Q: NetApp recently announced that it is extending the benefits of disk-to-disk backup to multi-vendor storage environments. Could you tell us a little more about what this means?

NetApp was one of the first storage vendors to offer disk-to-disk (D2D) backup solutions and is currently a leader in the D2D backup space. Over 1,000 NetApp customers have adopted our disk-to-disk backup offerings to support NetApp storage environments and/or centralize backup for local storage at remote offices.

However, today only 8% to 9% of the world's data sits on NetApp storage. Given our confidence in NetApp capabilities and solutions and the fact that backup is a high-priority pain point, we think it is a natural next step to extend the power of our solutions to all storage environments.

Launching the NetApp NearStore® VTL solution and expanding our relationship with Symantec has enabled us to round out our portfolio and extend disk-to-disk backup technology to any type of environment. Now, we can not only help customers improve backup and recovery in NetApp and remote office storage environments, but also help them implement effective solutions for protecting data sitting on EMC, Hitachi, HP, IBM, or any other storage platform.

Q: Why should companies, especially those not currently using NetApp storage, look to NetApp to help them improve backup and recovery?

There are three reasons you should seriously consider NetApp disk-to-disk backup solutions:

• First, NetApp offers the most comprehensive disk-to-disk backup solutions portfolio in the industry. Most other storage vendors have either been slow to embrace D2D backup or have embraced it with limited point solutions. NetApp provides a range of options using a common hardware platform. This gives you the ability to redeploy existing NetApp equipment with new software as your backup and recovery challenges change over time.
  
  
• In addition, NetApp enables you to enjoy the benefits of disk-to-disk backup without major infrastructure changes. If you use NetApp storage today, we have excellent solutions to help you back up and protect your data. If you're not using NetApp storage, you can take advantage of technologies like NearStore VTL and Open Systems SnapVault® to complement your existing environment. NetApp also enables you to leverage familiar management tools from industry-leading backup vendors including Symantec, Tivoli, CommVault, Syncsort, and Bakbone.
  
  
• Finally, disk-to-disk backup is a strategic priority and major area of technology development investment for NetApp. Most of our competitors are very tactical in their approach to D2D. The EMC CLARiiON Disk Library (CDL), for example, is an OEM solution from a third party. It's not owned by EMC, and it doesn't get EMC engineering mindshare. Not only does NetApp have the most innovative data protection and retention solutions in the marketplace; we're also committed to maintaining our leadership position going forward.

Q: The "most innovative data protection and retention solutions in the marketplace" sounds great, but what does that mean?

The biggest pain point for most customers is that as their data repositories have grown, they are over-running their backup windows, and can no longer back up all the data that they need to, in the increasingly 24x7 environments. For data stored on NetApp storage, we help customers eliminate backup windows by frequently transferring only the changed data to their D2D backup device.

The goal of doing backups is to be able to restore user data when needed. In the NetApp approach, by storing backup copies in native file formats, restores are near instantaneous.

Q: Could you provide a few specific examples?

Let's start with remote backups. Most companies have some type of established process for backing up data in their data centers. It may not be perfect, but for the most part it works. Outside the data center, however, the situation is often very different. Remote offices have an increasing amount of business-critical data, but most customers still rely on tape backup and have limited or even nonexistent IT resources at the remote office.

In 2003, NetApp launched an open systems version of SnapVault that enables you to back up data from local storage to a centralized location. What makes this solution unique is that we leverage NetApp Snapshot™ technology to create an incremental copy of only the data that has changed from the last copy and can very quickly send this data copy across extremely limited bandwidth connections. We have customers with oil rigs so remote they have to communicate via low-bandwidth satellite connections. These customers depend on Open Systems SnapVault to send backups to their main data center.

Some backup software vendors are beginning to focus on this space, but they cannot bring the same level of combined network and media efficiency that NetApp delivers.

Do you realize that no other VTL solution on the market can effectively use the compression available on a tape drive and still fully utilize a physical tape?

Another area of innovation involves the newly announced NearStore VTL solution. Do you realize that no other VTL solution on the market can effectively use the compression available on a tape drive and still fully utilize a physical tape?

