Fast Backups of MySQL Running on Amazon EC2

January 23rd, 2010

If you are running your MySQL databases on the Amazon EC2 compute cloud, Zmanda Recovery Manager (ZRM) for MySQL can perform fast full backups of these databases by using Elastic Block Store (EBS) Snapshots. ZRM takes only a momentary read lock on the MySQL database during the creation of the snapshot, in order to ensure consistency of the backed up database archive. MySQL Backups using Amazon EBS snapshots are differential backups, meaning that only the blocks that have changed since your last full backup (via EBS snapshot) will be saved. For example, if you have a database with 100 GBs of data, but only 5 GBs of data has changed since your last snapshot, only the 5 additional GBs of snapshot data will be stored back to Amazon S3 during the current full backup run.

EC2 to S3 mysql backup diagram

ZRM automatically deletes EBS snapshots (containing full backups of MySQL) according to the configured retention policy. Just like other snapshot based full backups, ZRM intelligently correlates EBS Snapshots with incremental backups using MySQL logs, enabling you to recover your MySQL instances running on EC2 to any point in time.

Backups made using EBS snapshots can be recovered on the original EC2 instance or on a new EC2 instance. This also provides a quick and convenient mechanism to instantiate new MySQL database servers based on the database state from a desired point-in-time.

ZRM can run on the same EC2 instance as the MySQL database. On the other hand, if you have multiple EC2 instances with MySQL databases, you can run ZRM on one centralized EC2 instance dedicated for backup purposes. In this case, backup configuration and management for all MySQL databases is performed via Zmanda Management Console from this centralized backup server.

We have created an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) with ZRM pre-configured. This makes implementation of a MySQL backup solution on the cloud even simpler. We have used the “EC2 Small Instance” - which is powerful enough to backup most MySQL workloads in the cloud. This also makes it a very cost-effective option. This AMI is available to all ZRM customers, as part of the ZRM Enterprise subscription. You will need to create your own Amazon EC2 account, and pay standard per hour price to Amazon to run an instance based on this AMI. Note that you can configure your backup server instance to run only during the backup window. So, if you are backing up your databases once a week, and your backups takes less than an hour, then you can have this instance up only during that hour. EC2 pricing is per instance-hour consumed from the time an instance is launched until it is terminated. Each partial instance-hour consumed will be billed as a full hour. In addition to the EC2 compute capacity, you will pay standard storage charges for Amazon S3 (to store EBS Snapshots).

Join us on January 28th for a webinar on MySQL Backups (hosted by Sun/MySQL). Along with an introduction to Zmanda Recovery Manager, we will also discuss backing up MySQL applications on the cloud, and demonstrate the new ZRM AMI.

Posted in Chander Kant, Cloud Backup, LAMP, MySQL Backup and Recovery, Open Source | No Comments »

Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Amanda Enterprise: IT Manager’s Backup Solution

January 14th, 2010

A backup server represents a very important component of any IT infrastructure. red hat logoYou need to pick the right components to implement a scalable, robust and secure backup server. The choice of the operating system has crucial implications. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) provides many of the features needed from an ideal OS for a backup server. Some of these include:

Virtualization: RHEL includes a modern hypervisor (Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor) based on the Kernel-Based Virtual Machine (KVM) technology.  Amanda backup server can be run as a virtual machine on this hypervisor. This virtual backup server can be brought up as needed. This provides optimal resource management, e.g. you can bring up the backup server just at the time of backup window or for restores. A virtualized backup server also makes it much more flexible to change the resource levels depending on the business needs, e.g. if more oomph is needed from the backup server prior to a data center move.

High I/O Throughput: Backup server represents huge I/Os, typically characterized by large sequential writes. RHEL, both as real and virtual system, provides high I/O throughput needed for a backup server workload. RHEL 5 allows for switching I/O schedulers on-the-fly. So, a backup administrator can fine tune I/O activity to match with higher level function (e.g. write-heavy backups vs. read-heavy restores).

