Backup Disaster Recovery
The most common type of backup in a virtual environment involves installing software that creates snapshots or data copies for each virtual machine (VM). The data is compressed, encrypted, and redundant data removed (deduplication) at the source (the VM) or at the target before it goes into storage to disk, tape or online.
Backup Appliances
Backup appliances can be either physical or virtual, or a combination. Some of the better known vendors include:
- Amanda Backup Appliance (ZBA): This pre-figured virtual machine for network backup runs on the VMWare ESX server and works with Zmanda backup agents. It requires Amanda Enterprise Edition software.
- Arkeia Backup Appliance is for small business use. Comes with Arkeia Network backup software and integrated RAID, and supports cloud replication. An optional tape drive can be purchased.
- Barracuda Backup is an enterprise solution. Offers both onsite and cloud storage offsite; interface is via an online console. Includes monitoring, email alerts and data management offsite. Licenses are based on number of machines, with various backup options (site to site, one to many, and site to one). Data encryption is compliant with health and financial industry regulations.
- Symantec NetBackup Appliances: These appliances offer source and target deduplication, inline dedup; and both disk-to-disk replication (built in) and tape writing support. Netbackup includes monitoring and a call home feature. Scalable from small business (32 TB storage) to large enterprise use (192 TB). Works with IBM, Informix, Lotus, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Sybase and Symantec applications.
Backup Software
Hardware and software can be leased, or in some cases, purchased. Below is a list of the most common types of backup solutions used today:
- Acronis True Image Echo Enterprise Server supports Windows and Linux. Installs on client computers and allows bare metal, full system and individual file restores.
- Barracuda Yosemite Server Backup supports Windows, Linux and agents for Microsoft. Bare metal restores to disk, CD/DVD, tape, and robotic libraries. Calendar for auto-scheduling, and alerts for backup completion and errors.