NearStore VTL uses something we call tape smart sizing to take into account tape drive compression when sizing a virtual tape. The NearStore VTL samples data for compressibility as it is backed up to the VTL and adjusts the size of each virtual tape to deliver optimal utilization of the corresponding physical tape. The result is a two-to-one savings relative to other VTL solutions in the number of physical tapes that must be purchased and managed.

We also offer self-tuning performance to automatically balance backup streams across all the available disks in the VTL, which maximizes throughput and eliminates the need for ongoing manual tuning.

Q: Where does NearStore VTL fit into the NetApp D2D product offering?

We are continuing to build a solution portfolio that meets the requirements of any customer in any environment. We recognize, for example, that many companies want to take advantage of D2D, but do not want to disrupt their operating environment in any way, shape, or form. The best solution if you're in this position is to start with a VTL implementation.

NearStore VTL enables customers to immediately benefit from D2D technology without requiring changes to existing software, process, or infrastructure. In addition, NearStore VTL is part of a broader solutions portfolio and runs on exactly the same hardware platforms as all of our other disk-to-disk backup solutions. This means that if your requirements change over time, you can simply install new software and repurpose the original hardware for other types of NetApp solutions. This type of investment protection simply isn't an option with an OEM VTL solution.

Q: How does integration with NetBackup fit into the NetApp D2D portfolio?

This integration is the result of roughly 18 to 20 months of joint engineering development between NetApp and Symantec. We now offer a joint solution that lets customers get all the benefits of our SnapVault technologies combined with the benefits of Symantec NetBackup management for both NetApp storage and storage from other companies. Customers will see significant media savings achieved through data deduplication and will be able to access backup copies in native file format, so end users can actually restore their own files. And they won't have to deal with any operational disruption in their environment—it will continue to work exactly as it does today.

NetApp also has very strong working relationships with other major backup software vendors such as Syncsort, CommVault, Tivoli, CA, and BakBone.

Q: What are some other topics that are top of mind for your organization?

You'll be hearing a lot from NetApp in the next few months about security, search, and services.

There is a big requirement for encryption, whether it's done as the backup data is being created or as it's offloaded onto a tape. Our acquisition of Decru enables us to combine Decru® encryption technology with our VTL and other disk-to-disk backup solutions.

NetApp Disk-to-Disk Backup and Recovery Solutions

One key benefit of the new NetApp Information Server 1200 technology is the ability to search and index content within files of unstructured data across an enterprise. These capabilities are helpful, of course, for assessing and classifying data for rapid retrieval of backed up and archived data and for data migration projects.

Finally, NetApp Global Services can help you implement and tune our backup solutions to meet your recovery point objectives (RPOs) and recovery time objectives (RTOs). This is a set of offerings that we have developed and refined over the years. We've codified a lot of the best practices in implementation and installation so that they can be systematically applied to any new infrastructure deployment. We can consistently apply the same best practices over and over again, as opposed to having customers have to discover them on their own with each new implementation.

Q: You mentioned earlier that disk-to-disk backup is a major area of investment for NetApp. How is this impacting NetApp's product development strategy?

On the media side, our focus is on driving down costs. Disk-to-disk solutions are already more economical than tape backup, even though the media costs are higher. This is because the amount of data you need to store using disk-to-disk backup and NetApp Snapshot technology is significantly lower relative to tape environments. Each time you create a backup copy you're only storing the changed blocks, as opposed to having to make another copy of the entire data set every single time.

Still, tape is a very cheap medium. For disks to truly become the dominant media, disk pricing will have to be at par with or better than tape-based systems. This means NetApp Engineering is continuing to focus on things such as compression technologies, eliminating duplication, and media savings.

On the backup capabilities side, the goal is to be able to do backups in such a way that backup windows are eliminated, allowing customers to operate their online environments in a 24x7 mode. Intrusive backups are a very 20th-century infrastructure paradigm that will not scale into the 21st century.

NetApp technology development is focused on getting around the requirements of having backup windows and being able to provide seamless restores for our all environments. You can expect to see increased application integration and increased integration in the environments where customers want to use disk-to-disk backup.

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Over the next several months, key engineers will discuss various disk-to-disk backup technologies in depth.

Next month, look for an article from Darrin Chapman, data protection subject matter expert and the author of multiple NetApp best practices guides. Darrin will discuss best practices for remote office backup and recovery in the context of a major European customer's infrastructure.

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