ESG Lab Validation Actifio CDS Nov 2013

Lab Validation Report Actifio’s Copy Data Storage Platform Simple and Efficient Copy Data Management

By Vinny Choinski, Senior Lab Analyst and Kerry Dolan, Lab Analyst

November 2013

© 2013 by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Lab Validation: Actifio’s Copy Data Storage Platform 2


Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................................ 3 Background .............................................................................................................................................................. 3 Actifio Copy Data Storage Platform ......................................................................................................................... 4

ESG Lab Validation ...................................................................................................................................... 7 Manageability .......................................................................................................................................................... 7 Functionality .......................................................................................................................................................... 12 Automated Copy Data Workflows ......................................................................................................................... 16 Efficiency ................................................................................................................................................................ 21

ESG Lab Validation Highlights ................................................................................................................... 24

Issues to Consider ..................................................................................................................................... 24

The Bigger Truth ....................................................................................................................................... 25

Appendix ................................................................................................................................................... 26

All trademark names are property of their respective companies. Information contained in this publication has been obtained by sources The Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) considers to be reliable but is not warranted by ESG. This publication may contain opinions of ESG, which are subject to change from time to time. This publication is copyrighted by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. Any reproduction or redistribution of this publication, in whole or in part, whether in hard-‐copy format, electronically, or otherwise to persons not authorized to receive it, without the express consent of The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc., is in violation of U.S. copyright law and will be subject to an action for civil damages and, if applicable, criminal prosecution. Should you have any questions, please contact ESG Client Relations at 508.482.0188.Introduction

ESG Lab Reports

The goal of ESG Lab reports is to educate IT professionals about data center technology products for companies of all types and sizes. ESG Lab reports are not meant to replace the evaluation process that should be conducted before making purchasing decisions, but rather to provide insight into these emerging technologies. Our objective is to go over some of the more valuable feature/functions of products, show how they can be used to solve real customer problems, and identify any areas needing improvement. ESG Lab’s expert third-‐party perspective is based on our own hands-‐on testing as well as on interviews with customers who use these products in production environments. This ESG Lab report was sponsored by Actifio.



Introduction This ESG Lab Validation report explores hands-‐on testing and validation of the Actifio Copy Data Storage Platform (CDS), focusing on the manageability, functionality, business agility, and efficiency that CDS brings to the management of copy data for multiple purposes.

Background

For the fourth year in a row, IT professionals responding to ESG’s annual IT spending intentions research survey cite improving backup and recovery, increasing the use of server virtualization, and managing data growth among their most important IT priorities for the year (see Figure 1). 1 These individual challenges often merge to create a combined headache for IT: virtual servers complicate the data protection landscape, causing backup and recovery systems to struggle under the weight of constant data growth. Other priorities that appeared in the top ten responses include desktop virtualization, deploying new mobile applications, BC/DR, and business intelligence/analytics; these also contribute to growing data volumes that drive up storage and management costs.

Figure 1. Top-‐ten Most Important IT Priorities

Source: Enterprise Strategy Group, 2013.

1 Source: ESG Research Report, 2013 IT Spending Intentions Survey, January 2013.

20%

20%

20%

20%

20%

22%

22%

22%

24%

25%

26%

27%

29%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%

Business intelligence/data analyfcs inifafves

Business confnuity/disaster recovery programs

Regulatory compliance inifafves

Improve collaborafon capabilifes

Deploying applicafons on or for new mobile devices

Major applicafon deployments or upgrades

Use cloud infrastructure services

Desktop virtualizafon

Data center consolidafon

Manage data growth

Increased use of server virtualizafon

Improve data backup and recovery

Informafon security inifafves

Which of the following would you consider to be your organizaDon’s most important IT prioriDes over the next 12 months? (Percent of respondents, N=540, ten responses

accepted)



Actifio Copy Data Storage Platform

Actifio CDS is an enterprise information management platform purpose-‐built to manage copies of production data to eliminate redundant silos of data and infrastructure. Deployed in either virtual or physical appliance form or delivered as a service from one of Actifio’s Cloud Service Provider partners, Actifio CDS enables organizations to shrink their storage footprint and reuse an application copy for multiple purposes. A single copy can serve various business requirements including backup, disaster recovery, business continuity, dev/test, and analytics. Organizations are able to eliminate duplicate tools and deliver on all these requirements from Actifio’s SLA-‐based management interface, built on top of the patented Virtual Data Pipeline (VDP) file system technology.

