Falconstor Advanced VMware Data Protection - Magirus

© FalconStor Software 2008 · All Rights Reserved 

Advanced Data Protection and 

Recovery for VMware 

Fredy Nick, Nick Storage Architect 

FalconStor Software

Agenda g 

• FalconStor 

– FFalconstor l t Architecture 

A hit t 

• VMware Backup terminology 

• The FalconStor approach 

– Storage virtualization 

– AApplication li ti iintegration t ti 

– Backup acceleration 

– Disaster Recovery 

PAGE 2 

IT as a Weapon: Advanced Data Protection and Recovery for VMware 

FalconStor Confidential for Internal and Partner Use Only 

US only © FalconStor Software 2008 · All Rights Reserved

FalconStor 

• Founded in Feb. 2000 by y Veterans of Cheyenne y Software which was 

acquired by CA for $1.2B in 1996 

• Leading Provider of Data Protection Software 

– Deep understanding of backup & recovery 

– Innovators in leveraging disk to optimize backup & recovery 

– Over 4,000 4 000 enterprise and 30 30,000 000 SMB sites around the world 

• Strategic Industry OEM Partnerships 

– Pillar, , Brocade, , Copan, p , EMC, , Huawei, , H3C/3COM, , IBM, , Intel, , Sun.. 

– Superior interoperability, compatibility in the field 

• Global Channel and Support Infrastructure 

– 15 in-country offices 

– 400+ Employees - 76% headcount in Engineering & Technical Services 

– High Maintenance renewal 

• Financial Sound/Strong Growth 

– Profitable, , Positive cash flow since 2005, , 

No Debt 

PAGE 3 




Optimizing the Availability of Storage, Application & Backup via 

One Platform - IPStor 

Storage 

• Virtualize storage & provision disk as SAN SAN, NAS or 

WORM over FC, iSCSI, IB, or CIFS, NFS 

• On-Demand storage allocation via thin provisioning 

of virtual LUN 

• Boot storage utilization via host-based ‘Capacity Capacity 

On Demand (compression, archiving) service 

• Facilitate real-time data migration via sync. mirror 

• Enable server server-less less backup without Impacting host 

Application 

• Continuously journal/mirror or snapshot application 

host via SANtap, NSS or host-resident software 

(DiskSafe/Win, LVM/UNIX) 

• Enable recovery of file, DB, e-mail or disk in less 

th than 10 min. i with ith 100% data d t iintegrity t it 

• Restart failed physical server under VMware in 

less than 10 min. 

• Enable server server-less less backup without Impacting host 

Tape Backup 

• Virtualize storage & provision tape drive, library 

over FC, iSCSI or IB 

• Optimize the reliability, performance of backup 

and restore 

• BBoost t storage t efficiency ffi i via i dde-duplication d li ti & 

thin provisioning 

• Reduce media management cost via Stacking, 

Encryption & Duplication 

Network Storage g Server Continuous Data Protection Virtual Tape p Library y( (VTL) ) + 

(NSS) 

(CDP) 

Single Instance Repository (SIR) 

IP IP-based based Replication with Encryption Encryption, Compression & Auto-Resume 

Auto Resume 

PAGE 4 



US only © FalconStor Software 2008 · All Rights Reserved 

Platform

VMware Backup p terminology gy 

ESX 

ESX 

Storage LUN 

Virtual Machine 

C:\ Folder 

File1 

File2 

File3 

D:\ Folder 

File1 

File2 

File3 

VM Folder 

myvm1.vmdk 

myvm2.vmdk 

myvm1.vmdk 

myvm myvm.vmx vmx 

myvm2.vmdk 

myvm.log.... 

myvm.vmx 

myvm.log.... 

File Level Backup 

Backs up individual folders/files 

from within a virtual machine at 

the level of the hosted OS 

Full Virtual Machine Backup 

Backs up all the contents of an 

individual virtual machine at the ESX 

folder level, such as .vmdx and .vmx 

files 

VM-1 VM-2 VM-3 

Image (Volume) Backup 

Backs up all the contents of a storage 

LUN LUN, which hi h may iinclude l d multiple lti l 

PAGE 5 




virtual machines

The problem, p , simply py pput 

“Backups hit the most vulnerable points 

with VMware: its narrow ability to handle 

excessive disk and network I/O I/O... A 

backup load is one of the worst loads for 

a VM VMware server to t accommodate.” d t ” 

PAGE 6 




-- Ashley y D’Costa 

From Three VMware data backup and restore methods 

SearchDataBackup.com, 4/11/08

Protection Challenges in Virtual 

Environments 

• Ph Physical i l server resources, di disk k 

and network I/O tend to be 

highl highly utilized tili ed 

– This is by design 

– Impacts backup processing 

• Backing up VMDK files leads to 

crash crash-consistent consistent data (at best) 

or lost/corrupted data (at worst) 

