Using hardware providers vds vss or not

[tommyckt1]

Dear All,

We have a EVA 4400 and a few SQL and Exchange servers.

Would you please advise should I use hardwrae providers vds vss or not ?

If it's worth, how the backup software choose to use HP hardware providers, not software providers ?

Please help.

[Dusko Lazarevic]

Hi,

It is pretty hard to say if it worth to use HWP or not.

When using system provider, snapshot is created on the production system on the system drive (usually C:\). OS keeps the snapshot performing all the time copy-on-write to the snapshot area. This would mean that you application host will have to do 3 IOs (read original data, write it to the snapshot area, write new data) for each write.
When using HWP, array will perform these 3 writes and OS itself will be offloaded.
You will also offload your production system during tape backup by using a dedicated node to move data to tape. In addition, you can use Instant Recovery feature which will restore your application data in minutes instead hours. With demand allocated snapshots, you can afford to have more frequent backups that will shorten your recovery time. IR will restore your database in couple of minutes and you will have to roll forward less transactions/data to the point you want your database to be recovered.

However, all these features are additional costs for you. You have to buy Business Copy licenses for the array. If you are using HP Data Protector, you will have to buy ZDB and IR licenses too.

For the second question, the answer depends on the backup software that you are/will use. In case that you have Data Protector, you will have to manually specify which type of backup you would like to do. Software itself will then create either snapshot on the array using HWP or on the system drive on the production node using system VSS provider.

Data Protector comes with a 60 day trial licenses. You can install it and see yourself what are the benefits of using HWP instead system one if it pays off or not.

dule

[tommyckt1]

Dear Dule,

Thanks for your advice !

In order to choose whether to use hardware providers, we have to consider:
1) Money for license (EVA and backup software)
2) Benefits of offloading workload to EVA

For backup, we have to choose hardware provider to snapshot.

Regards,
Tommy