Security: Securing a backup server is critical in any overall IT security planning. In a targeted attack, a backup server provides a juicy target because data that is deemed to be important by an organization can be had from one place. Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) in RHEL implements a variety of security policies, including U.S. Department of Defense style mandatory access controls, through the use of Linux Security Modules (LSM) in the Linux kernel. Amanda supports RHEL SELinux configuration. It allows users to run backup server in a secure environment.

Scalable Storage: Storage technologies built into RHEL provide scalability needed from backup storage. The Ext3 filesytem supports up to 16TB file systems. Logical Volume Manager (LVM) allows for backup storage on a pool of devices which can be added to when needed. System administrators can also leverage Global File System (GFS) to provide backup server direct access to data to be backed up, by-passing the production network.

Compatibility: RHEL is found on compatibility matrix of any modern secondary storage device - whether it be a tape drive, tape library or a NAS device. RHEL also supports wide variety of SAN architectures, including iSCSI and Fibre Channel. This, along with Amanda’s use of native drivers to access secondary media, gives IT managers the widest choice in the market for devices to store backup archives.

Manageability: Easy update mechanism, e.g. using yum, from Redhat Network makes it easier for the administrator to keep the backup server updated with latest fixes (including security patches). Amanda depends on some of the system libraries and tools to perform backup and recovery operations. A system administrator can pare down a RHEL environment to only have bare-minimum set of packages needed for Amanda, and then use RHN to keep these packages up-to-date.

Long Retention Lifecycle: Many organizations need to retain their backup archives for several years due to business or compliance reasons. Each version of RHEL comes with seven year support. This combined with open formats used by Amanda Enterprise makes it practical for IT managers to have real long-term retention policies, with a confidence to be able to recover their data several years from now.

starbucks coffee
In summary, if you are in the process of making a choice for your backup server, RHEL should certainly be in the short-list for operating systems, and (yes, we are biased) Amanda in the short-list for backup software.  We will discuss this combination in detail in a webinar on January 21st. Red Hat is warming up this webinar by offering a $10 Starbucks card for every attendee. Join us!

Posted in Chander Kant, Network Backup and Recovery, Open Source | No Comments »

Windows XP -> Cloud -> Windows 7

November 23rd, 2009

We recently added support for Windows 7 to both Zmanda Cloud Backup and Amanda Enterprise. Zmanda Cloud Backup stores its backup archives on the Amazon S3 Storage Cloud. Amanda Enterprise has the option to do so. Users can backup both the Windows file systems and system state, as well as various Microsoft applications, Oracle and MySQL databases. Now we support all Windows versions supported by Microsoft, including Windows 7.

To upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7, Microsoft recommends users to backup their Windows XP to external hard disk and then install Windows 7. Backup to (and Restore from) Cloud offers another alternative, which we have tested in our labs.

xp to win7 diagram

If you have your backups (either created by ZCB or Amanda Enterprise) in the cloud, you can upgrade to Windows 7 and restore file system after Windows 7 installation. The system state backup includes application state that can be restored to an alternate location and restored selectively to Windows 7. As an added benefit, your data will be preserved in an off-site secure location until the time you are sure your new environment is stable.

Posted in Chander Kant, Cloud Backup, Network Backup and Recovery, Paddy Sreenivasan | No Comments »

StorageTek SL500 and Amanda Enterprise: Modular Approach to Backup

November 4th, 2009

One of the challenges that IT managers face is correctly sizing their backup infrastructure.  This is especially the case when deciding on a tape library. Fork-lift upgrades of tape libraries can be particularly expensive and cumbersome.

Amanda Enterprise supports disk, tape changers and cloud as the backup media and allows tapes and cloud as the tertiary media. The backup images can be vaulted to tertiary media for  archival or off site storage for disaster recovery. One of the popular tape libraries used with Amanda Enterprise is the Sun StorageTek SL500. SL500 is a rack mounted, scalable tape library system.  The Sun StorageTek SL500 scales from 30 cartridge slots to 575 slots with a capacity of more than 200 terabytes of uncompressed data. The Sun StorageTek SL500 library accommodates up to 18 tape drives with an uncompressed data throughput of more than 5 terabytes per hour.  A SL500 library connected to Amanda server provides a reliable backup tape library to which Amanda can push multiple backup streams reducing the backup window.