Actifio virtualizes the final and most important element of the data center: the data itself. Companies like VMware revolutionized the compute environment by virtualizing x86 systems, which enables dramatically lower hardware and management costs while improving scalability, workload mobility, and growth management. Actifio CDS does much the same for copy data, which consumes more IT resources and effort. By virtualizing the management of copy data, Actifio CDS consolidates multiple infrastructure silos, drives new levels of information agility, and reduces storage and bandwidth costs. With Actifio, data is ingested rapidly and virtual copies are available nearly instantly, regardless of data size.

Actifio captures changes to production data and stores them for multi-‐purpose reuse. Data protection, dev/test, analytics, archiving, and disaster recovery all have different retention, access, and infrastructure requirements, yet they all execute the same basic functions: copy, store, move, and restore. This list describes how Actifio CDS handles these functions.

• Copy. VDP virtualizes the capture of production data using a device-‐independent snapshot with change block tracking, eliminating any operational interruption for data protection.

• Store. Blocks are stored as objects in a virtualized storage pool, along with their associated application, time of creation/change, and SLA information. To accommodate all SLAs, VDP stores data in raw format for fast restore, or in an optimized, deduplicated, compressed format for long-‐term retention.

• Move. Data can be transported offsite for BC/DR using Actifio DeDup Async, which deduplicates, compresses, and WAN-‐optimizes data to minimize network and storage resources.

• Restore. When data is needed, Actifio CDS instantly presents it in the appropriate application format to the server, maintaining temporal and causal relationships. In the restore operation, Actifio CDS serves much like a high-‐performance storage controller. The point-‐in-‐time data can be immediately accessed by the application, eliminating restore windows independent of the size of the data.

Similarly to how VMware virtualized x86 primitives, Actifio CDS virtualizes those basic data management functions to eliminate redundancies while improving IT’s responsiveness. As a result, organizations can eliminate many expensive tools required for both enterprise resiliency and business agility such as backup software and purpose-‐built backup/deduplication appliances, array-‐based snapshots, replication tools, WAN compression/accelerators, specialized dev/test environments, archival tools, and the storage required to store copy data in each one of these data management silos. Actifio CDS deduplicates (globally) and compresses data in the background, eliminating the need for deduplication appliances and WAN optimization tools. Encrypted and deduplicated data transport provides security and network optimization, and data can be instantly mounted or incrementally restored for business continuity.

SLA-‐driven Platform

Actifio is application-‐centric, automatically discovering applications and managing data throughout its lifecycle according to SLAs configured in the software interface. The Actifio CDS platform comes deployed on industry-‐standard x86 servers in a scale-‐out configuration that can manage up to 8PB of deduplicated data in a redundant, fault-‐tolerant configuration; a storage hypervisor that virtualizes Actifio Integrated Storage, or any vendor’s storage capacity (including cloud storage) into a single pool; and a distributed, object-‐based file system (VDP). VDP enables



instant creation of virtual, point-‐in-‐time, read/write data copies that can be used for any purpose. Licensing for Actifio CDS is based on the capacity of the source data. In addition, a mobile application for smartphones and tablets enables IT administrators to monitor the Actifio CDS from any location.

Figure 2 demonstrates a common Actifio CDS deployment. CDS appliances are attached to local production storage and to offsite storage. Actifio CDS auto-‐discovers any virtual or physical applications in the SAN. A single, deduplicated, compressed copy of data is then used for data protection and high availability at either site.

Figure 2. Actifio CDS Solution Overview

Dev/Test Workflows

Actifio version 6.0 and later includes an automated copy data workflow, ideal for dev/test, which ensures quick and easy access to the most current production data by leveraging the Actifio VDP for virtual copies that minimizes storage capacity. Through direct integration, Actifio can discover Oracle, SQL Server, and SAP environments, and Actifio services can be invoked from within these frameworks. Actifio can automatically create a virtual copy of the latest backup and mount it to any number of development servers. Options include:

• Direct Mount—individual virtual copies of the latest backup can be automatically refreshed every night and then mounted to each development host.

• LiveClone—a LiveClone can be created from a backup snapshot and refreshed with incremental changes according to a configurable schedule to remain in sync with production data. Individual LiveClone “layers” are then presented to any number of development hosts; small containers at each host capture writes that are consolidated within Actifio later.

The automated workflow can include staging the database to run scripts such as for data masking, and then un-‐mounting the previous database, mounting the new one, and starting it up. If Actifio is in the data path (in-‐band),



Actifio copy tools are used, while if Actifio is out-‐of-‐band, it leverages native Oracle, SQL Server, and SAP database copy tools for the initial copy.

This workflow eliminates the time and process obstacles that traditional methods use, and creates the foundation for self-‐service in which developers and/or DBAs can configure their own workflows. Configuring a workflow takes only a few minutes, and workflows can be scheduled to run automatically. As a result, developers can access and work on daily refreshed copies of the database, regardless of the size of the database or number of developers. Figure 3 shows the initial screen for setting up a workflow.

