Virtualization shakes up backup strategy
Virtualization is causing customers to rethink their backup strategies, with technology that combines pieces of traditional and well-understood enterprise backup with some pieces that are unique in the virtualized world.
In the past, traditional enterprise backup in the vast majority of shops has
included spinning disk for short-term and intermediate data use, archival tape
for long-term storage, and software such as IBM Tivoli and HP StorageWorks.
But some say that's no longer enough in a virtualized world.
"You definitely can't take a wait-and-see approach with backup, especially
now that more and more companies are using server virtualization in critical
production environments," says Stephanie Balaouras, a senior analyst for
virtualization strategies at Forrester Research Inc. "Backup is going to
become a major challenge if companies haven't explored their options."
Traditional backup systems have a one-to-one relationship with servers. These
tried-and-true backup systems and associated software already support storage-area
networks (SAN), fiber optics, and the latest operating system and server hardware
updates. But they are not geared specifically for the complex world of virtualization,
which involves multiple guest operating systems on the same box.
Dave Russell, Gartner Inc.'s vice president of research for servers and storage,
outlined three popular strategies for virtualization backups. The most common
is putting software agents on each virtual machine (VM) and then using traditional
enterprise backup software. A second approach is to create an image of the VM
and either use a storage service hosted elsewhere or take daily snapshots of
the logical unit number (LUN).
A third strategy is to use VMware consolidated backup (VCB) that incrementally
archives the VM -- meaning it copies only what has changed since the last backup.
In this way, companies can restore a single file, even from one of 30 guest
operating systems that all reside on a single physical server.
"Most companies gravitate toward the backup agents and traditional backup
software, which they are used to doing with a physical server, and it feels
very natural and easy," says Russell. "But this approach has proven
to be cost prohibitive because of the number and scale of VMs and the licensing
required."
Backup agents are included with VMware and other virtualization products to
help administrators integrate VMs into the traditional backup process. The main
advantage is cost: The agents are free or add a relatively minimal fee. On the
downside, agents force administrators to use a fairly simplistic approach: Admins
can archive an entire virtualized server, but not pick and choose volumes or
guest operating systems. Nor can server administrators restore specific portions
of data, or substantiate (verify the data integrity) of VM volumes.
VM snapshots
A new trend is for companies to create mirrors of the VM volumes, says Russell,
because it
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