We recently worked with Sun’s integration lab to formally certify SL500 with Amanda Enterprise. We did intensive testing both for stability and scalability. Our work also resulted in an installation and configuration document for Amanda configuration (free registration required to download the paper) with FC connected SL500 tape library.  Amanda Enterprise with Zmanda Management Console makes configuration of SL500 for backup and recovery easy. Amanda Enterprise can use the available throughput to SL500 and perform parallel backups to reduce the backup window.

First Advantage SafeRent is an Amanda Enterprise user who use Storage Tek SL500 tape library backups. Their SL500 tape library has six tape drives with 254 slots connected to Amanda server using a FC switch. First Advantage backs up Microsoft Exchange, SQL Server and other filesystem data to the SL500 library.

We have designed and priced Amanda Enterprise to scale to customers needs. Combination of Amanda Enterprise with the SL500 tape library provides a seamlessly scalable backup solution - from perspectives of both the IT and Finance departments.

Posted in Network Backup and Recovery, Paddy Sreenivasan, Solaris Backup and Archiving | No Comments »

Transitioning to the Cloud: Implications for Reliability, Redundancy and Recoverability

July 29th, 2009

Last week we had a lively panel discussion moderated by Dave Nielsen, founder of CloudCamp, with leading experts in cloud computing on the panel: Chander Kant (CEO, Zmanda) & Michael Crandell (CEO, RightScale). Chander and Michael shared their insights into how their customers are using cloud computing and achieving new levels of reliability and recoverability. Here is a video archive of the panel. 

This panel discusses how you can migrate your apps and data to the cloud in a way that’s affordable and reliable and how to integrate the cloud into your IT strategy. Also hear about real-world examples of companies using the cloud for data backup and recovery and understand the hurdles to moving to the cloud, and how you can overcome them.

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Posted in Cloud Backup, MySQL Backup and Recovery | No Comments »

Our price increased today. Now we are one-tenth the cost of Symantec.

July 10th, 2009

Today we increased price for the Amanda Enterprise Backup Server. The new price for our Standard subscription level is $500 per year. Our online store is a place to quickly checkout prices for all our products on a single page. This price increase was done in conjunction with release of Amanda Enterprise 3.0, which represents several man years of R&D on the backup server, including advanced media management such as D2D2T. Our subscription provides access to software and enterprise-class support.

Amanda Enterprise is used by businesses of all shapes and sizes. But a typical scenario is the following:

  • Backup Server on Linux
  • One tape library with one or two tape drives. Or VTL on a NAS device.
  • A mix of Linux & Windows servers and desktops to be protected
  • A mix of applications (e.g. Exchange) and databases (e.g. MySQL or Postgres) to be protected
  • Encryption on the server to protect data at rest

In above scenario, customers often consider NetBackup from Symantec as a potential product. Lets compare the new Amanda Enterprise pricing with NetBackup pricing.

First of all, finding prices for NetBackup for a particular configuration is a harrowing experience. There is no place on Symantec website which provides prices for all NetBackup options and features in one consolidated location. Rumor has it that the internal licensing guide for NetBackup is more than 40 pages long!

The least expensive way to buy NetBackup is one of the “Starter Packs”. Their 5 client starter pack with 1 NetBackup server and 1 tape drive license costs $3995. This price does not include any support. Maintenance is priced separately: $720 per year (similar support level to our Standard subscription). This restricts NetBackup server to “Tier 1 and Tier 2″ systems. Tiering is one of the several confusing aspects of Symantec pricing. If your backup server has four or more CPUs, you are out of luck on the Starter Packs. A la carte pricing for NetBackup server and clients is significantly more expensive. A standard NetBackup server for a Tier 3 Linux server lists at $3200 + maintenance contract. Amanda Enterprise Servers or Clients have no tiered pricing. You can choose as hefty a server as your requirements dictate and pay us the same standard price.

Encryption on the backup server is a desired option for IT managers. This protects critical data at rest (or in transit - e.g. when a backup tape is being transferred to a remote location) from unauthorized access. By encrypting on the backup server, you relieve the CPUs on production clients from the burden of encryption. With Netbackup you need to buy the Media Server Encryption Option - list price for which is $10K+ (and this does not include the maintenance cost). Encryption is a built-in feature of the Amanda Enterprise Server.

