-
Technical white paper
HP 3PAR Recovery Manager Software for Microsoft SQL Server and
Microsoft Exchange Simple and efficient snapshot management
Table of contents
Overview 3
Traditional backup and recovery challenges 3 Hot backup
limitations 3 Tape-based backup and infrastructure bloat 4
Impossible recovery-time objectives 4 Capacity sprawl 4 Lack of
integration 4 ESE Streaming Backup API no longer supported with
Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 4 Exchange Server 2010 data
availability groups 5
The solution: HP 3PAR Recovery Manager Software for SQL Server
and HP 3PAR Recovery Manager Software for Exchange 5
HP 3PAR Recovery Manager Software for Microsoft SQL Server 5 HP
3PAR Recovery Manager Software for Exchange 6
HP 3PAR Recovery Manager Software Architecture 6
HP 3PAR Recovery Manager Software benefits 11 No more backup
window 11 Maintaining multiple recovery points 11 Improved hot
backup 11 Low-impact topology 12 Flexible RPO and RTO 12 Thin
snapshot technology reduces sprawl 12 Storage tiering for snapshots
12 Application awareness 12 Backup integration via NetBackup,
BackupExec, and HP Data Protector 13
HP 3PAR Recovery Manager Software benefits summary 13
Appendix A: Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service 14
-
Appendix B: HP 3PAR Virtual Copy Software snapshots 15
HP 3PAR Virtual Copy Software benefits summary 16
Appendix C: recovery and restoration options 17 Quick RTO via
snapshot mount 17 Standard recovery 17 Acronyms 17
-
3
Overview A common challenge across IT organizations is the
backup and recovery of always-on databases, applications, and data
sources (file systems). These Relational Database Management
Systems (RDBMS) and collaboration systems (including messaging and
communication tools) must be available 24x7, so they cannot be
taken offline for backup. Microsoft, recognizing these challenges,
has provided the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) framework as an
enabler to create and maintain consistent point-in-time copies of
data. Microsoft VSS addresses the need to freeze the data at a
single, recoverable point in time. From these point-in-time
snapshots, customers can nondisruptively backup and restore data
and applications after a failure, corruption, or deletion.
Recoveries can be made from tape or from disk-based snapshots
themselves.
HP 3PAR Recovery Manager Software for SQL Server and HP 3PAR
Recovery Manager for Exchange have been specifically designed to
integrate with Microsoft VSS to provide a simple, efficient, and
highly scalable solution for backup and recovery of Microsoft SQL
Server and Microsoft Exchange environments. HP 3PAR Recovery
Manager Software enables point-and-click or Command Line Interface
(CLI) management of HP 3PAR Virtual Copy Software and its
snapshots. Virtual Copy is a high-performance, non-duplicative,
reservationless, copy-on-write snapshot technology that runs on HP
3PAR StoreServ Storage as part of the HP 3PAR Operating System
Software.
With its application awareness, HP 3PAR Recovery Manager
Software is able to discover individual databases connected to SQL
and Exchange Servers and map them to Virtual Copy snapshots. This
functionality simplifies the backup and restoration of these
popular platforms, and does so with capacity-efficient,
non-duplicative Virtual Copy snapshot technology.
Traditional backup and recovery challenges In the past, backup
was considered a race to daylight, with the backup window
representing the time period between the last nightly batch files
and daylightthe point at which employees would return to work and
systems needed to be online. As the need for nightly processing
increased in response to greater interaction between departments as
well as the rise of businesses-to-business (B2B) and
business-to-consumer (B2C) commerce modelsand as enterprises grew
to international scalethe backup window all but disappeared. Today,
there is often no available window for downtime, as data processing
never rests in modern enterprise.
Hot backup limitations To capture a consistent and recoverable
backup of a database or email system that is constantly changing,
software vendors have had to enable methods to freeze the database
in a consistent state, enabling backup applications to capture the
state of the data at that point in time. These hot backup
capabilitiesso called because the application remains hot (or
available) while the point-in-time data image is captured for
backupenable backup windows to be created during the course of
regular operations. The term hot backup mode describes the same
state as a database frozen for backup, and both describe the
concept of quiescing the database files for backup while allowing
uninterrupted access by end users.
