

Source: ESG Research Report, 2011 IT Spending Intentions Survey, January 2011.



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Figure 5. Top 2011 Server Virtualization Initiatives Which of the following would you consider to be your organization’s top server virtualization initiatives for 2011? (Percent of respondents, N=161, five responses accepted) Consolidate more physical servers onto virtualization platforms Expand number of applications running on virtual machines Make use of virtual machine replication for disaster recovery

50% 47% 43%

Improve backup and recovery of virtual machines

34%

Increase security of virtual server environment

31%

Improve tools and processes for managing virtual environments Increase consolidation ratios (i.e., number of virtual machines per physical server) Implement virtual machine mobility / HA (high availability) functionality Move more applications from test/development to production environment Purchase next-generation physical server infrastructure to support virtual machines

23% 22% 20% 19% 16%

Evaluate alternative hypervisor solutions/vendors

7% 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%


Virtualization Acceleration There tend to be inflection points in the virtualization adoption curve where the number of virtual machines in use jumps from tens to hundreds, and then to thousands. In a virtualization deployment, backup and recovery can be the limiting factors: with ten VMs, things look manageable and most organizations can get by with existing tools and processes. But approach 100 and then 1,000 VMs: backup and recovery becomes more daunting. Very large virtualization deployments of thousands of VMs are becoming more prevalent. Fueled by the industry push toward IT as a service models and promises of agile IT services at lower costs such as “private cloud” initiatives, more and more organizations will find themselves facing these inflection points. The question is, will they consider the challenges and plan accordingly up front or wait until backups for hundreds of virtual machines running business applications are exceeding backup windows?



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EMC Avamar Efficiently Addresses VMware vSphere Data Protection Needs EMC Avamar is a deduplication backup software and system that delivers fast, daily full backups for VMware environments. Unlike traditional backup methods, Avamar eliminates redundant data segments at the client (source) before data is transferred across the network and stored to disk. Traditional backup solutions are inefficient because they back up too much. Daily incremental and weekly full backup schedules retain duplicate data in staggering quantities. This is especially problematic for virtual environments as each virtual machine represents an individual backup job and includes redundant operating system, application, and file data. As a result, backup processing for virtual machines can often overrun backup windows and tax shared resources, leaving data unprotected and creating management issues for backup administrators. Unlike traditional solutions, Avamar provides daily full backups that can be quickly recovered in just one step, eliminating the hassle of restoring full and subsequent incremental backups to reach a desired recovery point. In vSphere environments, Avamar provides both guest- and image-level backup approaches to best meet the requirements for particular backup workloads. In the case of VMware guest backup, Avamar can be configured for file- or application-level protection. Deduplication within the virtual machine moves minimal backup data, speeds backup, and reduces resource contention. This involves installing Avamar agents in virtual machines; operating system-specific backup agents for Windows, Linux, or Solaris; or application-specific backup agents for applicationlevel, transaction-consistent backup of SQL, Oracle, Exchange, SharePoint, DB2, or Lotus Domino. Server consolidation drives higher utilization of server hardware, leaving very little headroom for IO-intensive backup processes. VMware backups with Avamar deduplication require less server resources for shorter durations, removing bottleneck and freeing up those resources to run more virtual machines. A higher ratio of virtual machines per server results in greater server consolidation, lower costs, and a better return on investment. To deliver virtual machine image-level backup, Avamar leverages the vStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP). Avamar uses a virtual proxy server, where an Avamar agent resides. The efficiency twist is that Avamar automatically assigns virtual machine backup jobs to available proxy servers using a “round robin” protocol. Backups are distributed evenly across available virtual proxy servers, creating more efficient use of available resources. Jobs can be directed to available proxies to handle high-priority workloads. This approach drives down costs by having fewer proxies to manage. Avamar deduplication creates greater efficiency, eliminating concerns with virtual proxy server sprawl. It is also important to note that Avamar deduplicates across all virtual machines in the environment. Avamar’s architecture was designed to reconcile daily changed block backups into full instances for recovery, differentiating it from most backup applications that require a periodic full backup. This functionality enables Avamar to process the changed blocks identified by vSphere CBT into a new full image on an ongoing basis. Recovery is faster and more reliable because Avamar always maintains an up-to-date full image. Second, taking advantage of vSphere CBT can greatly reduce backup processing time. Unique to Avamar is its ability to leverage CBT for recovery. While traditional restore of a VM requires the recovery of an entire VMDK file, Avamar can determine the blocks that changed from the backup image being recovered to the current state and only transfers those blocks required back to restore the VM. This is shown to be 30 times faster than traditional restores. Avamar image-level backups leverage an architecture which includes a native metadata index for each backup instance. Unlike other backup products which must create a metadata index during or after the backup is complete, Avamar’s native index provides end-users with a granular view of image backup content, which can be used to perform file-level recovery without first requiring the image backup to be mounted. In addition, files can be restored to their original location or to an alternative location in a single step. Rounding out Avamar’s integration with vSphere is its monitoring and management capabilities of VMware vCenter. This integration allows IT organizations to monitor backup and recovery operations in the Activity Monitor



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and view virtual machine protection policies (“guest,” “image,” and “none”) as well as the date and time of the most recent backup. This makes it very easy for operators to identify newly-created VMs that may not be adequately protected. From vCenter, virtual machines may be added and backup policies defined for them.

The Bigger Truth As server virtualization deployments expand in breadth and depth, IT organizations experience firsthand many of the inefficiencies of deploying data protection in the manner applied to physical server environments. The challenges for data protection—such as an increase in the volume of data to protect, difficulty meeting backup windows, backup processes in virtual machines disrupting normal processing of virtual machines sharing the same physical resources, increases in secondary storage capacity requirements, and higher costs—make VMware environments ripe for improvement. VMware vSphere addresses many of these challenges. Data is captured, transferred, and stored more efficiently by backup applications that take advantage of vSphere enhancements. EMC Avamar adds another dimension of efficiency by not only leveraging vSphere functions and features, but by also taking innovative approaches to economize and streamline backup and recovery processes.


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