Figure 3. Automated Workflow

Cloud Service Provider Benefits

The new workflows can also be helpful for service providers, enabling them to offer additional copy data services in the cloud without having to provide identical infrastructure resources. Data protection is a common cloud service, and with Actifio, service providers can leverage the infrastructure they have in place, as well as the protected data they are storing, to deliver agility-‐oriented services like dev/test data management and analytics. Process automation dramatically simplifies the service delivery, and role-‐based controls enable a unique view for any administrator from any customer, including controlled access for DBAs and developers themselves.



ESG Lab Validation ESG Lab performed hands-‐on evaluation and testing of the CDS system at Actifio’s facilities in Waltham, Massachusetts. The goal of testing was to understand the manageability, functionality, agility, and efficiency of the CDS solution.

Manageability

IT administrators leveraging Actifio to monitor and maintain an IT infrastructure are looking for ease of use. This includes the ability to keep the infrastructure performing well, while running smoothly and securely. Actifio provides the “Actifio Desktop,” which serves as a management portal for everything that interacts with the CDS appliance.

ESG Lab Testing

The product validation began with an overview of where the CDS appliance fits inside an IT infrastructure, and included a walkthrough of the installation process. The CDS system chosen for the ESG Lab test is shown in Figure 4. Two CDS appliances, one local and one remote, were deployed and connected through a WAN. Installations were performed at each site to create a redundant, fault-‐tolerant solution. The CDS Appliance was configured to protect both virtual and physical servers using SAN-‐based storage.

Figure 4. ESG Lab Test Bed

After deployment and installation, ESG Lab moved to ease of management. The power of the Actifio software was immediately apparent. Each set of CDS appliances was managed through the Actifio Desktop. The dashboard of Actifio Desktop is shown in Figure 5.

The top left side of the dashboard displays the number of applications visible to the CDS system and separates them by protection status. The middle left displays storage capacity, and on the bottom left is the total amount of protected data. The right side of the dashboard displays the system health, including errors, warnings, disk usage by pool, and both hardware and software health. The center of the dashboard displays job history for the previous 24 hours, including the number of failed jobs at the top; a breakdown of Snapshot, Dedup, Dedup Async, and Dedup Remote storage pools in the middle; and a segmented timeline at the bottom. A pie chart and numerical breakdown shows successful, failed, retried, and currently running jobs. All links in the dashboard are clickable for drill-‐down.



Figure 5. Actifio Desktop Dashboard

With a single click, ESG Lab transitioned from the dashboard to the SLA Architect. The SLA Architect leverages an SLA-‐based approach to deploying backup configurations and protection schemes. Actifio delivers these templates via an intuitive workflow diagram, making backup configuration quite easy. Though Actifio provides a library of templates, its partners can also provide their own libraries of SLA templates targeted at specific industry segments. Actifio “Organizations” can be use for role-‐based viewing and management. Figure 6 shows the Designer View of the SLA Architect. ESG Lab selected a template with a common backup schema, which was a local snapshot of primary data with local deduplication. Each step of the solution was configured by clicking one of the visible green arrows between each disk storage image. Since this schema did not include remote copies, those green arrows are not highlighted.



Figure 6. SLA Architect, Designer View

The system also enables users to create their own templates that they can apply to any application for management. Using the SLA Architect, ESG Lab created a new template (ESG_Template1). Next, the Policies tab was used to review the attributes of ESG_Template1 from the text-‐based summary view, as shown on the left side of Figure 7. In this example, ESG Lab chose to select a schema that would be commonly used in the real world. The first policy (named 2_WEEK_SNAP) configures a snapshot of primary data to be captured every two weeks and retained for two days. The second policy (8-‐HR-‐DEDUP) configures a dedup of the snapshot to be captured every eight hours and retained for seven days.

Figure 7. SLA Architect, Policies, and Schedules

Also shown in Figure 7 is the view of the Schedules tab for the month of August 2013 for this specific protection plan. The calendar can be adjusted to view monthly, weekly, or daily backup plans. This calendar shows the two policies ESG Lab configured by color: the green line shows the snapshot policy beginning on August 28th and continuing for seven days, while the blue line shows the dedup policy beginning on the same date and continuing into the next month.



Mobile App

Actifio offers a mobile application for smartphones and tablets for monitoring Actifio deployments. The app supports Apple iOS devices (Version 5 and above) and an Android app is currently in development. The swipe-‐based navigation simplifies the user interface, eliminating the need for a “back” button. ESG Lab viewed the main dashboard showing application protection status and an overview of job status at the top, with disk usage, hardware, software, and events such as errors and warnings listed on the right side (see Figure 8). A pie chart broken down by job status provides an at-‐a-‐glance view. Threshold alerts and other notifications can be configured.