Per Library Charge: NetBackup’s pricing options for Tape Drives and Tape Libraries is at best confusing. The starter pack above gives access to one tape drive. If you want to use another tape drive in a tape library, you need to buy a Tape Library Option for $3K list price. (And again, that does not include maintenance.). You can drive as many Tape Drives and Libraries you want from a single Amanda Enterprise server.

Want to use a VTL? You need to buy NetBackup Standard Disk or Enterprise Disk option. Standard Disk option is $995 for up to 1TB of data protected. Symantec doesn’t even pass the savings of data compression to you. (On top of that, you guessed it right, that does not include maintenance.). Amanda Enterprise has a built-in capability of transforming disk into virtual tapes. You can also use a VTL of your choice, with no additional cost.

This recent blog gives more color on NetBackup Licensing (Note: We don’t have any affiliation with this blog or its author).

In summary, a $500 Standard subscription for the Amanda Enterprise gives you a backup server which runs on any Tier server, including a Linux or a Solaris server, which can backup to as many tape drives and libraries you want - including VTLs, with server side encryption support, unlimited disk based backup, and vaulting (D2D2T) support. You will not get anything close to that for $5K from Symantec.

How are we able to do this? Our open source development, marketing and distribution model allows us to innovate aggressively with a huge community of developers and users providing extensive feedback on a regular basis. Proprietary software companies spend 60% to 80% of their budget on sales and marketing (Source: Time for a New Software Model), and these costs are passed on to the customers. We have a different equation. Our freely downloadable community editions represent the bulk of our marketing budget. This marketing budget is spent in the form of R&D to innovate and add features and usability to both our community and enterprise editions. So, instead of paying for sales and marketing overhead of proprietary backup software companies, you only pay for the R&D which provides direct benefit to you.

Symantec’s excessive use of tiering, options, different licensing models, components, and packs can be mind numbing for a hapless IT manager just looking to protect their systems and applications. This Doonesbury strip captures Symantec’s nickeling-and-diming pricing strategy for their backup software:

Posted in Chander Kant, MySQL Backup and Recovery, Network Backup and Recovery, Open Source | No Comments »

Backup Zen

April 20th, 2009

ZenOne of the questions that comes up often in the Backup world is “Why can’t I just write a script to do this myself!?”. Well, as a do-it-yourselfer myself, the answer is “Absolutely, a customized backup script can be written, and in fact, the first version of it won’t be that complicated to develop either”. However, a home-grown backup script can quickly become tedious to enhance and maintain.

Lets look at the progression of events following a decision made by a system administrator or a DBA to develop their own backup scripts. Lets take the example of Joe, a MySQL Database Administrator at an e-commerce company SuperWidgets:

1. January: SuperWidgets has been around for one year, and sales of their super widgets have been increasing. The CEO of SuperWidgets, Mary, has faced serious consequences of losing customer data before, and she tells Joe to make sure their MySQL database, which powers their web store, is being backed up.

2. Joe starts looking at ways to backup the web store database (running on Red Hat Linux), and discovers various tools that came with his MySQL installation: mysqldump, mysqlhotcopy and MySQL replication. After spending a couple of days of doing research on various tools, he decides to use the mysqlhotcopy utility to make a quick raw backup of the database.

3. Joe begins digging into the syntax for mysqlhotcopy, and in a day has a script running under cronjob which performs a backup of the web store database at midnight every day.

4. February: SuperWidgets uses Windows as the development platform for their web applications. One morning, Tom the database developer finds that a filesystem level corruption had taken out his database. He used mirroring, but since the corruption was logical rather than physical, both copies are damaged beyond repair. This causes a downtime of two days for the development team. Mary instructs Joe to make sure that all three databases on the development platform are also backed up.

5. Joe discovers that mysqlhotcopy doesn’t work on Windows. So, after doing further research, he writes a custom script to use mysqldump for backing up the development databases nightly via Windows Task Scheduler.

