White Paper: EMC VNXe Data Protection — A Detailed Review

White Paper

Abstract

This white paper details the integrated features that can be positioned for business continuity in the EMC® VNXe™ series platforms. Data protection features include snapshots, replication, and NDMP backups. March 2012

EMC VNXe DATA PROTECTION Overview

2 EMC VNXe Data Protection – Overview

Copyright © 2012 EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved. EMC believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice. The information in this publication is provided “as is.” EMC Corporation makes no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to the information in this publication, and specifically disclaims implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Use, copying, and distribution of any EMC software described in this publication requires an applicable software license. For the most up-to-date listing of EMC product names, see EMC Corporation Trademarks on EMC.com. Part Number h8219.2


Table of Contents

Executive summary.................................................................................................. 4

Audience ............................................................................................................................ 4

Terminology ............................................................................................................ 4

VNXe data protection ............................................................................................... 5

EMC Replication Manager overview .......................................................................... 6

Snapshots .............................................................................................................. 6

Shared Folders and NFS datastore snapshots ..................................................................... 7

iSCSI snapshots ................................................................................................................. 9

Protection Storage ................................................................................................. 10

Scheduling ....................................................................................................................... 13

Replication ............................................................................................................ 15

Managing replication sessions ......................................................................................... 17

Synchronization Frequency ............................................................................................... 17

Failover and failback operations ....................................................................................... 18

Backup and recovery ............................................................................................. 20

Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 22

References ............................................................................................................ 23


Executive summary A small to medium sized organization’s data is one of its most valuable assets. Therefore, the company’s highest priorities must include safeguarding its data. EMC® VNXe™ Series provides integrated features for customers to meet their goals of business continuity and data protection. This white paper describes the relevant technologies for different business continuity and data protection situations.

Customers are concerned about data availability at all times. Outages, whatever the cause, are extremely costly. Further, data outages affect customers of all sizes. Systems and storage administrators have become aware of the importance of data availability while hit with shrinking IT budgets. The difficulty they face is in deciding which technology to apply to their situation.

While considering data protection tools, customers must evaluate which aspect of data protection they need. Is security of data and risk mitigation needed? Do they need highly available data during normal business operations, so that the failure of a device does not affect the availability of their business function? Or do they need data backup and recovery? All these aspects constitute the overall umbrella of business continuity and data protection.

Audience

This white paper is intended for EMC customers, partners, and employees looking to understand features that exist in the EMC VNXe product that can provide maximum data availability.

Terminology • Common Internet File System (CIFS) – An access protocol that allows users to

access files and folders from Windows hosts located on a network. User authentication is maintained through Active Directory and file access is determined by directory access controls.

• iSCSI protocol – The iSCSI (internet small computer system interface) protocol provides a mechanism for accessing raw block-level data storage over network connections. The iSCSI protocol is based on a network-standard client/server model with iSCSI initiators (hosts) acting as storage clients and iSCSI targets acting as storage servers. Once a connection is established between an iSCSI host and the iSCSI server, the host can request storage resources and services from the server.

• iSCSI server – A VNXe server that uses the iSCSI protocol to manage Microsoft Exchange storage groups, generic storage virtual disks, Hyper-V datastores, and/or VMFS-based VMware datastores.


• Local replication – Local replication occurs between two storage servers within the same VNXe system. After the local replication session is established, a read-only copy of the source storage resource is created on the destination storage server.

• Network-attached storage (NAS) – File-based storage for a wide range of clients and applications that access storage over network connections. Protocol-specific file systems are located and managed on the storage system, which transfers data to hosts over TCP/IP using CIFS and NFS file sharing protocols.

• Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP) – A standard for backing up file servers on a network. It allows centralized applications to back up file systems running in a customer environment.

• Network File System (NFS) – An access protocol that allows users to access files and folders from Linux/UNIX hosts located on a network.

• Remote replication – The replication of stored data from one VNXe system to another (remote) VNXe™ system or VNX/Celerra® system.

• Shared Folder server – A VNXe server that uses either the CIFS or NFS protocol to catalog, organize, and transfer files within designated shares. A shared folder server is required to create shared folders that contain CIFS or NFS shares, or NFS VMware datastores.

• Snapshot – A read-only, point-in-time copy of data stored on the storage system. Administrators can recover files and folders from snapshots.

• Storage resource – An addressable and configurable storage instance associated with a specific quantity of storage, storage server, storage pool, and protocol (iSCSI or NAS).

• Unisphere™ – A web-based management interface for creating storage resources, configuring and scheduling protection for stored data, and managing and monitoring other storage operations.

