Hybrid Backup and Recovery Solutions

As the evolution of the software-defined datacentre continues application support for integration with cloud solutions is improving.

One area you all know I’m very passionate about is backup and more importantly recovery and something I’m going to cover in this blog are the significant steps forward that have been made in terms of the enablement of Hybrid backup and recovery solutions.

Tectrade’s Helix Protect appliances began the Hybrid journey back in 2015 when Spectrum Protect version 7.1.3 introduced a new type of storage pool was introduced, a cloud container storage pool.

A container pool is a pool that combines multiple in line data reduction technologies. Data deduplication and compression technology work together to provide effective overall storage savings. Because of this inline data reduction, container storage pool I/O is dramatically reduced, enabling the use of lower-cost disk technology. Inline data deduplication and compression eliminate the need for post processing tasks, improve daily client ingest capacity, and simplify the management of the IBM Spectrum Protect server.

Support has enhanced and as of Spectrum Protect 8.1.4 cloud container storage pools enable data to be stored in the following cloud environments.
Off-premise:
Microsoft Azure Blob storage
Amazon Web Services (AWS) using the Simple Storage Service (S3) API
IBM Cloud Object Storage using the S3 API (IBM Cloud)
IBM Cloud Object Storage using the Swift API (IBM Cloud)
OpenStack Swift with Keystone Version 2, and OpenStack Swift with Keystone Version 1

On-premise:
IBM Cloud Object Storage using the S3 API
OpenStack Swift with Keystone Version 2, and OpenStack Swift with Keystone Version 1

So why are cloud container pools interesting?
Because they enable you to have an offsite storage tier without the investment required in a dedicated DC or co-lo space and the ability to simply purchase storage to store a secondary copy of your backup data on.

A lot of conversations our Technical Sales team are having are focused around Hybrid adoption and how to reduce the footprint of infrastructure in DCs and ultimately reduce cost.
Our goal is always to focus on outcomes and ensure the correct solution is architected for clients and data is stored in the most efficient and cost effective manner but ensuring that the required level of performance and recoverability is delivered. We enable customers to start on the journey of re-architecting there environments via the creation of a service catalogue. If your interested in a sample catalogue and discussion do let us know.
Once the catalogue is clearly defined we then get to work on the realisation of the benefits defined in the service catalogue. This involves ensuring the solution in place is fit for purpose, the correct service levels and cost are associated with the defined tiers and ensuring the data is aligned to the correct tier. 
The solution we use to ensure a best of breed and fit for purpose solution is in place for data protection is our Helix Protect appliance. They fully integrate with cloud environments utilising Spectrum Protect. A sample architecture is pictured below.

The benefit of the solution above is that our Helix Protect appliance has an on-premise disk cache that can store a number of days on-premise and then transfer the data to cloud container pools as larger objects to be retained for a longer period.
The majority of restores can then be completed from the local cache meaning faster restores. Looking at the stats for our Helix Protect services make it very clear that restores rates are slowly increasing.

But what about in a DR scenario?
The beauty of the solution above is that if correctly architected it can enable DR as a service (DRaaS). You can recover your Spectrum Protect server to run in the Cloud and then recover from the data in the Cloud.
If a lower RTO/RPO is required then a dedicated Spectrum Protect server can be run in the Cloud and protect stg and node rep can be used via directory containers rather than using cloud container pools.

Interested in learning more, having a discussion around a service catalogue or a Helix Protect appliance? Get in contact with me via william.bush@tectrade.com