6. Since MySQL database backup has become a hot button for Mary, Joe starts monitoring the status of each of his MySQL backup scripts. He periodically logs onto each of the five systems where MySQL instances are being backed up by his scripts and makes sure that archives were successfully created the previous night.

7. March: SuperWidgets decides to use Alfresco as the Content Management System (CMS) for an internal project, with MySQL as the underlying database. Tom is in charge of the Alfresco implementation. The data stored in this CMS is sensitive and important. Mary gives Tom the responsibility of backing up and, when needed, restoring the CMS data.

8. Joe ports one of his backup scripts to the system running CMS, and trains Tom on nuances of feeding and caring for his script.

9. April: Tom upgrades his MySQL database and discovers that one of the options for mysqldump has changed, causing the backup scripts to fail. He fixes the script to work with the new mysqldump syntax.

9. May: The business of SuperWidgets has gone through the roof. But, one afternoon the webstore is brought to its knees because of an application error causing database to have inconsistent data. Fortunately, Joe’s script worked and he is able to recover the database using an archive from the previous night. Unfortunately, this meant that the transaction data of hundreds of customers since last night is lost. This forced Mary and rest of the management team to take several actions to manage reputation of now well known SuperWidgets.

10. As a result, Joe is instructed to ensure that MySQL can be recovered to any point-in-time, rather than just to the previous night’s status. Also, he has been instructed to send a high-level summary of MySQL backups to the management on a weekly basis. He has also been asked to look at reducing the amount of time the MySQL database is locked up while backups were being done. To add to Joe’s woes, Tom has decided to leave the organization. Joe must now takeover the backup of the CMS. Joe discovers that Tom has modified the original backup scripts for CMS without providing any documentation.

Joe’s situation is not atypical and shows how a Backup solution involves more than just putting a simple script around a utility which makes copy of data. For workloads of even moderate importance, any organization will find the need for cataloging of backup archives, monitoring and reporting to be vital. A common user interface across various backup methods, which is easy for new personnel to learn, has a huge long-term value as well. This is precisely where our backup solutions come in. Specifically for MySQL, our Zmanda Recovery Manager offers a great solution to Joe’s woes, by providing:

- An intelligent MySQL backup solution which figures out the best way to backup a particular MySQL database
- A common user interface across all platforms, whether they are Linux, Solaris or Windows
- A common user interface across all backup methods, whether they are raw backups, logical backups or snapshot based backups
- Integration between backup methods (e.g. snapshots) and MySQL logs to be able to recover MySQL to any point in time
- Role based access control, enabling management and DBAs to have control over who has access to what data
- A centralized backup solution, enabling a quick and automated health check of the entire backup infrastructure
- A customizable Reporting module, enabling automated reporting for desired levels of details

Zen InnovationsOne of Zmanda’s customers, Zen Innovations, initially backed up their data using scripts and manual backup procedures, but soon found that this was not scalable, and opted for Zmanda’s backup solutions. According to Sergio Laberer, Managing Director of Zen Innovations: “Zmanda’s ability to manage multiple platforms over a web based GUI was exactly what we were looking for. Our initial manual processes, scripts and cron jobs quickly started to get complicated as we grew our infrastructure. We needed to do backups regularly and be in a position to recover quickly without too much manual intervention. Our initial approach was neither scalable nor suitable to work efficiently.”

Posted in Chander Kant, MySQL Backup and Recovery | No Comments »

Sun Heats Up Cloud Storage

March 18th, 2009

Today Sun announced the Sun Cloud, including its Sun Cloud Storage Service at CommunityOne East in New York. We announced our partnership with Sun on integrating all our three products: Amanda Enterprise, Zmanda Recovery Manager (ZRM) for MySQL and Zmanda Cloud Backup with Sun Cloud. In near future, our customers will be able to chose between Sun Cloud Storage or Amazon S3 as the destination of their backup archives. Also, users running critical application on the Sun Cloud Compute Service will be able to protect their data using Zmanda’s products.

