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Technical White Paper

NetBackup™ CloudCatalyst

This forward-looking indication of plans for products is preliminary and all future release dates are tentative and are subject to change.

Any future release of the product or planned modifications to product capability, functionality or feature are subject to ongoing evaluation by Veritas, and may or may not be implemented and should not be considered firm commitments by Veritas, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions.

Technical White Paper

NetBackup CloudCatalyst

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Contents

Veritas NetBackup .................................................................................................................................................................. 3

NetBackup CloudCatalyst ....................................................................................................................................................... 4

NetBackup 5240 CloudCatalyst .............................................................................................................................................. 7

NetBackup CloudCatalyst Disaster Recovery Protection ....................................................................................................... 8

Summary ................................................................................................................................................................................. 8

For More Information ............................................................................................................................................................... 8

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Veritas NetBackup Enterprise data backup and recovery optimized for the multi-cloud.

NetBackup Software Solutions

Data is growing rapidly and becoming more fragmented across many clouds and virtual environments. Unified data protection is the only way an IT organization can deliver required Service Levels while limiting cost and risk, regardless of whether data resides on-premises or in the cloud. Veritas NetBackup provides unified data protection for cloud, virtual infrastructures, and physical infrastructures.

Cloud Data Protection: NetBackup lets organizations realize the value of the cloud in protecting information. Designed specifically for the diverse challenges of the enterprise, NetBackup protects data wherever it lives—on-premises in data centers and remote sites or off-premises in the cloud—and can store that data on disk, tape, or the cloud.

Virtualized Environments: NetBackup integrates with leading hypervisors to provide real protection for all your virtual environments, including VMware® and Microsoft Hyper-V®. Backups occur without agents at the image level, and the complete contents of the VM are visible and indexed to provide visibility for granular restore and data management.

Modern, Next-Gen Workloads: Next-generation workloads fuel the digital enterprise. They generate massive amounts of data leaving traditional data protection behind. New NetBackup Parallel Streaming delivers a modern, parallel streaming architecture to protect the most demanding scale-out, multi-node workloads with on-demand, plugin simplicity.

Massive Environment Protection: The relentless growth of data compounded by the growth of VMs risks outrunning the data protection capabilities of the enterprise. NetBackup has proven to be one of the most scalable data protection solutions, incorporating cutting-edge technologies for data reduction and bandwidth efficiency while providing extensive indexing and search capabilities.

NetBackup Appliance Solutions

Veritas is well known for its award-winning backup and recovery solution, Veritas NetBackup™. NetBackup Appliances compound the benefits of NetBackup by providing turnkey backup and recovery with deduplication in an easy-to-deploy form factor. NetBackup integrated appliances enable efficient, storage-optimized data protection for data centers, remote offices, and virtual environments. The NetBackup Appliances family of solutions includes the following:

• Veritas NetBackup™ 5200 Appliances: Versatile integrated backup appliances that can be deployed as a Master Server, a Media Server, or both, for a NetBackup domain. These cost-optimized appliances simplify and offer OpEx savings over traditional build-your-own Media Servers.

• Veritas NetBackup™ 5300 Appliances: Integrated Media Server solutions with storage to support greater performance, capacity, and resiliency requirements. Designed for larger enterprises, data centers, and disaster sites and optimized for performance and resiliency.

• Veritas NetBackup™ Virtual Appliances: Designed for VMware infrastructures and available in ROBO and DataCenter configurations. Administrators can now leverage the power and flexibility of NetBackup Appliances in a virtualized environment.

Advantages of Integrated NetBackup Appliances

The appliance concept is well understood by enterprise customers but is particularly advantageous in the case of NetBackup Appliances. These backup and recovery appliances eliminate the need to acquire, install, configure, test, manage, patch, and support separate hardware and software from multiple vendors. Now organizations can simply install a NetBackup Appliance and have a backup and recovery solution with built-in deduplication up and running in a matter of minutes.