VNXe data protection Data protection for the VNXe is summarized in three categories: snapshots, replication, and traditional NDMP backups. The various application-aware capabilities may add application knowledge and custom functionality but are still based on the basic network-attached storage (NAS) and iSCSI protection concepts. VNXe includes data protection functionality that revolves around the concepts of protection and recovery for shared folder, application, or generic iSCSI LUN storage. EMC Replication Manager (RM) is leveraged for iSCSI data protection.


EMC Replication Manager overview Replication Manager manages EMC point-in-time replication technologies and coordinates the entire data replication process from discovery and configuration to the management of multiple disk-based replicas. This enables organizations to meet service-level agreements for reduced recovery point objectives (RPOs) and recovery time objectives (RTOs). Running on a separate Microsoft Windows server, it provides a graphical user interface for managing the replication and snapshots of iSCSI LUNs.1

Snapshots

A snapshot is a virtual point-in-time image of the data within a storage resource that has changed since the last snapshot. Snapshots provide a record of the content in the targeted storage resource at a particular date and time, but they are not full copies of the data. Periodically creating snapshots of storage provides an effective technique for meeting data protection and recovery requirements. Based on the importance and volatility of data within a VNXe storage resource, administrators can define recurring schedules that specify times and intervals for VNXe snapshot operations.

VNXe provides tools for performing manual (on-demand) snapshots, configuring snapshot schedules, and performing snapshot restore operations and snapshot recovery operations.

Administrators can choose default or customize snapshot schedules that specify regular times to perform snapshot operations (automatic snapshot creation and deletion). You can select the intervals, times, days, and dates at which snapshot operations occur. A collection of rules within the schedule specify the interval, frequency, and time that snapshots are taken. VNXe calculates the amount of storage protection space needed based on the complexity of the protection schedule chosen by the administrator. This value can be adjusted if desired.

The VNXe system also allows administrators to manually create snapshots that contain on-demand images of specific storage resources at a particular time. You can create a manual snapshot by navigating to the Snapshots tab in the Details section of the given storage resource, and by clicking the Take Snapshot Now button (shown in Figure 1). This feature is useful in various situations, such as taking snapshots of data that will be unavailable for a period of time, that will be subject to unusual circumstances or risks, or that is used for testing or debugging purposes.

1 Snapshots created with Replication Manager can be viewed and deleted in Unisphere.


Figure 1 Manual snapshot of the storage resource

When administrators need to restore a VNXe storage resource to its state at a particular date and time, they can restore the storage resource from a particular snapshot. It is important to note that modifications to files after the particular snapshot was created will be lost.

Hosts connected to the storage resource continue to have access to the restored data. The snapshot schedule automatically resumes.

Shared Folders and NFS datastore snapshots

Snapshots for Shared Folder and VMware NFS datastores are performed on the entire folder or datastore; you cannot take a partial snapshot of these resources. Snapshots are based on a copy-on-first-modify principle. Figure 2 illustrates the live view and snapshot view of the snapshot window if the block is modified after the checkpoint is created. The production data and snapshot data are maintained separately. It is important to note that these snapshots are read-only. Data must be restored before it can be edited.


Figure 2 Two views of the data during a snapshot window

End users, if they have the proper access permissions, can restore a file that was accidentally deleted by accessing the snapshots from a host that is mounted (NFS) or mapped (CIFS) to the share by adding “\.ckpt” to the end of the share path. This directs them to the hidden snapshot directory. If users are mapped to a CIFS shared folder, they have the option to access the snapshot through Microsoft Explorer under the Previous Versions tab in the share’s Properties window to perform the restore. This leverages Microsoft’s Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) technology.

Alternatively, snapshot restores of shared folders can also be performed within Unisphere to retrieve data recorded on a specific date and time (see Figure 3). With this approach, note that the complete snapshot is restored, bringing the whole file system back to a given point in time.


Figure 3 Restore a file from a previous snapshot of a Shared Folder

When administrators schedule snapshot creation of a shared folder, if the protection storage runs out, the oldest snapshot is inactivated and deleted to make space for any new snapshots.

iSCSI snapshots

Replication Manager is used to create or schedule application-consistent snapshots for iSCSI storage resource, where the application data is halted to ensure that it remains consistent with the application. Snapshots created with Replication Manager can be viewed and deleted from Unisphere. However, protection schedules are only visible in Replication Manager.

Creating snapshots in Replication Manager involves the following: Provisioning an iSCSI storage resource (including generic iSCSI, Exchange, VMware

VMFS, or Hyper-V) and enabling protection storage, where snapshots will be stored.

Obtaining an EMC Replication Manager license.

Installing and configuring Replication Manager on a host with a network connection to the VNXe system.

Creating an application set to specify the storage resource to protect in Replication Manger.