Sun CloudOf particular interest to us is Sun’s approach to use open and well defined APIs for their cloud services. We got access to Sun Cloud Storage Service (SCSS) few weeks ago. We are able to use either an S3 Compatible API or a WebDAV API for integration. We chose to use S3 APIs for integrating with Amanda, and WebDAV API for integrating with ZRM. In the short-term, these APIs made it easy for us to do the integration. In the long-term, this open architecture will result in rapid innovation. As an industry, open APIs enable us to stand on each other’s shoulders (rather than step on each other’s toes by developing closed solutions from scratch which have overlapping components).

This marks key next step in Zmanda’s cloud backup strategy. We are integrating with storage clouds using an open Cloud API, which is extension of our Device API. We will be the link between on-premises data and any storage cloud of customer’s choice.

Cloud backup space is certainly heating up, and Sun added its warmth to the space today.

Posted in Chander Kant, Cloud Backup, MySQL Backup and Recovery | No Comments »

Cloud Backup II

February 24th, 2009

In my previous blog on Cloud Backup, I wrote about the solutions we offer to backup to the Storage Cloud (e.g. Amazon S3). In this blog I will talk about backup of cloud, i.e. backup of your applications running on a Compute Cloud (e.g. Amazon EC2).

Let’s say you are migrating some on-premises applications (e.g. a customer facing enterprise app), which are currently being backed up to a tape library, to the cloud (fig 1).
Applications migrating to the cloud

Clouds don’t have a notion of a local tape library. So, your current backup solution will likely not work after this migration.

Backup of Apps on Clouds?So, where do you backup? Note that Compute Cloud vendors do not offer automatic backups. While they may offer storage redundancy features, e.g. replication and snapshots, these are not replacement for a complete backup solution.

You still need backup archives and a backup catalog for those archives to be able to recover from user and application errors. Just like RAID is not a backup solution for on-premises data, storage redundancy features offered by cloud vendors don’t provide a backup solution either. In summary, an automated backup solution is a must-have regardless of where the applications are running: on-premises or in the cloud. Well this is where Zmanda comes into play. We offer three choices as destination for backup of data residing in applications on the cloud(fig 3):

Backup of Apps on Clouds1. Backup to a local Storage Cloud - e.g. Amazon S3 if your applications are running on EC2. This is great option from a cost or performance perspective, but not so great from spreading-your-risk perspective.

2. Backup to a remote cloud. This requires having relationships with two different cloud vendors, but reduces your risks the most.

3. Backup to disks on your premises. This requires local infrastructure, but gives you complete control of your backup archives.

All three of our products: Amanda Enterprise, ZRM for MySQL, and Zmanda Cloud Backup are tested and supported on virtual machines running on the cloud.

So, today you can buy these products and run them on a virtual machine of your choice (as long as it runs an operating system from our compatibility matrix). In near future, we will be shipping virtual appliances which can be run either in your data center or in the cloud. So, lets say you bought and run few VMs in the cloud to run a set of your applications. In order to backup these applications, you will simply buy a Zmanda Backup Appliance (which will be another VM in the same cloud), and quickly configure this appliance to know about your application VMs and the destination for your archives. You don’t have to worry about dependencies, installation issues or optimizing the OS for backup purposes.

Currently we are working actively with Novell and VMware to build our first backup appliance. Novell today announced its partnership with VMware to build SUSE Linux Enterprise Appliances on VMware ESX. We are very excited about this development. SLES is already in Tier 1 of operating systems we test and support. We have hundreds of customers running Amanda Enterprise on SLES (e.g. Zen Innovations). Several of our customers protect guest OS’es running on ESX. We are now polishing up this combination to create an appliance-like experience, presented on a browser via Zmanda Management Console.

Reasons to migrate your applications to cloud are to increase efficiency and to dramatically reduce your IT costs. Our virtual backup appliances will help you with both of these goals.

Posted in Chander Kant, Cloud Backup, MySQL Backup and Recovery | No Comments »

Cloud Backup

February 17th, 2009

Today we made two major announcements: Amanda Enterprise 3.0 and GA of Zmanda Cloud Backup. We announced the release of several cloud backup features and optimizations as part of these product offerings.

