Back up is the first step along the journey toward data Availability and backing up data is a day to day task many of us do without knowing it. The real value in those backups is achieving efficient and fast recovery to meet the crucial demands of the business. Over the years Veeam has become synonymous with data Availability and with the integration with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) storage, users gain industry-leading recovery capabilities to minimize data loss. This integration allows storage snapshots to become more purposeful through Veeam Explorer for Storage Snapshots, Backup from Storage Snapshots and On-Demand Sandbox for Storage Snapshots. Veeam Backup & Replication integrates with HPE 3PAR, Nimble and StoreVirtual snapshot capabilities to create a highly-available, cost effective, efficient environment for storing, protecting and recovering data.
Going one step further by leveraging data
I mentioned that backup was the first step in the journey of data Availability; automation is another step on that journey. The automation part comes here in the form of being able to take those storage-efficient snapshots and put them to use by way of offering them out to development teams in an isolated sandbox environment. The use of the On-Demand Sandbox for Storage Snapshots allows users to test VMs, troubleshoot issues, and perform testing scenarios. If you are already familiar with the On-Demand Sandbox feature, the set-up to utilize the snapshot integration will be similar. You will need to configure a virtual lab, Application group and a SureBackup job.
Leveraging storage snapshots through the On-Demand Sandbox is not the only way you can utilize this snapshot technology. Backup from Storage Snapshots is a way to optimize and enhance VM backups in an easy way. This technology reduces the impact on production data and allows for non-disruptive backups of VMs. With HPE 3PAR and with Nimble Secondary Flash Arrays, Veeam can provide backup from a secondary storage array to reduce impact on the production environment even further.
For Nimble environments, the introduction of the HPE Nimble Secondary Flash Array allows users to utilize this array to be used as a source for backup jobs, eliminating any performance hit on the production infrastructure during the backup window. The backup from the Nimble Secondary storage array is asynchronous, meaning the snapshot is first triggered on the primary array then copied or replicated to the secondary storage array. Snapshots and their replication between the primary array to the secondary array can be orchestrated through Veeam Backup & Replication. Should you want to learn more about Veeam’s integration with Nimble, this blog post is a great source to start. For HPE 3PAR StoreServ, the technology is a little different but can achieve the same outcome. To achieve this with an HPE 3PAR StoreServ array, you need to configure a peer persistence relationship between the two.
Peer Persistence
It’s one thing to be able to offer backup from storage snapshots but to be able to leverage synchronous storage replication technology allowing you to choose to take the backup from one site to another is an additional differentiator that the Veeam and HPE partnership brings to the table. Peer Persistence software allows HPE 3PAR StoreServ systems to act as peers to each other, with both arrays being active, holding primary production volumes and secondary volumes. When Veeam Backup & Replication is configured to use snapshots of secondary volumes, the storage snapshot is triggered directly on the secondary volume, meaning the primary one remains untouched from a backup activity perspective. This technology is not done by Veeam by default but needs to be configured correctly by the user. If you want to learn more about this Veeam configuration, this blog post is a great place to start.
Veeam Explorer for Storage Snapshots
Restoring from a storage snapshot can be a difficult, multi-task process taking quite some time, especially if you wanted to restore specific individual or application objects. The Veeam Explorer for Storage Snapshots takes this manual process and makes it much simpler. Through the Veeam Explorer, IT administrators can browse the storage snapshot to perform fast granular recovery of files and application items, even if these snapshots were not created by Veeam itself. Being able to recover from snapshots allows users to benefit from reduced recovery point objectives for application items.
How it works
Veeam Explorer allows users to perform Instant VM Recovery, file-level restore, application items restore including objects from Microsoft Active Directory, Exchange, SharePoint, SQL Server, along with Oracle databases. Visit our Veeam Explorer for Storage Snapshots tool page to learn more!
… and it’s FREE!
It’s important to note that Veeam Explorer for Storage Snapshots is available in Veeam Backup Free Edition. This allows you to maximize your storage investments, making storage snapshots more useful in your environment with the recovery features the free edition has to offer. The functionality in the free edition allows you to utilize Instant VM Recovery, which once prompted can get machines up and running in minutes. Additionally, you can restore files and most application items through Veeam Explorer for Storage Snapshots. If you want to learn more about what the free edition has to offer, check out Hitchhiker’s Guide to Veeam Backup Free Edition.