Creating a snapshot, or scheduling snapshots, of the application set.


Viewing details about the storage resource and the snapshots in Unisphere.

Data on an iSCSI snapshot is accessible only if that snapshot is promoted. Promoting and demoting of an iSCSI snapshot can be performed within Unisphere.

When the allocated protection storage runs out of space, iSCSI snapshots do not recycle themselves as exhibited with NAS snapshots. In the case of thin-provisioned storage, the space containing the iSCSI LUN and snapshots will auto-extend until there is no space left in the pool. The administrator can modify the maximum space allowed for an iSCSI LUN’s snapshot. The VNXe system will not create any new snapshots until this space is freed, and an alert notifying the administrator of this issue. All snapshot-related operations are executed at the application instance level. For example, in the case that there are multiple vdisks under particular generic iSCSI storage, the snapshot creation works on all of them. The user cannot selectively take snapshots of the storage.

Administrators must keep in mind that once a snapshot is used to restore data, all snapshots that were taken after that particular snapshot are destroyed and cannot be recovered in iSCSI storage resources. This is a different behavior from the Shared Folders and VMware NFS datastores, where all snapshots remain on the system.

Protection Storage You can create protection storage when you use the provisioning wizards to create storage resources, or you can create protection storage after you create other storage. As shown in Figure 4, you can choose to do the following:

Not configure protection storage

Configure protection storage without configuring a snapshot schedule

Configure protection and create a snapshot schedule

When you create protection storage, it is automatically provisioned to store snapshots, and to restore or recover primary storage. Protection storage is separate from the primary storage that is used for storing host, user, or application data. If protection storage is reserved for a particular storage resource, then the VNXe system automatically allocates a minimum amount of protection storage to support manual snapshots of the primary data.


Figure 4 Configuring protection storage with a snapshot schedule

The protection storage for a resource can be increased without affecting its primary storage. For iSCSI storage resources, VMFS datastores, and Hyper-V storage, administrators can set different host access permissions for primary storage and protection storage. You can also auto-adjust the size of protection storage, depending on the size of primary storage. When enabled, VNXe adjusts the protection storage size proportionately to any change to the size of the primary storage. For thick, or non-thin provisioned, storage resources, it is important to note that administrators cannot reduce the size of protection storage once it has been created.

When provisioning Shared Folder or VMware NFS Datastore storage resources, the minimum size of the reserved protection storage is dependent on the primary storage size. The algorithm for protection size is as follows:

If the primary storage size is less than or equal to 20 GB, the minimum protection size allocated is equal to the primary storage size.

If the primary storage size is greater than 20 GB, the minimum protection size allocated is either 5% of the primary storage size or 20 GB (whichever size is greater).

For example, if an administrator specifies 15 GB for the primary storage, the VNXe system allocates a minimum of 15 GB of reserved protection storage, resulting in an allocation of 30 GB for the storage resource. If the administrator specifies 450 GB for the primary storage, the VNXe system allocates a minimum of 22.5 GB of reserved protection storage, resulting in an allocation of 472.5 GB for the storage resource.

With auto-adjust selected, if the primary storage size increases from 500 GB to 750 GB, and there is reserved protection storage of 5 percent, then the total amount of storage allocated for the resource increases automatically from 525 GB to 787.5 GB. In this example, the protection storage size increased from 25 GB to 37.5 GB.

When provisioning thick iSCSI storage resources, VMFS datastores, and Hyper-V storage, the minimum protection size is 105 percent and the recommended protection size is 135 percent of the size of the allocated storage depending on whether a protection schedule is being configured. The recommended protection size is based on the primary storage size. Administrators should use the recommended


protection size because depleted protection resources can lead to data loss in the storage resource primary or protection data. Figure 5 shows the “Configure Protection Storage Size” wizard pane when provisioning Generic iSCSI Storage. Choosing to configure the storage resource with 10GB of primary storage, the wizard presents to the user a minimum protection size of 10.500 GB and recommended protection size of 13.500 GB.

Figure 5 Setting the Protection storage size

Table 1 displays the amount of protection storage that is provisioned relative to the size of the primary storage. With Microsoft Exchange storage provisioning, you create protection schedules in the Replication Manager interface.


