This Solution Report describes a disk-to-disk backup and restore configuration that combines the Adaptec Snap Server 4500 storage array with CommVault QiNetix v5.0.0. The tested solution provides a practical, cost-effective and easily deployed solution for handling day-to-day backup/restore tasks.

Introduction

The Challenge
As companies become increasingly reliant on their information resources, IT managers face a daunting challenge in protecting business-critical data. They must be able to:

• Provide rapid near-term recovery of data and applications to assure business continuity.
• Back up a growing volume of data, without interrupting normal business activities.
• Meet expanding data protection needs within existing budget constraints.

Increasingly, IT managers are finding traditional tape media backup systems inadequate to meet their near-term backup/restore requirements. This is due to some inherent disadvantages of tape libraries:

• Long Backup Windows, requiring hours per terabyte, preventing access to applications and data.
• Slow Restore Times, particularly when data is stored on multiple tapes that must be loaded and unloaded.
• Lack of Scalability, requiring purchase of additional, costly tape libraries to accommodate growth.
• Cost and Complexity, including high initial cost and expensive, time-consuming maintenance and management.

While the longevity and low cost of tape media make it attractive for long-term data archiving, enterprises need a better solution for their short-term backup/restore requirements. This need is especially apparent when one considers that 90% of the data required for recovery has been backed up within the previous 7 days. Keeping these files on disk, ready for rapid recovery, is critical to business continuity.

The Solution: Disk-to-Disk Backup with Snap Server 4500
The Adaptec Snap Server 4500 is a cost-effective, rack-optimized 1U server that combines industry-leading performance and scalability with an unbeatable feature set. It is an ideal solution for file sharing and iSCSI nearline storage applications.

Used with industry-leading backup/restore software applications, the Snap Server 4500 offer the full benefits of an advanced, disk-to-disk (D2D) solution:

• Faster Restore Times, performing data recovery up to multiple times faster than tape systems.
• Shorter Backup Windows, dramatically reducing the time that data and applications are unavailable.
• Scalability, permitting rapid, cost-effective scaling to 3.6TB using Snap Disk 10 expansion arrays or up to 13.6TB Using Snap Disk 30 expansion arrays.
• Decreased Downtime, ensuring data availability with RAID storage arrays and hot-swappable ATA Drives.
• Reduced Management Cost and Complexity with simple, centralized management of all storage Resources

In testing of typical backup/restore operations, the combination of the Adaptec Snap Server 4500 storage array and CommVault QiNetix application provide a practical, cost-effective, and easily deployed solution for handling day-to-day backup/restore tasks. In our tests, the Adaptec Snap Server and CommVault QiNetix configuration proved an effective way for companies to satisfy their data protection strategies of today…and those of tomorrow.

Test Configuration

Note: In this configuration, each application server also has the backup server software installed, enabling it to back up the data from its primary storage (Fibre Channel storage in this example) to the nearline storage (iSCSI storage from Snap Server 4500 in this example). There is no need for a dedicated backup server. Testing was performed using only one Ethernet port on the Snap Server 4500. However, with both Ethernet ports used, the performance was relatively consistent. In order to use both Ethernet ports (Eth1 and Eth2) for iSCSI disks, they must have active connections and legal IP addresses configured when the first iSCSI disk is created. If only one Ethernet port was properly configured and connected when the first iSCSI disk is created, then all iSCSI disks will be available only on that port.

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