All Actifio monitoring screens are available on the mobile app, including the Dashboard, Application Manager, SLA Manager, and System Monitor. ESG Lab viewed the Application Manager screen with a breakdown by application, and clicked on individual hosts to drill down for additional detail. VMware virtual machine details are imported from vCenter, and logical and/or consistency groups are supported. The Jobs Monitor screen is updated every 15 seconds with extensive detail and is searchable by host name, application, or host ID. Search, filtering, and collapsible sections provide easy access to information.

Figure 8. Mobile Application



Why This Matters Storage capacity requirements and management complexity continue to rise as user data footprints and deployed applications grow within organizations, stressing both physical and virtual resources. Managing a virtual or physical environment that is growing in size and complexity can be a difficult job. For enterprises and service providers, a pressing need for better server and storage management capabilities, including tightly integrated management tools with virtual intelligence, has never been more apparent.

ESG Lab verified the initial Actifio deployment to be quick and painless. The installation went smoothly and access to Actifio Desktop was immediate. The ability to quickly and easily create and manage backup and protection plans for individual applications was impressive. ESG Lab felt the templates provided within the SLA Architect were a solid starting point for an IT administrator at any level. The different views through the SLA Architect made the backup and protection plans clear and understandable by giving visual representations of the flow of data, as well as calendar layouts of what will be happening and when it will happen. The mobile app was easy to download from the Apple App Store and enabled ESG Lab to monitor at both overview and detail levels with simple navigation.



Functionality

Actifio hardware and software functionalities enable administrators to accomplish specific tasks in a simple and efficient way. ESG Lab evaluated the functionality and usability of the software that comes with the CDS platform.

ESG Lab Testing

ESG Lab first reviewed the process for creating and managing backup and protection plans. The next step was to verify that the backup and protection plans worked at various levels. Testing focused on using the configured snapshots for multiple restore scenarios, including a single file restore, SQL database restore, and virtual machine restore. ESG Lab used the system monitor to view and verify the successful completion of each of these jobs. ESG Lab also explored the platform’s ability to provide duplicate copies of data via instantly available Mounts or Clones.

The first restoration verification was done at a single file level. A snapshot was taken of a virtual machine drive. The data set consisted of a large number of files. Using the Actifio Desktop, ESG Lab identified a snapshot from a specific point in time, selected one of the many files, and restored it to a host system. Figure 9 shows the view from Actifio Desktop’s perspective, and from the destination host’s perspective. The top screenshot shows the file restore target (Mounted Host: thing3), all the files backed up in the selected snapshot (Benes_GDrivef072611…), and the ability to select specific files within that group to restore. The bottom of Figure 9 shows the C: drive on the destination server (thing3) for the single file restoration. Highlighted in blue is the newly restored file from the point-‐in-‐time snapshot.

Figure 9. Single File Restore



The next restoration was selected to verify the ability to back up a common business application—in this case, a Microsoft SQL database. After creating a protection plan and taking a snapshot of the application, ESG Lab deleted a table within the database. From the snapshot, ESG Lab was able to quickly and smoothly restore the table to the database and continue working. Figure 10 shows the restoration process, starting from deletion of the database table on the left to the restored state of the database on the right. Also shown in the middle of the figure is the warning presented by Actifio before a restore can take place. The warning notifies the user about her chosen type of restore process. ESG Lab chose to completely replace the primary volume, and so the Actifio software required the user to enter the words “DATA LOSS.”

Figure 10. Restoring a Microsoft SQL Database

The third restoration example deals with using a snapshot to recover a failed VM. ESG Lab used the same failure scenario—accidental deletion—as with the application recovery example. A cluster of virtual machines was being managed within a VMware vSphere Client. After one of the virtual machines (GUIVM) was backed up, ESG Lab deleted the virtual machine through the vSphere Client. Using Actifio’s software, the virtual machine was restored and powered on with no errors encountered.

The entire process is shown in Figure 11. The top three pictures show the virtual machine present, then deleted, and then present again. Also visible with each picture is the Recent Tasks list from vSphere Client to validate the tasks’ completion. Actifio uses VMware APIs to provide information to the vSphere Client in real time. The bottom left portion of the image, highlighted in the red box, shows the integration of Actifio, displaying “Create virtual machine snapshot.”



Figure 11. Restoring a VM from a Snapshot

Using the System Monitor in Actifio Desktop, ESG Lab was able to validate each successful backup and restore operation from all three aforementioned scenarios. Figure 12 shows the System Monitor view within the Actifio Desktop: the left side of the screen provides options to filter jobs by date, status, and type. Individual jobs are displayed in the main screen, which also shows the type, priority, and status of each job; the host and application affected; the policies and templates involved; and start and end times.

