Backup Virtualization Reduces OPEX
Just as server virtualization reduces the CAPEX of your server environment through server consolidation, backup virtualization increases the utilization of your existing backup resources and like server virtualization this can lead to the reduction of CAPEX. In a recent blog by Gresham Storage Solution's Christopher Young, "When the money dries up, print some more", Chris points out much of the CAPEX savings associated with backup virtualization. As usual Chris is dead on. One of the areas I'd like to expand on is how backup virtualization Reduces OPEX in addition to CAPEX. Always remember CAPEX is money, OPEX is time and time is money.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Where do you waste your time on backups? There are a ton but let's focus on the top three.
Making sure all the backups are completed
This is a huge time waster and because the default reaction is to throw hardware at the problem. We have disk and tape libraries scattered all over the data center. Consolidating these backup disks and libraries behind a single point will save the time and effort required to log into all these systems to make sure they are operational. Leveraging backup virtualization's ability to reduce the number of these devices actually required will further reduce the number of devices that need to be checked in on.
Squeezing out that last bit of performance
Tape drives are not cheap. When you make the decision to add one, you better reduce the backup window and get that drive going as fast as possible. As any backup administrator will tell you, that is not always as simple as just plugging in the drive and watching the backups go faster. Often there is a fair amount of customization that needs to happen; splitting up backup jobs, sub-dividing file systems and interleaving existing jobs. All of this increases complexity and also increases the chance of error as the environment changes.
The time it takes to create these custom jobs and scripts as well as verify that they are working throughout the backup process. Adding one file system or increasing the size of a file system may throw this delicate design out of kilter and new customization needs to take place. At some point there are so many bandaides on the backup process that no one can figure out what job is doing exactly what. Backup virtualization changes all this by presenting a single fast virtual target; backup jobs are fast and seamless. Tapes can be created outside of your normal backup window.
Dealing with the agile data center
The agile data center sounds good to everyone but the backup administrator. Change is bad for backups, dynamic is a nightmare. Servers can now move all over the data center; on the different servers, different networks and even different storage. The backup applications will still find them but their performance capabilities may have changed significantly. Disk capacity can now be added with almost no downtime, in fact with thin provisioning capacity is added on the fly.
To backup administrator needs a tool that is more agile than the rest of the data center. One that can add, move and change tape drives faster than a server can move locations or capacity can be added to a SAN. Certainly the days of customized scripts and complex jobs that sub-divide file systems are no longer going to cut it. Backup virtualization provides a method to add and remove drives as the performance demands placed on the backup environment continue to evolve.
The Net
There is more that we could discuss around the time saved thanks to backup virtualization; for example it makes backup a universal application as opposed to one that is still managed by platform or even by application. Netting this all out, backup virtualization reduces the amount of time required to maintain acceptable backup performance returning hours to the backup administrator’s day.