– Need to shutdown the VM 

• Coordinating VM shutdown, 

snapshots and backups takes 

sophisticated scripting ability 

PAGE 7 




Backup 

Agent 

Backup 

Agent 

Application Application 

Backup 

Agent 

Backup 

Agent 

Application Application 

ESX Server 

Physical Machine

I/O throttling g through g single g CPU 

• All VMware 

Application pp Application pp Application pp 

backup I/O must 

Backup 

Backup 

Backup 

pass through the 

Agent 

Agent 

Agent 

Virtual Switch 

• All virtual switch 

Virtual Switch 

CPU0 CPU1 CPU2 CPU3 

ESX 

Server 

processing 

handled only by 

CPUØ 

Backup 

Network 

Additional CPUs 

do not help in 

processing 

backup I/O 

• Backups 

significantly impact 

the entire system 

PAGE 8 




Traditional Backup p Method 1 

• Backup agents and backup server run in virtual 

machines 

Virtual 

Machine 

Backup 

Agent 

ESX Server 

Virtual 

Machine 

Backup 

Agent 

Virtual 

Machine 

PAGE 9 




Backup 

Server TAPE 

File-level restore Very easy 

Load on ESX server Extremely y high g 

LAN-free No 

Manageability Very poor 

Full VM restore No 

From VMware “Virtual Machine Backup Guide” 

LIBRARY Method: File level 

or VTL 

Method: File level 

backup from within 

Virtual Machines


• Backup agents run in virtual machines machines, backup server 

runs on physical machine 

Virtual 

Machine 

Backup 

Agent 

Virtual 

Machine 

Backup 

Agent 

ESX 

PAGE 10 




Physical 

Backup 

Server 

TAPE 

LIBRARY 

or VTL 

File-level restore Very easy 

Load on ESX server High 

LAN-free No 


Full VM restore No 


Method: File level 

bbackup k ffrom within ithi 

Virtual Machines


• Backup agents runs in Service Console Console, backup server 

runs in virtual machine 

VMware Service Console 

VM-1 

myvm1.vmdk 

myvm2.vmdk 

y 

myvm.vmx 

myvm.log.... 

VM VM-22 

myvm1.vmdk 

myvm2.vmdk 

myvm.vmx y 

myvm.log.... 

Backup Agent ESX 

Virt Virtual al 

Machine 

Backup 

Server 

PAGE 11 




File-level restore No 

Load on ESX server Extremely y High g 

LAN-free No 


Full VM restore Very easy 


TAPE 

LIBRARY 

or VTL 

Method: Image level 

backup of Virtual 

Machine folders

VMware Consolidated Backup p( (VCB) ) 

• A VMware method designed to overcome issues 

with traditional backup methods 

• Supported by many backup software packages 

• Eliminates the need for Backup Agents within 

virtual machines (for ( backup, p not for restore) ) 

• Moves backup off the LAN and onto the SAN 

• SSupports t both b th file-level fil l l and d iimage-level l l bbackup k 

PAGE 12 




VCB file backup p for SANs 

• VCB PProxy server hhosts t bbackup k software ft 

Virtual 

Machine 

SAN Storage LUN 

VM VM-11 VM VM-22 

ESX 

Method: VCB Proxy mounts 

Virtual 

Machine 

VM VM-33 

No 

Agents 

VM-3 

snapshot of file system and backs 

up data at a file level 

VCB Proxy 

Server 

(Windows) 

TAPE 

Backup 

software 

VM-1 VM VM-22 VM VM-33 LIBRARY 

VMware 

Snapshot 

PAGE 13 




SAN 

connection 

or VTL 

Removes 

backup 

impact from 

ESX server, 

ddoes not t 

need backup 

agents

VCB image g backup p for SANs 

• VCB PProxy server hhosts t bbackup k software ft 

Virtual 

Machine 


ESX 

VM-1 VM-2 

Virtual 

Machine 

VM-3 

VM VM-11 VM VM-22 VM VM-33 

VMware 

Snapshot 

PAGE 14 




No 

Agents 

SAN copy 

Method: Snapshot is used to export 

(copy) virtual machine to the Proxy 

server for full image backup 

VCB Proxy 

Backup 

software 

VM-3 

TAPE 

LIBRARY 

or VTL 

Removes 

backup 

impact from 

ESX server, 

ddoes not t 

need backup 

agents

Impact p of VMware snapshot p 

VM-1 

Production 

read & write 

Production 

reads 


Backup 

reads 

VM-1 Delta 

Disk 

Production 

read & write 

VM-1 

Delta 

VM VM-11 Disk 

Copy accumulated writes 

PAGE 15 




Production 

writes & 

reads 

1. Normal operational mode, 

read/write activity to the VM. 

it & 22. After snapshot is initiated for backup backup, 

all new writes go to delta disk for the 

length of the backup. LUN now used for 

production (read/write) plus backup 

processing (read). 