Figure 12. System Monitor



Having confirmed each of the restoration scenarios, ESG Lab moved to the duplication of data via Mounts and Clones. Though Mounts and Clones can be combined with the restoration scenarios, ESG Lab chose to use them as an immediate working set. Actifio’s software allows for mounting or cloning of any existing snapshot. The difference between a Mount and a Clone is simple: a Mount is a snapshot copy of the data set, and a Clone is a full copy. In either case, the data sets can be instantly presented to a selected server as a drive letter and can be deleted at any time. Figure 13 shows the screen for mounting a backup from August 28, 2013 to a new Linux VM named ESG_Test. The host and datastore are selected in gray, and a radio button has selected the virtual RDM mode. At the bottom, all volumes have been selected for mounting.

Figure 13. Mounting Snapshots to a VM

Why This Matters Data protection and disaster recovery are key areas of concern, and, given changing business requirements and larger datasets, many organizations are evaluating new ways to share, protect, manage, and access their copy data. Pressed by strict SLAs and business continuance requirements, enterprises and service providers are being pushed to back up and restore data as quickly as possible. Efficient backup and recovery solutions are required for IT administrators to effectively manage the protection of data.

ESG Lab verified the ability of Actifio CDS to quickly back up and restore under three different, but common, business scenarios: single file recovery, full database recovery, and full VM recovery. The Mount process was also easily managed, enabling administrators to easily access copies of both physical and virtual infrastructures for groups such as batch processing or data analytics.



Automated Copy Data Workflows

Databases drive numerous front-‐ and back-‐end business processes, from online transactions to financial accounting. As a result, database copies are always in demand for activities such as application development, testing, analytics, and reporting. ESG Lab tested the database copy workflow introduced in Actifio 6.0.

Application Development Challenges

Development and test activities depend on having database copies readily available. The time required to create database copies has a direct impact on the quality of development: the longer it takes, the more stale the data becomes. The traditional method of generating database copies takes multiple steps with varying SLAs for each step. A common process includes:

1. Change management request required in order to access data. Typical SLA: 1-‐2 weeks, often requiring a change management team meeting.

2. Server administrator makes data available. Typical SLA: 1 week. 3. Storage administrator provisions storage for the database copy. Typical SLA: 1 week. 4. DBA clones database with native tools, stages the database, performs pre-‐processing such as data masking,

and exports database. Typical time for 1TB database: 24+ hours.

In addition, individual copies must be made for each developer, so copying a 1TB database for five developers requires five copy jobs and 5TB of capacity. The delays in this traditional process keep applications from being produced in a timely fashion, and the amount of storage needed drives up costs. Additionally, once development is complete, there may be separate testing, user-‐acceptance, and pre-‐production environments required before the new application is rolled into production—all requiring their own copy data to function.

ESG Lab Testing

ESG Lab tested the workflow onsite at the Actifio facility in Waltham, MA. The Lab began by running a manual Direct Mount process to view the steps that the automated workflow would undertake. After selecting a 5TB Oracle database backup snapshot, ESG Lab selected the default storage pools, and then chose a host (cybermen) to mount the virtual copy to. After selecting all volumes and clicking Submit, the job began to run. The job took one minute 53 seconds to complete. After starting the virtualized database copy, ESG Lab was able to view all the tables. Next, the Lab created a new table and committed writes to it, validating the ability to write to the virtualized copy.

Next, ESG Lab executed an automated workflow for an 88GB Oracle 11g database (named esgprd) with Actifio in-‐band.2 The database included 11,406 employee records with masked social security numbers. From the Application Manager Protect tab, the Lab selected an SLA template called esgprd_oracle_inband, designed to create a snapshot every eight hours with three-‐day retention.

Next, ESG Lab created a workflow named ESG_Devop_Workflow. After clicking on the Restore tab, we selected the latest backup from a list of available backup snapshots, and clicked LiveClone. Next, we navigated to the Test & Dev tab and inserted the LiveClone Settings. These included:

• Image to use: Latest from any snapshot policy • Refresh/Mount: daily @ 6:02 am • Label: EsgOraScrub

After inserting the disk pool name, the Lab clicked Mount for Pre-‐processing and inserted the host name. Pre-‐ and post-‐processing scripts were configured (td_pre.sh and td_post.sh), to have the database mounted to a staging area where the social security numbers would be masked by replacing them with numeral ones (1) before mounting to the host.

Next, the Lab navigated to the Mount Settings screen, where we selected two hosts (206esgrrhel and 207esgrrhel) to mount the virtualized copy to. We chose the vRDM mount mode and clicked Done. The Lab then added 2,000

2 It should be noted that small databases were used to facilitate testing, while typical production databases are significantly larger.



rows to the Oracle database with the social security numbers visible, and ran a new snapshot to include these changes.