However, one limitation of hot backup is that, during the
backup, the application is placed into a backup mode and is
encumbered by additional processing that occurs as the database
redirects data updates to a temporary holding area (or logging
space). Therefore, if the tape backup takes three hours, the
application performance is reduced for that three-hour period.
Furthermore, there is a limit on how many backups can be made in a
day, as these hot-backup periods are run serially. In the example
stated, with a three-hour tape backup, there could be no more than
eight distinct points in time captured during a given 24-hour
period.
-
4
Tape-based backup and infrastructure bloat Traditionally, each
Microsoft SQL Server or Exchange Server host has required
individual backup management. Backup application clients needed to
be loaded on every production host, along with the appropriate
licensing, and had to be capable of being updated individually as
the vendor issued patches.
This traditional host-based tape backup typically required
significant CPU and storage area network (SAN) or local area
network (LAN) utilization at the client, which negatively affected
production service levels. Many organizations have gone as far as
to install additional costly Fibre Channel fabrics as well as
additional Fibre Channel host bus adapters (HBAs) in each host in
order to offload backup to an additional backup SAN infrastructure.
Where backups are done over TCP/IP to a media server, organizations
have often added additional Gigabit Ethernet networks to offload
the traffic from the production LAN interfaces.
Impossible recovery-time objectives The demands of the
application often impose an impossible Recovery Time Objective
(RTO) on the backup technology. While a backup protects your data,
the protection provides limited benefit if your business is
impacted severely by a lengthy return to operations. Restoring all
or part of a backup is only valuable if you can meet your RTO.
Capacity sprawl Todays tape drives are faster than the prior
generations of tape technology. However, because tape is a
streaming media that needs to be rewound and managed, a limited
number of tape drives within even the largest tape libraries exist
on the market today. As a result, relative to other technologies,
tape represents a backup bottleneck in most data centers. Tapes
need to be managed, accounted for, and queued into an available
drive mechanism on demand. While tape remains invaluable for
long-term archival of dataparticularly due to its low energy
requirements when compared to disk-based backupit is still less
than ideal for short-term backups, which can be better served by
random-access disk devices.
As disk capacity has dropped in price, enterprises have
increasingly moved to a Disk-to-Disk-to-Tape (D2D2T) or
Disk-to-Disk (D2D) backup/recovery architecture. By staging backups
to disk, faster recovery is possible without waiting for tape
devices to be become available. Administrators can choose to keep
several backups available on disk, giving them recovery point
choices. While D2D and D2D2T architectures provide flexibility to
the administrator, they come at a cost. Keeping many copies of data
on disk in order to meet finer Recovery Point Objectives (RPO)
multiplies the cost of the disk infrastructure.
Lack of integration Enterprises wanting to take advantage of
various technologies in order to overcome the challenges mentioned
above have had to manage self-integration efforts, often building
complex scripts to coordinate hot backup, D2D backup, array-based
snapshots, and backup to tape. The development and maintenance of
this integration, which is customized for each environment in the
enterprise, is costly and time consuming.
ESE Streaming Backup API no longer supported with Microsoft
Exchange Server 2010 Since the earliest versions of Microsoft
Exchange, Microsoft has included a streaming backup Automatic
Programming Interface (API) through which third-party vendors could
develop Exchange-aware backup and recovery applications. With the
advent of Exchange Server 2010 and its improvements in high
availability and disaster recovery, Microsoft has removed the
Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) streaming backup API, leaving VSS
as the only option for Exchange-aware backups and restores. HP 3PAR
Recovery Manager Software for Exchange 2010 is a VSS requestor and
fills this gap perfectly. Additionally, Recovery Manager enables
integrated, snapshot-based, Exchange-aware backups to tape or other
supported target through integration with Symantec NetBackup,
Symantec BackupExec, and HP Data Protector.