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NetBackup CloudCatalyst Extending the power of deduplication to the cloud.

Solution Overview

Backup administrators have long seen the cloud as an attractive alternative to tape for solving data protection problems such as offsite protection and long-term retention of backups. However, storing backups or copies of backups to the cloud can be challenging due to high cloud storage costs and suboptimal performance.

The NetBackup CloudCatalyst solution combines the performance and flexibility of NetBackup with powerful data deduplication technology to better leverage the cloud for storing backups for disaster recovery or long-term data retention. By ensuring backup data remains optimized while in transit to the cloud and while at rest in the cloud, the NetBackup CloudCatalyst solution greatly reduces cost and increases performance when using cloud storage.

Figure 1: NetBackup CloudCatalyst solution diagram

The NetBackup CloudCatalyst can be delivered on a purpose-built appliance or as a build-your-own (BYO) software solution. It allows customers send backup data to cloud object storage in deduplicated form. The NetBackup CloudCatalyst solution includes support for major public cloud storage providers such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, IBM Cloud and Microsoft Azure, as well as private cloud offerings such as Veritas Access and others.

Public and Private Cloud Support

At launch, the NetBackup CloudCatalyst solution will support Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Veritas Access, Google Cloud Platform, IBM Cloud and HDS HCP cloud solutions.

CloudCatalyst – Supported Cloud Storage Providers

Amazon ✓ Amazon S3 ✓ Amazon S3 – GovCloud

Google ✓ Google Cloud Storage – Multi-Regional ✓ Google Cloud Storage – Regional ✓ Google Cloud Storage – Coldline ✓ Google Cloud Storage – Nearline

Hitachi ✓ Hitachi Content Platform (HCP)

IBM ✓ IBM Cloud Object Storage

Microsoft Azure ✓ Microsoft Azure ✓ Microsoft Azure – Government

NetApp ✓ NetApp StorageGRID Webscale Object Storage

Veritas ✓ Veritas Access

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Additional cloud provider support is planned to be added within 30 to 60 days after launch. For the latest information on supported cloud providers as well as additional details, please refer to the NetBackup Compatibility Lists.

The NetBackup CloudCatalyst solution receives optimized backup data from one or many NetBackup Media Servers and transfers the data to an S3 public or private cloud object storage target. Any certified S3 platform can be certified for use with NetBackup CloudCatalyst. At launch, Veritas Access is supported as a private cloud storage option.

It will not be necessary to wait for a full new release of the NetBackup CloudCatalyst solution to take advantage of newly supported cloud providers. Support will be provided as new platforms become certified via a small downloadable configuration file update package.

Each NetBackup CloudCatalyst server can be configured with a single cloud target. To support multiple cloud providers from a single NetBackup domain, additional NetBackup CloudCatalyst servers must be configured.

CloudCatalyst Advantages

The NetBackup CloudCatalyst solution offers a meaningful performance advantage over many similar solutions in the market today. This performance advantage is a result of its ability to maintain data optimization while storing data to, or retrieving data from, a cloud storage target.

Powerful Integrated Deduplication Technology: MSDP

✓ NetBackup Media Servers gather backup data from protected client servers

✓ NetBackup Media Servers deduplicate (optimize) backup data

✓ NetBackup Media Servers transfer backup data to CloudCatalyst Server in optimized format

✓ CloudCatalyst Server stores backup data to cloud storage target in optimize format

The CloudCatalyst Server does not rehydrate, or remove optimization from deduplication, from data being received from source NetBackup Media Servers. This is a significant difference in how the CloudCatalyst solution operates as compared to other vendors in the market today.

Other solutions use a completely different deduplication method for sending data to the cloud. This requires a rehydration process before sending data to a different application or separate cloud gateway, and results in the data having to be deduplicated again by the different deduplication technology. The rehydration and re-deduplication steps are both time-intensive, and greatly impact overall performance. Additionally, some systems may have effective deduplication technology for on-premise backups used for active operational recovery and achieve high deduplication rates, but use a less effective deduplication technology for data that is transferred to the cloud.