ESG Lab then started the workflow. The LiveClone was created and refreshed with incremental changes. ESG Lab was able to view the process of each task as the LiveClone was created, the database was staged, data masking was completed, and the database was mounted to the host and started.

Figure 14 shows three screens visible during the workflow process. In the top screen, ESG Lab used the bars on the right to select the backup from which to create a copy; the gray bars represent individual backups, with the green bar being the most recent backup. The middle screen shows the LiveClone settings, and the bottom screen shows the green checkmarks as each step of the workflow was completed.

Figure 14. Actifio Workflow Process

Time stamps indicated that the workflow was completed in 11 minutes and 58 seconds.

The process was duplicated using a Microsoft SQL Server database with Actifio in-‐band, and with an SAP database with Actifio out-‐of-‐band. Figure 15 shows a combination of the Oracle and SQL Server testing. The top picture shows the workflow mount settings, with the pre-‐ and post-‐scripts highlighted in a red box. The bottom left shows the Oracle table space before the data masking script was run, and the bottom right shows the SQL Server view after the data masking script was run.



Figure 15. Mount settings with Pre-‐ and Post-‐scripts for Oracle and MS SQL Server

Next, ESG Lab timed a standard Oracle database cloning operation in order to compare it with the Actifio workflow time. The Lab presented the 85GB accoraprod backup to a host for mounting, and then created a clone using native Oracle RMAN tools. The process took 25 minutes. Figure 16 compares the time for one step in the traditional process (creating a single database copy) in red, with the time to complete the entire Actifio workflow in green. Note that with Actifio, the time to copy the database is virtually the same regardless of database size, while with RMAN or other native database tools, the copy time increases proportionally as database size increases.



Figure 16. Time Comparison

What the numbers mean

• ESG Lab audited throughput performance while cloning Oracle databases of various sizes using RMAN, a single step in the typical process.

• Figure 16 shows the elapsed time required to clone a 1TB Oracle database as five hours (300 minutes). • In contrast, it took 11 minutes and 58 seconds for the entire Actifio workflow to complete, including

refreshing an 88GB Oracle database, creating a LiveClone, staging the virtualized copy, performing data masking, mounting to multiple hosts, and starting up the database.3

Figure 17 compares the timelines for the traditional process with the Actifio workflow. The top arrow shows the standard two to four week process for acquiring a single database copy, and includes SLAs for change management, server, storage, and DBA tasks. Note that the time for the final cloning step is dependent on the size of the database. Additional data copies would add time and effort.

The bottom arrow shows the timeline for the Actifio workflow to complete, including refreshing the database, creating a LiveClone, staging the database, performing data masking, mounting to hosts, and starting up. Note that the number of copies needed and the size of the database has no impact on the timeline.

3 While the comparison in Figure 16 uses databases of different sizes, the database copy portion of the Actifio workflow consumes very little of the workflow time. Our Direct Mount testing of a 5TB database demonstrated that the time to simply create the virtual copy with Actifio was less than two minutes. For that reason, it is reasonable to assume that a 1TB database would consume no more than that.

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350

Time Comparison in Minutes (less is be[er)

Single RMAN copy 1TB Complete Acffio workflow



Figure 17. Time Comparison of Traditional Process versus Actifio Workflow

Why This Matters An increasing focus on data analytics, collaboration, and mobile device computing has resulted in a surge of application development. The traditional method of creating dev/test copies does not adequately support today’s agile programming environments, which depend on iterative processes with consistently refreshed data.

ESG Lab validated that the Actifio workflow reduced the time to create database copies from days/weeks to just minutes. The Lab created a workflow in just a few minutes. Running the workflow using an 88GB Oracle11g database took just under 12 minutes to complete all these steps: refreshing a LiveClone, staging and running data masking, mounting virtual copies to two hosts, and starting up. SQL Server and SAP database support was also validated using the workflow.

By drastically reducing the time to create database copies, this workflow enables developers to use fresher data. It also lets organizations gain more development time over the course of each month. Self-‐service database provisioning for developers and on-‐demand test data creation can relieve the burden on IT administrators, and the virtual copies significantly reduce the amount of storage required. In addition, Actifio workflow capabilities and automation can enable cloud service providers to expand their service offerings to include areas such as dev/test and analytics without adding storage and management expense.



Efficiency

The ability to optimize time and resources in the pursuit of a task results in efficient operations. With an Actifio deployment, efficiency is the measurement of the storage resources required to produce a desired outcome in an effective manner with minimal waste, expense, or unnecessary effort. ESG Lab evaluated various copy management efficiency points in a CDS solution.