-
5
Exchange Server 2010 data availability groups Starting with
Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, all previous forms of clustering
and replication in Exchange (Single Copy Cluster [SCC], Continuous
Cluster Replication [CCR], Standby Continuous Replication [SCR],
and Local Continuous Replication [LCR]) have been replaced with a
new technology called Data Availability Groups (DAGs). There can be
up to 16 nodes in a DAG and each mailbox database can have up to 15
replicas spread across the DAG. According to Microsoft, DAGs with
three or more nodes, used in conjunction with time-lagged replicas
as well as Personal Archives (another new feature in Exchange
Server 2010), may be used as a potential replacement for backup
altogether. However, there are several complications with this
approach:
The number of restore points is limited to a maximum of 15. Each
replica is a full copy of the source mailbox database, whereas a
snapshot-based backup captures only the
delta changes at the volume block level.
In addition, note that data replicas are always in use by
Microsoft Exchange Server. This means that the replicas cannot be
easily used for backup to tape or for mailbox recovery using
Microsoft or third-party tools.
With Exchange 2007 CCR and SCC, there are even fewer restore
points; one and none, respectively.
The solution: HP 3PAR Recovery Manager Software for SQL Server
and HP 3PAR Recovery Manager Software for Exchange HP offers HP
3PAR Recovery Manager Software for SQL Server and HP 3PAR Recovery
Manager Software for Exchange as solutions to the challenge of
managing backup and recovery of complex, always-on databases.
Recovery Manager simplifies the management and use of HP 3PAR
Virtual Copy Software snapshots by integrating with Microsoft SQL
Server and Microsoft Exchange Server through Microsoft Volume
Shadow Copy Service (VSS). Administrators interested in the
technical details can refer to Appendix A: Microsoft Volume Shadow
Copy Service for a detailed description of the mechanics of
Microsoft VSS and how HP 3PAR Recovery Manager Software integrates
with it for supportable, consistent backups. HP Recovery Manager
enables the administrator to create hundreds of consistent,
read-only snapshots of either production or replica databases.
Snapshots are space efficient and only capture the changed blocks
of a give volume. In addition to providing the ability to restore a
database and bring it back online quickly, snapshots can be used
for instant access to data for other purposes such as database
testing and analysis or Exchange mailbox recovery.
In addition to enabling simplified disk-based backup and rapid
recovery of SQL Server and Exchange Server hosts, Recovery Manager
also integrates array-based snapshots with backup to media via
Symantec NetBackup, Symantec BackupExec, or HP Data Protector.
The following sections describe key features of Recovery Manager
for both SQL Server and Exchange environments:
HP 3PAR Recovery Manager Software for Microsoft SQL Server
Support for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or Microsoft SQL Server 2008
and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 and Microsoft
SQL Server 2012
HP 3PAR Virtual Copy Software snapshot and backup management via
graphical user interface (GUI) and command-line interface (CLI)
Snapshot management of SQL servers running in a Microsoft
Cluster environment Off-host backup of snapshots via Symantec
NetBackup , Symantec BackupExec, or HP Data Protector Automated,
rapid recovery of SQL Server databases from snapshot (supports
point-in-time and point-of-failure
recoveries as well as restoring in NORECOVERY mode for
subsequent transaction log recovery; also supports granular
database restore from a single snapshot of entire instance)
Optional instant mount of read-write snapshots to the host for a
quick RTO, deferring recovery of the production volume until a
planned outage at a more convenient time
Time- or quantity-based snapshot management Support for
replicating consistent snapshots to a remote HP 3PAR array using
Remote Copy feature of HP 3PAR array
-
6
Support for coexistence with Geographically Dispersed Windows
Clusters with HP 3PAR Cluster Extension (CLX) software Support for
Always On Availability Group (AAG) databases in Microsoft SQL
Server 2012
HP 3PAR Recovery Manager Software for Exchange Support for
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 or 2010 Virtual Copy snapshot and
backup management via GUI and CLI Rapid recovery of Exchange Server
2007 Storage Groups or Exchange 2010 databases from snapshot to
point in time or
point of failure
Support for Exchange 2007 CCR and Exchange DAG replica databases
Off-host backup of snapshots via Symantec NetBackup , Symantec
BackupExec, or HP Data Protector Off-host verification of Exchange
databases using Microsoft tools Optional instant mount of
read-write snapshots to the host for a quick RTO using Microsoft
and third-party mailbox
recovery tools, deferring recovery of the production volume
until a planned outage at a more convenient time
Time- or quantity-based snapshot management
HP 3PAR Recovery Manager Software Architecture HP 3PAR Recovery
Manager Software uses a client-server architecture to allow simple,
central management of Virtual Copy snapshots for multiple Microsoft
SQL Server or Exchange Server hosts from a single management
interface. In this architecture, the Recovery Manager client is a
management interface (GUI and CLI) that runs on a backup server
that can optionally back up snapshots to a Symantec NetBackup,
Symantec BackupExec media server or HP Data Protector. The server
component is the HP 3PAR VSS Provider that runs on the SQL Server
and Exchange Server hosts.