When we say “Cloud Backup”, we mean two things:

1. Backup to Cloud: Backup of your on-premises data to a Storage Cloud (e.g. Amazon S3)
2. Backup of Cloud: Backup of your applications running on a Compute Cloud (e.g. Amazon EC2)

We offer solutions for both of above. In this blog, I will focus on Backup to Cloud.

Storage Clouds offer an excellent alternative to tapes or optical media for off-site backup storage. Your data is stored off-site and yet is on-line. You can initiate a recovery anytime and from anywhere, as long as you have internet access and your access credentials. You pay only for how much storage and bandwidth you use, and don’t have to invest in local tape infrastructure. Also, even as a small business you get have a profile of a much larger vendor (Tier 1 Storage Cloud vendors spend millions of dollars to ensure robustness of their infrastructure).

We have two different products to securely transfer your backup data to a storage cloud: Integration of Amanda Enterprise with Amazon S3 and Zmanda Cloud Backup.

These two products meet different needs:

Amanda Enterprise network diagram

If you would like to consolidate backup of a heterogeneous set of systems, including those running Solaris, Linux, Windows and OS-X, and then ship this consolidated backup to the storage cloud, our Amanda Enterprise (AE) 3.0 release is optimized for this. We added some key cloud optimizations in AE 3.0:

  • Cloud Vaulting: We allow you to backup to your local media and then vault to the storage cloud on its own independent schedule.
  • Transfer Block Size control: We allow you to control the size of your block transferred to Amazon S3. So far we had it pegged to 10MB. But now depending on your uplink speed and quality, you can pick a transfer block size of anywhere between 1KB and 100MB. So, if you have a fat and reliable pipe and you are not too many hops away from your storage cloud, you can use a much bigger block to get better performance. On the other hand, if you are stuck behind an unreliable pipe you can use a small block size to avoid retries.
  • Location control: We now enable an Amanda administrator to chose between storage cloud in US or Europe as destination for their storage. So, if you are in Europe and would like to backup to a US data center for disaster recovery, you can instruct AE to do so. Or if your country doesn’t allow certain kind of data to leave EU boundaries for compliance purposes, you can restrict the backup location to Europe.
  • Built-in Integrity Check: We do an integrity check on each block transferred to S3. So, any data corruption on transit will be caught right away.
  • Optional Encryption: Until now encryption during data transfer was hard-coded, i.e. you didn’t have a choice but to have your data encrypted during transfer to the storage cloud. We had done so to address the data privacy concern while transferring backup data over the Internet. Well, we got feedback that in many conditions the data being transferred was public data (e.g. postings on a forum). It was important data for business owner for protection, but there was no privacy concern about this data. In this case, the administrator wanted the fastest possible transfer and not incur the overhead of encryption. So, we decided to make encryption while transfer optional. Note that this is independent of encryption of data at rest - which is a configurable parameter on its own.

Zmanda Cloud Backup DiagramZmanda Cloud Backup (ZCB) is our offering designed for small businesses with a handful of Windows servers. It creates a direct link between a single Windows system and Storage Cloud. There is no backup server required. ZCB provides a very simple to use interface and configured automated backup of Windows file systems and applications. It is integrated with Exchange, SQL Server and Oracle using Volume Shadow Copy Service - so, it can backup these applications while they are running. You only pay for actual data transfered and stored (in addition to a small one-time software fees). So, if your data gets compressed 70%, you only pay for 30% of data size being backed up. This is in contrast to other online backup services such as Mozy Pro which charge on the basis of amount of data being backed up.

Also, in contrast to most other backup services, ZCB allows you to set up a retention policy of your choice. So, you can have a retention policy of a month, a year, or seven years (or any other timeframe). You can base this retention policy based on business needs, including any compliance needs.

In addition to file systems and applications, ZCB also backs up and recovers Windows System State (including Active Directory). This enables you to do a bare metal recovery, in case you lose your entire system.

Some leading journalists and bloggers today covered our Cloud Backup news:

BTW, we continue to adhere to our open standards and open formats philosophy. ZCB stores data on the cloud in ZIP64 format. So, any utility which understands this format can extract your files from the archive.

Posted in Chander Kant, Cloud Backup, Network Backup and Recovery | 1 Comment »

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