ESG Lab Testing

ESG Lab tested Actifio CDS efficiency by identifying a 50GB partially dedupable data set connected to an existing Windows host on existing primary storage. The SLA Architect workflow was leveraged to create a combination of protection schemas for the production test data.

Figure 18 shows a conceptual view of the data deduplication capabilities used for testing. The left side of the figure shows the original non-‐deduplicated production data (e.g., primary data on an existing storage platform) and the Actifio deduplicated local copy data at Site A. The middle portion of the figure shows the WAN benefit of replicating only unique data. The right side of the figure shows the replicated and deduplicated copy data and the re-‐hydrated or recreated production-‐ready data at Site B.

Figure 18. Actifio Data Management Overview

Next, the SLA Architect was leveraged to apply the protection principles depicted in Figure 18 to the 50GB test data set. A daily snapshot with a two-‐week retention period and deduplicated replication with a one-‐year retention period was implemented and measured for the validation test data set. Finally, the measured results were used to calculate and compare the Actifio CDS protection method with that of a traditional disk-‐ and tape-‐based protection schema. The traditional protection method was calculated with local weekly full and daily incremental backups to both disk and tape. The local tape copies were restored to spinning disk space ready for host-‐level restores at the remote site. Longer-‐term retention was achieved with a monthly full backup to tape retained for a one-‐year period.



Figure 19 shows the copy data capacity savings realized with the CDS management solution compared with that of a traditional protection schema.

Figure 19. Copy Data Capacity Efficiency

Table 1. Detailed Information for Figure 19

Protection Method

Amount of Protected Production Data (GB)

Capacity Required for One Year of Data Protection (GB)

Multiplier of Production Data Used for Protection

Traditional 50GB with 40% annual growth 2,145 31X Actifio 50GB with 40% annual growth 176 2.5X

What the Numbers Mean

• Actifio required 29 times less storage capacity to provide the same or better protection levels over the traditional method.

• For one year of data protection, Actifio required 2.5 times the original production data. • For one year of data protection, the traditional method required 31 times the original production data. • Both local and remote recoverability were designed-‐in for each protection method. • Each solution provided one year of data protection with a daily level of recoverability retained for a

minimum retention period of two months. • The production data set used for validation testing was 50GB of partially dedupable data. • Typical real-‐world data would deduplicate at a much higher rate, resulting in even greater savings. • A 40% annual growth rate was assumed for the production data. • Actifio provided ready-‐to-‐mount host data at the remote site. • The traditional protection method provided ready-‐to-‐restore data from spinning disk at the remote site.

0

500

1,000

1,500

2,000

2,500

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Capacity (G

B)

Copy Data Capacity Savings with AcDfio CDS

Producfon Data Acffio Copy Data Tradifonal Copy Data



Figure 20 shows network bandwidth savings achieved with the CDS solution through efficient replication of only the unique data segments.

Figure 20. Network Bandwidth Efficiency

What the Numbers Mean

• Ninety-‐seven percent less network bandwidth was required to replicate a mid-‐cycle snapshot using CDS deduplicated replication.

• The deduplicated replica represents a snapshot of the test data halfway through the one-‐year protection retention cycle, with 40% annual data growth taken into account.

• With the CDS protection paradigm, only .05% of the local data had to be replicated.

Why This Matters Constantly growing data volumes put pressure on data protection systems, processes, and budgets. In fact, IT managers surveyed by ESG have indicated that managing data growth was one of their most important IT priorities for the past four years.4 Massively growing data volumes and shrinking backup windows make data protection difficult; a solution that reduces the cost of network bandwidth and disk capacity is a compelling alternative to traditional backup and recovery software.

ESG Lab confirmed Actifio CDS’s ability to efficiently reduce capacity and bandwidth requirements for both local and remote copy data. Using a 50GB data set with 40% annual growth for a one-‐year retention period, ESG Lab compared Actifio with a traditional disk-‐to-‐tape backup scenario. ESG Lab observed a savings of 29 times (2,900%) in capacity, and a 95% savings outcome in network bandwidth with Actifio when compared with the traditional approach.

4 Source: ESG Research Report, 2013 IT Spending Intentions Survey, January 2013.



ESG Lab Validation Highlights þ ESG Lab successfully deployed and installed a new Actifio CDS system. The management software, Actifio

Desktop, was quickly made available to begin the setup of protection schemes. The mobile application was easy to install and use for monitoring.

þ Using the SLA Architect, ESG Lab successfully created a new backup template and assigned backup rules, including frequency of jobs and retention limits. Everything was viewable through the Policies and Schedules tabs, confirming that the setup was done correctly.