HP 3PAR Virtual Copy Software is a high-performance,
non-duplicative, reservationless copy-on-write snapshot technology
that runs on HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage with HP 3PAR OS
Software.
The following features of Virtual Copy are key to making
Recovery Manager a superior snapshot management product:
Non-duplicative snapshots reduce the capacity required for
D2D/D2D2T backups. A single copy-on-write operation is performedand
therefore little capacity consumedwhen a production volume is
changed, regardless of the number of snapshots associated with the
production volume.
Reservationless snapshots reduce management overhead and the
wasted capacity introduced by snapshot reservations in other
technologies.
Read-write snapshots can be mounted directly by the hosts and
used for processing. This extends the benefit of snapshots to their
use in test or development environments. Traditional read-only
snapshots can be read but not mounted for processing.
Additional technical details on Virtual Copy can be found in
Appendix B: HP 3PAR Virtual Copy Software Snapshots.
In the following diagram, the Backup Server (running the
Recovery Manager backup server component) is connected to the same
HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage that is supporting each of the production
Exchange Server hosts. Snapshots taken of volumes exported to each
of the Exchange Server hosts can be automatically mounted on the
Backup Server and spooled to tape via Symantec NetBackup, Symantec
BackupExec, or HP Data Protector.
-
7
Figure 1
-
8
The diagrams below show multiple recovery options available:
Option 1 (Figure 2)Use virtual copies to achieve the fastest
possible RTO. When the snapshot is still available, the fastest RTO
can be met in two ways. The fastest access to data is met by
mounting a Virtual Copy snapshot directly to a host. Mounting a
snapshot versus restoring it defers the lengthier restoration of
the production volume until a planned outage can be taken at a more
convenient time. The second-fastest RTO is met by restoring the
original database volumes. The array-based copy of data from the
snapshot back to the original volume is referred to as a Promote.
Promotion is performed inside the array for the highest performance
and lowest network impact.
Figure 2
-
9
Option 2 (Figure 3)Rapid Recovery from snapshot. This recovery
method involves mounting the snapshot and then copying the data to
the production volume in a Disk-to-Disk (D2D) operation. This
process is automated via the Recovery Manager backup server,
integrating with Microsoft VSS for a supportable restoration of
data. This process is more time-intensive than Option 1, though it
makes restores more flexible. File copy restores enable a variety
of recovery options, especially for SQL Server.
Figure 3
-
10
Option 3 (Figure 4)Recovery from tape directly to the Recovery
Manager backup server using Recovery Manager or to the original
host using the backup softwares client. With this method, the
administrator can choose to run a Symantec NetBackup client or
Symantec BackupExec client directly, or HP Data Protector on the
Recovery Manager backup server and restore directly from tape. Of
the two tape options, this method requires the least data
movement.