3. When backup is complete, data 

accumulated in delta disk must be 

written back to the VM.

Limitations of VCB 

• IImpact t to t production d ti di disk k during d i the th backup b k and d after ft 

the backup when copying from delta disk 

• File restore still requires a backup agent in the VM 

• Image g restore requires q a Linux backup p agent g in the 

Service Console 

• Image restore requires copying image to a temporary 

location and then importing to ESX server 

• Image backups are crash consistent 

• Need to zone proxy server to all storage LUNs 

• Does not support multi-pathing for backup data 

PAGE 16 




Summary y of major j backup p challenges g 

Crashconsistent 

images 

Slow Potential 

recovery 

corruption, ti 

process 

data loss 

PAGE 17 




VMware Backup 

challenges 

Backups 

ttake k too t 

long 

Over-utilization 

of resources 

Backups 

iimpact t 

production


The FalconStor 

Approach

Network Storage g Server 

Network Storage Server (NSS) 

Intelligent Storage Virtualization 

• True heterogeneous intelligent storage virtualization 

• Application-aware data protection 

• WAN WAN-optimized optimized disaster recovery services protect 

operations and save on WAN costs 

• Increased storage efficiency through Thin Provisioning of 

resources 

• Your Storage, Your Infrastructure, Your Solution 

PAGE 19 




How Storage g Virtualization works 

PAGE 20 




Virtual 

disks 

Physical 

disks 

• Quickly create virtual 

volumes from across or 

within any physical disk 

resources 

– Simple wizard interface 

– Physical LUN and virtual 

devices up p to 16TB 

– Expand volumes as 

needed 

• Securely assign 

volumes to servers 

through NSS interface

Enabling g Server Virtualization 

Virtual 

machines 

(.vmdk file) 

VMFS 

volumes 

PAGE 21 




• Storage virtualization 

enables rapid provisioning 

for VMware environments 

• Create virtual volumes to 

host VMFS volumes and 

VMDK files 

• Sh Shared d storage t enables bl 

easy virtual machine 

migration and VMotion 

• Data protection tools 

enhance h bbackup, k 

protection, DR

VMware Recovery y with FalconStor Software 

• FalconStor software provides a set of tools 

to enhance VMware data protection 

– 100% transactional integrity of data for fast 

restores 

– No impact backup 

– WAN-optimized data replication 

PAGE 22 




FalconStor Application Snapshot Director 

ffor VMware VM 

• AApplication li ti SSnapshot h t Di Director t (ASD) ddesigned i d tto 

ensure transactional integrity of data 

– Data is not in a crash consistent state (it is 100% 

transactionally consistent) 

– No need for lengthy system/DB checking 

• Coordinates snapshot process between VMware 

and FalconStor application-specific and file 

system system-specific specific snapshot agents 

• Runs on the ESX server 

• Integrates with Site Recovery Manager 

PAGE 23 




Where do the pieces p fit? 

ESX server 


Application Snapshot Director 


Application 

Application Virtual Machine 

Snapshot 

Application 

Agent 

Application 

OS Snapshot 

File system Agent 

Agent 

OS 

Fil File system t 

Agent 

FFalconStor l St NSS 


Application 

Application 

Snapshot 

Agent 

OS 

File system 

Agent 

PAGE 24 




ASD installs into the Service Console 

Application-specific agents install within the Virtual 

Machine 

Microsoft Exchange, Oracle 

Microsoft SQL Server 

IBM Lotus Notes/Domino, Sybase, Informix, 

DB2 DB2, SAP SAP, Pervasive SQL 

File system agent installs on the hosted OS 

Windows File System, y , Linux File System y 

Network Storage Server provides virtualized 

storage and replication services

The Snapshot p Process: Step p 1 

VMDK files 

ASD queries 

Virtual CCenter. 

Virtual Center 

returns 

information on 

which LUNs 

Virtual 

MMachines hi 

reside on. 

ASD ASD ASD ASD 

returns 

1 2 

=VLUN = V-LUN 3 

3 

PAGE 25 




Virtual 

LUNs 

= V-LUN 1

The Snapshot p Process: Step p 2 

ASD ASD ASD 

Snap! 