þ ESG Lab was able to quickly find snapshots for different jobs and use them as restore points. This was true for a single file restore after a host failed, a SQL database restore after a table was deleted, and a VM restore after a VM was deleted.

þ ESG Lab was able to use the Mount and Clone functions provided by Actifio to work with older data sets without affecting current users of that data. This included the ability to use the same data set without increasing the capacity requirements.

þ ESG Lab was impressed with the time and storage savings available for making database copies using the devops workflow. Integration with Oracle, SQL Server, and SAP make it simple for developers to self-‐provision copies using Actifio within the database. This method not only reduces management and storage costs, but also improves development productivity.

Issues to Consider þ When deploying Actifio CDS in your environment, proper planning and best practices must be considered.

In a small number of cases, planned application downtime for host rescans or a reboot must be accounted for when moving an existing device to a CDS-‐managed device.

þ ESG was pleased to see that simple file-‐level protection can be completely handled at the storage level. However, advanced application (e.g., MS Exchange or MSSQL) protection may require host-‐level integration.

þ It should be noted that storage array-‐specific multipath drivers may need to be converted to native MPIO drivers when deploying Actifio CDS appliances in your environment. Consult with an Actifio specialist to confirm support requirements for your environment.

þ The ability to add scripts to the workflow enables automation of database processing activities such as data masking. Planned integration with data management applications will enhance this capability.



The Bigger Truth Everyone is talking about the data explosion occurring in organizations around the globe. More data—and bigger data sets—are being created to drive business. What few realize, however, is that while production data is certainly growing, copies of production data are growing exponentially. Copies are made for physical backup, virtual backup, snapshots, disaster recovery, business continuity, business analytics, compliance, and development/test. The cost of managing and retaining these copies is often many times higher than the cost to store the original data. In particular, storing and managing all of the copies using separate tools and duplicate infrastructures is a tremendous expense, and it consumes much of the database, application, server, and storage administrators’ time.

Actifio CDS separates what you do with your data copies from how you store them. Why should copies have to be created differently and managed separately just because they have different purposes, copy frequencies, retention times, and recovery needs?

Actifio CDS virtualizes the management of all copies so they work for the customer instead of the other way around. Users make a single copy and use it for different purposes with different SLAs—dramatically reducing unnecessary data growth, reclaiming tier-‐1 storage space, and getting virtually instant backup and recovery. Along the way, they can get rid of backup software, point solutions, dedupe appliances, tape libraries, tapes, replication tools, and WAN optimization products. Offloading copying and copy management makes a production environment more efficient. Customers gain freedom of choice because any production storage can be attached to Actifio CDS appliances to be used as the data protection store. In addition, that freedom makes offsite replication more affordable and ensures that future storage decisions aren’t dictated by today’s needs.

Through validation testing, ESG Lab was able to confirm a 29 times (2,900%) capacity reduction compared with the traditional copy management approach. By leveraging deduplicated replication, we also observed a 97% reduction in the bandwidth required for replication. ESG Lab expects real-‐world savings to be even greater than the testing results were, as field experience has shown typical data to exhibit even better deduplication rates than the test data set.

Actifio CDS represents a new class of storage designed to simplify and streamline the IT infrastructure, and the benefits are dramatic. Most organizations make between three and 20 copies of production data; some may have more than 100 copies. That’s great news for storage vendors, but it is a huge capital and operational expense for IT organizations.

Actifio CDS is an application-‐centric, SLA-‐driven solution that, through virtualization, decouples the management of data from storage, network, and server infrastructures. The efficiency improvements and cost reductions will benefit not only corporate IT organizations, but also service providers that can leverage these features to differentiate their offerings, prices, and margins. While Actifio CDS started out as a data protection-‐focused solution, improvements in version 6.0 expand its value by enabling automated dev/test database workflows. Automation, role-‐based access, integration with industry-‐leading database applications, and self-‐provisioning enable dramatically faster and more efficient data copy creation for tasks such as data analytics and application development.

As Actifio has matured in the market, its CDS solution has proven to significantly impact the bottom line of corporate IT departments and service providers. Its growing list of customers and most recent round of funding are good barometers, and ESG looks forward to following Actifio as it expands the scope and capabilities of the Copy Data Storage Platform.



Appendix Table 2. ESG Lab Test Bed

Application

Actifio CDS Version 4.0 & 6.0 SQL Server Version: 2008 R2 Standard Windows Server Version: 2008 R2 vCenter Server Version: 5.0

Storage

IBM

Model: EXP3512 Array: Dual-‐controller Drives: 6 Gbps SAS Interconnect: FC and iSCSI

SAN

IBM Switch Mode: SAN24B-‐4 Express Ports: 24 FC

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Documents

ESG Lab Validation Actifio CDS Nov 2013