Figure 4
-
11
Option 4 (Figure 5)Recovery from tape to the backup server. With
this method, the administrator can choose to restore from tape back
to a read-write snapshot mounted to the backup server running the
Recovery Manager client. After restoration, the snapshot can be
mounted to the original host (per Option 1) or the data files can
be copied to the production host (per Option 2). While Option 4
takes more data movement (tape to snapshot, snapshot to
production), it allows for that extra snapshot copy to be retained
on disk for other uses such as test/development or forensic study
(should the cause of the original data failure be unknown).
Figure 5
HP 3PAR Recovery Manager Software benefits
No more backup window HP 3PAR Virtual Copy Software snapshots
eliminate the need for a backup window by integrating with
Microsoft VSS to create an instant, nondisruptive point-in-time
snapshot that can then be backed up from a server other than the
production SQL or Exchange server.
Maintaining multiple recovery points Not only can HP 3PAR
Recovery Manager Software eliminate the problem of a shrinking
backup window, it also enables administrators to maintain many more
recovery points throughout the day over the latest built-in,
high-availability technologies such as Exchange DAG and SQL
AAG.
Improved hot backup Hot backup capabilities, such as those
provided by Microsoft VSS, can be used without a snapshot-based
backup. The downside of backing up directly to tape is that the
applications in hot backup mode can have either a processing
impact
-
12
due to the overhead of transaction logging, a disk-capacity
impact due to long-term storage of the state of the disk, or both.
However, by integrating Virtual Copy snapshots with Microsoft VSS,
the duration of time during which the application is quiesced is
greatly reduced, and so is the potential impact to performance and
capacity consumption. Recovery Manager alleviates hot backup,
providing the application with multiple points of recovery via
high-performance, non-duplicative snapshots. It should also be
noted that Exchange 2010 no longer has a backup API for hot
backups. Only Microsoft VSS can be used for Exchange 2010.
Low-impact topology Where traditional backups require added SAN
or LAN capabilities in order to handle increased bandwidth at
multiple touch points in the data center, with HP 3PAR Recovery
Manager Software, snapshots are presented to the backup host
directly by the array, and only tape backups go out over the backup
network. Instead of increasing the SAN and LAN bandwidth for every
host, 3PAR Recovery Manager requires only a single backup server
with sufficient network bandwidth to send backups to a backup media
server. Recovery Managers client-server architecture offloads the
tape backup process to a backup server. This reduces the CPU and
SAN traffic utilization on the production database server.
Flexible RPO and RTO Recovery Managers scalable, non-duplicative
snapshots allow the administrator to specify a greater number of
snapshots for a frequent or extended history of recovery points,
allowing flexibility when committing to a given RPO. Flexibility to
restore from snapshot (fast D2D restore) or to mount the snapshot
directly on the host (instantaneously) allows administrators to
offer increasingly aggressive RTO service-level agreements to their
internal customers. (The ability to mount snapshots directly for a
quick RTO is discussed in Appendix C: recovery and restoration
options.)
Thin snapshot technology reduces sprawl Non-duplicative
snapshots also reduce the redundant copies of data that result from
traditional D2D backups without the complexity of additional data
deduplication appliances.
Storage tiering for snapshots The storage space assigned to the
snapshots can be on a different storage tier and of a different
RAID type than the production storage space and can even vary from
database to database. Additional storage tiers (supported storage
targets) can be leveraged to keep additional copies of databases
through tape backup software integration with NetBackup,
BackupExec, or DataProtector.
Application awareness HP 3PAR Recovery Manager Software is fully
integrated with the Microsoft VSS framework and applications like
Microsoft SQL Server and Exchange Server. Integration with
Microsoft VSS is a supported method for online backups of SQL
Server and Exchange database. For Exchange 2010, VSS is the only
supported backup interface; there is no longer a tape backup API.
VSS integration ensures that the data is backed up in a
transaction-consistent manner, avoiding the potential data loss
associated with crash recovery of data that was snapped or backed
up without VSS.
The goal of the integration is to hide the storage-specific
nuances and provide an application view with which application
administrators are intimately familiar when it comes to performing
backup and recovery.
