Expand backups to secondary storage: HPE SimpliVity hyperconverged infrastructure and HPE StoreO

[EzmeralExperts]

VM-level, full backups are a staple of the HPE SimpliVity platform. Now, thanks to integration with HPE StoreOnce, the hyperconverged infrastructure offers expanded backups to secondary storage or the cloud. Expert Matt Haron demonstrates how it works.

Taking your hyperconverged backups further

One of the many strengths of HPE SimpliVity as a hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) is the ability to natively take deduped and compressed backups. These efficient, VM-level, full backups are a staple of the HPE SimpliVity Data Virtualization platform. Customers tell me all the time how valuable this feature is to them.

But what if you wanted to take that further? What if you also wanted the ability to expand backups to secondary storage or even the cloud – and you discovered that your existing HCI had that capability built in? Many of the customers I talk to would jump on that without hesitation.

That is why the HPE SimpliVity engineering team decided to expand our amazing efficient backups to HPE StoreOnce data protection backup appliances. HPE StoreOnce is already an established disk-based backup solution. A number of popular backup software companies have integrated the HPE StoreOnce Catalyst API into their offerings. Now HPE SimpliVity takes advantage of this better-together story as well, integrating with that mature, proven HPE backup solution.

In a previous blog, Janet Runberg explained what this new solution can do at a high level, and what the benefits are. So, I am going to focus on why we chose HPE StoreOnce as the secondary backup target and show you how the integration works.

But why choose HPE StoreOnce?

This is a great and valid question. The HPE StoreOnce Catalyst API allows us to easily integrate our efficient backup story with a proven technology.

As mentioned earlier, HPE SimpliVity has very efficient built-in backups. Global deduplication means that when the HCI platform makes a backup it only needs to capture changed data. This is exactly what we have done with HPE StoreOnce. Only StoreOnce allows us to treat it just like another HPE SimpliVity cluster. What does this mean? When HPE SimpliVity backs data up to the StoreOnce appliance, the data is already deduped and compressed. When you copy that data, why rehydrate it? Rehydration works against you by significantly increasing the volume of the copied data and the workload on the system, which means the transfer will take more time and require more bandwidth. This unnecessary IO on the system often means IT organizations can only do backups during the night, or in down periods.

HPE SimpliVity backs up data to HPE StoreOnce in its deduped and compressed state. Let me say it again: The data that SimpliVity copies to the appliance is already deduped, compressed, and ready to be compared against any other data in the HPE StoreOnce Catalyst Store. If the data exists, there is no need to write it again. It’s a simple, efficient process that just makes sense.

But how does HPE SimpliVity back up to HPE StoreOnce?

Another great question. This diagram illustrates the process.

On the left you see the HPE SimpliVity host with the virtual controller (also known as the OmniStack Virtual Controller or OVC) running on it. Within the OVC, a small HPE StoreOnce Catalyst client is running. This client handles the communication between HPE SimpliVity and StoreOnce. Let me detail what happens:

1. First, the HPE SimpliVity OVC shares the deduplication hash with the StoreOnce Catalyst Store.
2. Next, the HPE StoreOnce target responds, scans the data, and lets the OVC know what data is missing.
3. HPE SimpliVity then sends the needed data, compressed, to the StoreOnce Catalyst Store.
4. HPE StoreOnce stores the data.

That’s it! The data does not need to be rehydrated, nor does it copy the full VM to the backup target and then depend on HPE StoreOnce to dedupe and compress it. No! It is all done already, so no need to do it again.

This is done natively, no other software, no other consoles, nothing. Simply right click and do a backup. You can also create backup policies from the HCI platform and have your backups automatically go to the HPE StoreOnce appliance without any intervention.

See the backup process in action

Integration with HPE StoreOnce really opens the possibility of what HPE SimpliVity can do with backups now and in the months and years to come. For example, StoreOnce has CloudBank integration, meaning you can copy backups from an on-premise HPE StoreOnce appliance to an AWS or Azure store. This functionality could be available in the near future for HPE SimpliVity – which means it could be the near future for many of your IT infrastructures! On-premise-to-CloudBank backups allow you to maintain the highest level of resiliency in a highly efficient way. I look forward to talking about features like this in future blogs.

For now, please allow me to show you HPE SimpliVity to StoreOnce backup in action.

HPE SimpliVity with HPE StoreOnce (3 min. demo video)

Matt

Matt Haron
HPE SimpliVity Technical Marketing Engineer
HPE Storage
Hewlett Packard Enterprise

[AdminHPDEP]

Don't put all your eggs in one basket !

Having two different vendors, one for primary storage and one for backup storage, is a good idea. If there is common code between the Simplivity software and the StoreOnce product, and if a bug affects this common code, we risk to be without primary or backup data

[SVT_Matt]

@AdminHPDEP In normal SAN environments, I fully agree with that statement. Main reason is that most Primary Storage Vendors don't create backup software. Since the code between SimpliVity and StoreOnce is not "common" then there are no issues storing your backups there. The adavantage is that we don't need to hydrate our data since we can dedup against the StoreOnce Catalyst Store. We basically follow the norm from great backup software vendors as CommVault and dedup but we don't need to rehydrate and increase IO or demand on the system. WIth the combo of SimpliVity and StoreOnce you have 2 baskets to put your eggs in. Great comment!!