In addition, the CloudCatalyst Server allows direct recovery of data from the CloudCatalyst Server without first passing through another Media Server.

CloudCatalyst Cache

The CloudCatalyst cache is a local disk storage resource used when writing and retrieving optimized backup data segments to and from a public or private cloud storage target. The cache is used as a write-through cache, or staging area, for NetBackup’s data deduplication technology (MSDP). It behaves like a ‘cloud transit’ buffer. The system monitors CloudCatalyst local storage cache I/O and changes are tracked. New unique segments are saved to object storage (cloud).

Figure 2: NetBackup CloudCatalyst cache

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The CloudCatalyst cache includes high watermark and low watermark settings, as well as a setting to control how long a file is left in the cache after it was last accessed. In all cases, data may be removed from the cache as soon as it is written to the cloud if space is needed. Data in the CloudCatalyst cache should not be viewed as an additional copy of data; there is only one true copy of the data on the CloudCatalyst server, located in the public or private cloud storage target.

For the NetBackup 5240 CloudCatalyst solution, the cache is 14TB. For BYO versions of the NetBackup CloudCatalyst, the cache must be at least 4TB.

The CloudCatalyst cache is not configurable for data lifecycle management. There is no option to store specific backups for a defined period. The CloudCatalyst cache is used strictly to cache data as it is written to the cloud storage target.

CloudCatalyst Performance and Sizing Guidelines

Veritas standard CloudCatalyst testing on a 10GbE network connection to a popular public cloud vendor sustained approximately 200Mb/sec throughput, or .7 TB/hr. Performance in customer environments will vary, due to many factors and variables.

The important factors in determining the number of CloudCatalyst Servers needed in an environment are as follows:

• Throughput rates

• Number of cloud providers being targeted (each NetBackup CloudCatalyst Server can target one cloud provider)

• Number of NetBackup Master Servers (a NetBackup CloudCatalyst Server is a Media Server and therefore can only be used by one NetBackup Master Server)

• Firewall/connectivity limitations

• Amount of data being protected (up to 1PB of deduplicated data, see below)

Each CloudCatalyst Server can manage up to 1PB of data stored in the cloud. Note that this is deduplicated data, so 1PB would represent a huge amount of front-end data, depending on retention settings and deduplication rates. Deduplication rates will vary based on data type. NetBackup CloudCatalyst Servers use the same deduplication algorithm as MSDP, so reductions in data size should be very similar.

Consider the following diagram:

Figure 3: Hypothetical NetBackup CloudCatalyst performance limiters diagram

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The above diagram shows a representation of a hypothetical NetBackup CloudCatalyst configuration. It is intended to illustrate the factors that should be considered when calculating the potential performance of a proposed NetBackup CloudCatalyst solution. In this diagram, there are three performance limiters (i.e. performance bottlenecks).

The throughput limit of the solution is the minimum value of A, B, or C.

• A - Total physical input bandwidth. The total output data bandwidth across all the feeder MSDP servers at any point in time will never be able to exceed the input bandwidth of the NetBackup CloudCatalyst Server.

• B – Sustained write bandwidth to disk. In most cases this will not be a limiter because the disk is faster than the network speeds. In addition, the system buffer cache helps avoid this bottleneck. But for some very fast networks, usually in a private cloud context, it could be a limiter.

• C – Total physical output bandwidth. This is the amount of bandwidth available to write to the public or private cloud. For public cloud, this usually will be the limiter.

NetBackup CloudCatalyst does not have a coded limitation on the number of feeder MSDP servers (or clients doing direct backups). Instead the throughput limit of the solution is based on the minimum value of A, B, or C. In most cases it will be C for public cloud. For private cloud, it may be any one of the three limiters.

The example shown in this diagram this results in a throughput limit of 200MB/s (~700 GB/h). Note that this is opt-duped traffic. As shown in the diagram for a dedupe rate of (only) 90% the solution will protect a total of 7TB/h of front-end data.