Recovery Manager provides the following capabilities:
Automatically discover and display the database objects
associated with an application Automatically discover all the
volumes associated with an application instance Group all the
volumes associated with an application in real time to create
application-consistent snapshots for all of the
volumes in a given database or database instance (SQL)
Minimize administration by enabling application administrators
to backup and recover from the Recovery Manager GUI
-
13
Customers can also leverage Recovery Manager to create an
application-consistent snapshot and then use a separate application
to back up the data to tape or other supported storage target for
archival purpose. This essentially minimizes administration and
provides the ability to maintain the snapshots for rapid recovery,
which is important because in some instancesfor example, with
Exchange 2010Microsoft has eliminated the tape backup API that the
backup vendors could otherwise use.
Because application awareness occurs with Recovery Manager,
additional application-specific agents for the tape backup software
are no longer necessary. Standard file streaming agents are used
instead.
Backup integration via NetBackup, BackupExec, and HP Data
Protector HP 3PAR Recovery Manager Software not only manages the
protection of point-in-time snapshots of SQL Server and Exchange
databases, but it also manages backup and restoration of the
snapshots to media via Symantec NetBackup, Symantec BackupExec, or
HP Data Protector. This capability allows snapshot data to be kept
on a longer retention cycle without burdening the capacity of the
array. Furthermore, it allows for the same snapshot data to be
transported offsite. With both Recovery Manager for Exchange and
SQL Server, the GUI and CLI provide single-action methods for
backing up a storage group or database to tape.
HP 3PAR Recovery Manager Software benefits summary
Recovery Manager feature Recovery Manger benefits
Eradicates backup window Leverages Virtual Copy snapshots for
instant, non-disruptive, point-in-time capture of the database.
Offloads backup to a backup server, with integration into the
customers tape backup infrastructure via Symantec NetBackup,
Symantec BackupExec, or HP Data Protector.
Maintains multiple recovery points Allows administrators to
maintain multiple recovery points throughout the day.
Improves hot backup Reduces the hot backup period to lessen host
impact.
Leverages Virtual Copy snapshots to eliminate long-term hot
backup logging space.
Offers low-impact topology Offloads host backup to a backup
server via snapshots to reduce the management points for backup and
the cost of the backup infrastructure. No more dedicated Fibre
Channel SANs or LANs for backup and no more production host backup
processing.
Allows flexible RPO and RTO Utilizes Virtual Copy to allow
administrators to keep many snapshots of a given volume without the
additive performance or capacity hit associated with traditional
snapshots. The ability to take many snapshots allows for extended
or more frequent recovery points. The ability to directly mount
high-performance, read-write snapshots back to the host allows for
a quick return to operations, deferring the restoration of the
primary volume to a planned outage at a later time or date.
Reduces data sprawl Utilizes the Microsoft VSS framework to
coordinate data structure discovery, database application quiesce,
filesystem buffer flush, and array-based snapshots to ensure data
integrity. VSS integration simplifies snapshots and eliminates the
need for complex, hard-to-support scripts specific to a single
customer application. Backup to tape is made possible through
integration with Symantec NetBackup and HP Data Protector.
-
14
Appendix A: Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service Microsoft VSS
is included with Windows Server operating systems to simplify the
enterprise storage environment. VSS provides a framework for
creating a point-in-time copy of a single or multiple volumes. VSS
allows the coordination of applications, filesystems, and storage
hardware in a way that can be supported by the multiple vendors
involved in the backup solution. Prior to the introduction of the
VSS framework, this coordination was only possible by scripting the
various heterogeneous components together in a custom fashion. With
VSS, Microsoft applications can be quiesced, the file system
buffers flushed, and snapshots taken in a standardized fashion.
Without quiescing and flushing the data, snapshots will not contain
the data expected at that point in time, and databases will need a
crash recovery, as the metadata and data is not guaranteed to be on
disk.
Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service supported on Microsoft
Windows works with VSS-aware applications to determine when a
volume shadow copy (snapshot) can be made. A snapshot is a copy of
a data set at a specific point in time. VSS communicates with the
operating system and applications and freezes computing tasks to
allow snapshot creation. Without the freeze function, data could
become corrupted when the snapshot is taken because the system
might be in the middle of a task. When a VSS operation is underway,
applications continue to run uninterrupted. The original volume
continues to change as the process continues, but the shadow copy
of the volume remains constant. VSS permits the backup application
to access the volume and back it up in its frozen state. The shadow
copy volume is then used for the actual backup. After the shadow
copy volume is saved on the backup device, the shadow copy is
deleted. Recovery Manager software comes with application
awareness, and the standard file backup agent is used so that
application-specific modules for the tape backup software are no
longer necessary.
VSS coordinates between Requestors (backup applications such as
HP 3PAR Recovery Manager), Writers (applications in Windows
services such as SQL Server and Exchange Server), and Providers
(components that create the shadow copies, such as the HP 3PAR VSS
Hardware Provider that comes bundled with all HP 3PAR Recovery
Manager Software products).
VSS component Description
Requester Vendor or third-party supplied backup software that
initiates the creation of the shadow copy. Recovery Manager is a
VSS requestor.
Writer Application software that participates in the shadow copy
process (application files and data are included in the process).
Examples of VSS writers are Microsoft SQL Server and Exchange
Server.
Provider Vendor-supplied storage-specific technology that
performs the actual shadow copy operation on the hardware. An
example is the HP 3PAR VSS provider.
-
15
Appendix B: HP 3PAR Virtual Copy Software snapshots HP 3PAR
Recovery Manager Software harnesses the power and flexibility of
point-in-time snapshots made possible by HP 3PAR Virtual Copy
Software. Virtual Copy is a high-performance, non-duplicative,
reservationless copy-on-write snapshot technology that runs on the
HP 3PAR Storage System as part of the InForm OS. HP 3PAR Virtual
Copy Software uses a unique system of pointers to increase
performance, reduce disk-capacity requirements, and enable
read-write snapshots that can be mounted for rapid recovery or used
in test and development environments.
As shown in the following illustration, the copy-on-write I/O
overhead grows with a traditional array volume as each snapshot
requires its own copy of the changed data. I/O is multiplied by
every new snapshot created and free capacity is reduced by the
storage required for each snapshot reservation. Conversely, with
Virtual Copy, the copy-on-write penalty is minimized by a single
copy required for all Virtual Copy snapshots of a given volume. I/O
overhead is minimized, and snap reservation space doesnt consume
wasted capacity.
Figure 6
-
16
HP 3PAR Virtual Copy Software benefits summary
Virtual Copy feature Benefit
Reservationless allocation of disk Simplified management
eliminates the need to make decisions about sizing upfront.
Alleviates both the problem of capacity waste due to over
allocation and snapshot failure due to insufficient space.
Flexibly allows for differing policies for RAID layout and
growth limits on each Common Provisioning Group (CPG).
Offers optional, user-configurable growth warnings and limits
that allow administrators to be notified of CPGs that are growing
larger than anticipated.
Non-duplicative, copy-on-write functionality
Reduced space requirements mean that 10 snapshots of a volume
taken during the work day consume no more space than a single
snapshot taken at the start of the day.
Scalability of performance means that the performance hit caused
by copy-on-write data movement does not grow as more snapshots are
created. Virtual Copy allows you to take hundreds of read-only
snaps and dozens of read-write snaps of any given volume without
suffering a growing additive performance hit.
Enables the retention of hundreds of snapshots for CDP-like
rapid restoration to fine-grained points in time throughout the
day.
Snapshots can be created from other snapshots for quick, simple
sharing of data for applications such as data mining, development,
and testing.
High-performance disk layout featuring wide striping
Snapshots enjoy the same massive parallelism that ensures
scalable, predictable performance of regular base volumes.
Traditional snapshots aggregate the copy-on-write data on a limited
number of spindles in the reservation space.