• Snapshots are 

initiated on a per 

V-LUN basis or based 

on groups 

1 2 

on groups 

PAGE 26 




• The correct ASD 

3 

agents are notified

Snapshot p sequence q of events 

3 

ESX server 




Application 

Application Virtual Machine 

Snapshot 

Application 

Agent 

Application 

OS 

File system 

Agent 


Application 

Application 

Snapshot 

Agent 

2 

1 

11. ASD puts the application 

into a hot backup mode 

i. Application holds up 

processing, flushes cache 

2. Application agent informs 

file system agent 

i. Agent ensures file system 

cache flushed to disk 

Snapshot 

Agent 

OS 

OS 

File system 

Agent 

3. ASD initiates VMware 

snapshot 

Fil File system t 

Agent 

44. TTransactionally ti ll complete l t 

snapshot taken across the 

virtual LUN 

5. All systems released 

FFalconStor l St NSS 4 

PAGE 27 




Using g snapshots p 

Start new instance of 

application within two minutes 

li ti ithi t i t • Snapshot image of 

virtual LUN can be 

used to start the same 

machine(s) on a 

separate ESX server 

• Using an earlier 

iinstance t of f data d t can 

restore applications 

prior i tto corruption ti or 

data loss 

• Replace “restore” with 

Snapshots recovery 

PAGE 28 




Integrating g g Snapshots p for VCB Acceleration 

• Eliminate overhead of delta disk 

No impact to 

production 

ESX server 

Primaryy 

PAGE 29 




ESX server 

dedicated to backup 

mounts snapshot 

images 

iSCSI or FC 

VCB backup p 

proxy server 

Snapshots 

Data 

mounting or 

copying 

Image or 

file backup 

VTL or Tape p 

library

Benefits of Snapshots p and VCB 

• Transactionally complete snapshots provide easily 

recoverable data images when using image backup 

• File-level backup available by mounting image hosted 

by y dedicated ESX server 

• High-speed backup over iSCSI or FC SAN 

– No data goes over the LAN 

• Delta disk (for VMware snapshot) only needed for a few 

seconds seconds, rather than for the length of the backup 

• Primary storage not impacted 

• Snapshots assigned via management console, without 

need to configure zoning of primary storage 

PAGE 30 




Disaster Recovery y for VMware 

• NSS provides WAN optimization, compression and 

encryption features for data replication 

• Supports virtual-to-virtual replication 

• Supports physical-to-virtual replication 

– Lower costs for DR site by using VMware 

– No need to duplicate primary servers on a one one-to-one to one basis 

• NSS is certified for use with VMware Site Recovery 

Manager 

PAGE 31 




Virtual-to-virtual DR 

PAGE 32 




Different 

physical server 

configuration

Physical-to-Virtual y 

DR 

PAGE 33 




Uses Raw 

Drive 

Mapping

Integration g with Site Recovery y Manager g 

• FalconStor Storage Replication Adapter (SRA) integrates 

FalconStor replication with Site Recovery Manager 

• NSS provides replication engine 

• Virtual disk assignments are automatically coordinated 

with associated virtual machines with the help of SRA 

• Disaster recovery scenarios can be tested at any time 

– A TimeView snapshot image is created and mounted to a virtual 

machine being tested 

– The virtual machine is started 

– Recovery is validated and TimeView image removed 

PAGE 34 




E 

S 

X 

Key Components of SRM integration with 

FalconStor DR Solutions 

VMware Virtual Center 

Site Recovery 

Manager 

Storage 

Replication 

Adapter 

ESX server 






Application 

Application 

Application pp 

Snapshot 

Agent 

OS 

File system 

Agent 

Application 

Snapshot 

Agent 

FalconStor Storage Replication Adapter 

coordinates with SRM, installs in Virtual 

Center 


Application Application and file system agents 

Application 

Snapshot 

Agent 

OS 

File system 

Agent 

FalconStor NSS 

OS 

File system 

Agent 

PAGE 35 




Network Storage Server provides 

replication services coordinated with 

SRM

Summary 

• Backup is a major challenge in VMware environments 

• FalconStor virtualized storage enables new protection 

methods that eliminate problems typical to VMware 

backup 

• Application-specific data integrity ensures fast recovery 

• High speed, SAN-based, off-host backup eliminates 

impact to production systems 

• WAN-optimized data replication for disaster recovery 

PAGE 36 







Thank You! 

Any Questions? 

Contact us 

Corporate Headquarters 

2 Huntington Quadrangle 

Melville Melville, NY 11747 

USA 

Tel: +1 631.777.5188 

Support: +1 631.777.3332 

info@falconstor.com 

Asia Pacific Headquarters 

6F-1, 6F 1, No.521, Sec. 1, Wunsin Rd. 

Taichung 40848 

Taiwan 

Tel: +886-4-2259-1868 

infoAsia@falconstor.com 

European Headquarters 

58 Rue Pottier 

78150 Le Chesnay 

France 

Tel: +33.1.3923.9550 

infoEurope@falconstor.com

Falconstor Advanced VMware Data Protection - Magirus

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