For additional information on CloudCatalyst performance and sizing, contact your local Veritas sales representative or Veritas partner:

• Contact Veritas Sales: https://www.veritas.com/contact

• Contact a Veritas partner: https://www.veritas.com/partners

CloudCatalyst Security

Veritas understands the importance of protecting data from unauthorized access in all stages. The NetBackup CloudCatalyst solution includes the full spectrum of NetBackup security capabilities, including AES256 encryption for data as it is in transit from a CloudCatalyst Server to a cloud storage target, as well as for the data as it resides in the cloud storage target location.

Accessing or Reading Data in the Cloud

To minimize costs associated with maintaining data in public cloud storage locations, standard maintenance operations for data that has been deduplicated by NetBackup, such as defragmentation (rebasing), are disabled for the CloudCatalyst solution. Read or ‘GET’ operations that would incur extraction costs from the cloud other than controlled events such as restore operations are minimized. The disabling of these maintenance operations does not impact the performance of the CloudCatalyst solution, since object-based storage operates differently from file system-based storage.

NetBackup 5240 CloudCatalyst Extending the power of deduplication to the cloud using a fully integrated appliance.

NetBackup 5240 CloudCatalyst Attributes

The NetBackup CloudCatalyst is a purpose-built appliance or build-your-own (BYO) software solution designed to help customers send backup data to object storage in a deduplicated format. The purpose-built appliance CloudCatalyst solution is based on the 5240 Appliance configuration “G” and includes the following attributes:

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✓ 2x powerful Intel Xeon CPUs

✓ 192GB of DDR4 RAM

✓ 8x 10GbE ports (2x Cu)

✓ 4x 1GbE ports

✓ 2x 8Gb FC ports

✓ 14TB local storage cache for buffering data in transit to the cloud storage target

NetBackup CloudCatalyst Disaster Recovery Protection

Whether using a NetBackup 5240 CloudCatalyst appliance or a BYO CloudCatalyst solution, protecting the CloudCatalyst Server against disaster is a key consideration. Veritas fully supports recovering a CloudCatalyst server from a disaster event when the correct protection steps have been followed.

Protecting a CloudCatalyst Server against disaster is done by backing up the MSDP catalog. This can be accomplished through the following steps:

1. Use the MSDP drcontrol utility to create a new MSDP catalog protection policy

2. Configure the MSDP catalog protection policy to point to an appropriate storage unit

3. Activate the MSDP catalog protection policy

Note: Some steps in the above process are accomplished automatically when configuring a NetBackup 5240 CloudCatalyst appliance.

For more information on protecting a CloudCatalyst Server against disaster please refer to the Veritas NetBackup 8.1 Deduplication Guide, available here: http://www.veritas.com/docs/DOC5332.

Summary

The NetBackup CloudCatalyst solution combines the performance, and flexibility of NetBackup with powerful data deduplication technology to better leverage the cloud for storing backups for disaster recovery or long-term data retention. By ensuring backup data remains optimized while in transit to the cloud and while at rest in the cloud, the NetBackup CloudCatalyst solution greatly reduces costs and increases performance when using cloud storage.

For More Information

• Veritas Appliances Website: https://www.veritas.com/product/backup-and-recovery/netbackup-appliances/

• Veritas PartnerNet: https://partnernet.veritas.com/

• Veritas Support Portal: https://www.veritas.com/support/

• MyVeritas Customer Portal: https://my.veritas.com/

• SORT: https://sort.veritas.com/

• NetBackup Analyzer/Dedupe Calculator: https://vtools.veritas.com

• NetBackup Training and Certification: https://www.veritas.com/education-services/certification

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About Veritas Technologies LLC. Veritas Technologies LLC enables organizations to harness the power of their information, with solutions designed to serve the world’s largest and most complex heterogeneous environments. Veritas works with 86 percent of Fortune 500 companies today, improving data availability and revealing insights to drive competitive advantage.

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