-
17
Appendix C: recovery and restoration options HP 3PAR Recovery
Manager Software assists in the restoration of backups from disk or
tape media as well as instant recovery from mounting read-write
snapshots.
Quick RTO via snapshot mount A unique capability enabled by
high-performance Virtual Copy snapshots is the ability to mount the
snapshot directly to the original host, replacing the original data
volumes. This capability is only viable as a quick RTO solution,
due to the ability of Virtual Copy to maintain high-performance,
read-write snapshots with no special configuration required and its
ability to promote any given snapshot back into the primary volume.
Promotion is an internal, array-driven operation that pushes the
differences of the altered read-write snapshot back into the
original volume.
Upon loss of data at the host, the administrator takes a very
short outage, unmounting the original data volumes and mounting the
appropriate volumes of the desired recovery point. The application
is restarted, allowing processing to continue. The administrator
can operate the application on this snapshot indefinitely, allowing
the flexibility to choose a planned outage at a later date in order
to promote the snapshot data back into the primary volume. The
primary volume is then remounted and the application restarted.
The quick return to operations via mounting of snapshots is
integrated into Recovery Manager. Right-clicking on a dataset
presents the mount option, simplifying the administrators duties
during the critical time period while the application is down. The
later promotion of the snapshot back into the primary volume is a
simple step using the Recovery Manager GUI.
Standard recovery Administrators also have the option of
initiating a manual recovery from tape or snapshot.
Both HP 3PAR Recovery Manager Software for SQL Server and HP
3PAR Recovery Manager Software for Exchange use the restore CLI
option to restore data from media previously backed up via Symantec
NetBackup, Symantec BackupExec, or HP Data Protector. This action
moves the data from tape back to disk and can be used to stage data
for a full database restore or for other applications such as data
mining, compliance research, and development.
Acronyms AAG: Always-On Availability Group (Microsoft SQL 2012)
CCR: Continuous Cluster Replication (Microsoft Exchange 2007) CLI:
Command Line Interface CPG: Common Provisioning Group (3PAR) DAG:
Data Availability Group (Microsoft Exchange 2010) GUI: graphical
user interface RPO: Recovery Point Objective RTO: Recovery Time
Objective VSS: Volume Shadow Copy Service (Microsoft)
For more information
To read more about HP 3PAR Secure Service Architecture, go to
hp.com/go/3PAR.
Get connected hp.com/go/getconnected
Current HP driver, support, and security alerts delivered
directly to your desktop
Copyright 20112012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The
information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in
the express warranty statements accompanying such products and
services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an
additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or
editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
Microsoft and Windows are U.S. registered trademarks of
Microsoft Corporation.
4AA3-8317ENW, Created November 2011; Updated November 2012, Rev.
2
OverviewTraditional backup and recovery challengesHot backup
limitationsTape-based backup and infrastructure bloatImpossible
recovery-time objectivesCapacity sprawlLack of integrationESE
Streaming Backup API no longer supported with Microsoft Exchange
Server 2010Exchange Server 2010 data availability groups
The solution: HP 3PAR Recovery Manager Software for SQL Server
and HP 3PAR Recovery Manager Software for ExchangeHP 3PAR Recovery
Manager Software for Microsoft SQL ServerHP 3PAR Recovery Manager
Software for Exchange
HP 3PAR Recovery Manager Software ArchitectureHP 3PAR Recovery
Manager Software benefitsNo more backup windowMaintaining multiple
recovery pointsImproved hot backupLow-impact topologyFlexible RPO
and RTOThin snapshot technology reduces sprawlStorage tiering for
snapshotsApplication awarenessBackup integration via NetBackup,
BackupExec, and HP Data Protector
HP 3PAR Recovery Manager Software benefits summaryAppendix A:
Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy ServiceAppendix B: HP 3PAR Virtual
Copy Software snapshotsHP 3PAR Virtual Copy Software benefits
summaryAppendix C: recovery and restoration optionsQuick RTO via
snapshot mountStandard recoveryAcronymsFor more information