Table 1 Protection Size based on Primary storage

Application

Protection Size

No Protection

Protection Size Allow Protection

(No Snapshot Schedule)

Protection Size Allow Protection (Snapshot

Schedule Configured)

Min/Default Min Default/

Recommended Min

Default/ Recommended

Shared Folder 0% 5% 5% 5%* 35%

Generic iSCSI (w/o Thin Provisioning )

0% 105% 105% 105% 135%

Generic iSCSI (w/Thin Provisioning)

0% 5% 5% 5% 35%

VMware (VMFS w/o Thin Provisioning)

0% 105% 105% 105% 135%

VMware (VMFS w/Thin Provisioning)

0% 5% 5% 5% 35%

VMware (NFS) 0% 5% 5% 5%* 35%

Hyper-V (w/o Thin Provisioning )

0% 105% 105% 105% 135%

Hyper-V (w/Thin Provisioning)

0% 5% 5% 5% 35%

Exchange (w/o Thin Provisioning )

0% 105% 135% NA NA

Exchange (w/Thin Provisioning)

0% 5% 35% NA NA

*The minimum protection size of 5% can be overridden (to 20GB) based on the primary storage size.

Scheduling

Snapshot protection schedules are made up of one or more rules that determine how often and at what times regular snapshot operations occur. Each snapshot rule defines a snapshot type (interval), snapshot frequency, and snapshot time, and also specifies the duration to keep the snapshot.

VNXe protection rule types include:

• Hourly (several times a day)

• Daily (every day)

• At daily intervals (every n number of days)


• On specific days of the week

• On specific days of the month

These rules are displayed when you configure protection storage with a snapshot schedule. The daily protection rule is shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6 Modifying the protection schedule

For each storage resource provisioned you can select one of the predefined schedules (listed in Table 2), or create one or more customized schedules.

Table 2 Predefined snapshot schedule options

Schedule Name Take Snapshots Keep Snapshots

Default Protection Once every day 2 days

More Protection Once every day 7 days

Less Protection Once every day 1 days

An administrator can create a custom protection schedule by combining a number of rules in order to obtain short-term storage protection (hourly/daily snapshots), long-term storage protection (weekly/monthly snapshots), or both. However, the more frequently the schedule takes snapshots, the more storage resources are consumed. To limit the storage consumed by snapshots, the VNXe system allows the creation of a protection reserve that allocates a specific quantity of resources for snapshot operations.


Replication The ability to quickly recover data and access from a catastrophic failure at a company site is crucial to business operations. The decreasing cost of disk storage makes the use of replication technologies more attractive for enabling real-time backup and recovery. Application images can instantly be transferred between servers and between sites. It is particularly useful for organizations that have the combination of a remote office or branch office (ROBO) network scheme implemented. Data housed at the primary site can easily be copied and accessed via replicas at another site.

Replication is a process in which storage data is duplicated either locally or to a remote network device. It produces a read-only, point-in-time copy of source storage data and periodically updates the copy, keeping it consistent with the source data. In case the main storage backup system fails, storage replication provides an enhanced level of redundancy. This minimizes the downtime-associated costs of a system failure and simplifies the recovery process for a natural or human-caused disaster.

VNXe replication provides asynchronous replication tools for creating point-in-time copies of storage resources. This is a complete copy of the data, unlike a snapshot of the data, in which only the changes to the data are saved.

There are two types of replication:

• Local — Local replication occurs within the same VNXe system.

• Remote — Remote replication occurs between the source VNXe system and the remote VNXe, VNX, or Celerra system.

Once a storage resource has been created, a replication session can be made to either its peer storage processor or to a remote system. The replication session can be initiated via the options at the end of the storage provisioning wizard (shown in Figure 7).

Figure 7 Configure a replication session at the end of the wizard


As of release VNXe OE 2.2.x, replication sessions for Generic iSCSI storage resources can be established within Unisphere.2 Once the iSCSI storage resource is created, options are presented at the end of the Generic Storage Wizard (shown in Figure 8).

Figure 8 Configure iSCSI replication session at the end of the wizard

In addition, there is the option to configure a local or remote replication session at a later time by navigating to the Details page of the storage resource (shown in Figure 9).

Figure 9 Configure a replication session in the Details page

Replication lets the administrator automatically maintain a complete second copy of the storage resource on the local system. This local copy is a complete copy of the data, unlike a snapshot of the data, in which only changes to the data are saved. For Generic iSCSI storage replication, Unisphere ensure the mapping between source and destination VNXe systems. In certain cases, new virtual disks may have been added the source VNXe system since setting up the replication session or the VNXe system may not have been able to set up replication sessions to all the individual virtual disks. In these cases, warning messages are displayed in Unisphere notifying users that an update is needed. The session status will change to “Update Needed”, prompting the user to take action. Administrators also have the option to delete the replication session from the Details page of the iSCSI storage resource.

2 After the replication session has been created, you will need to discover the session and set up replication from Replication Manager.


Managing replication sessions

Administrators manage replication sessions for VNXe for different storage resources in Unisphere or Replication Manager.

Administrators manage file-level replication entirely within the VNXe environment. VNXe supports the following types of storage resources for NAS replication:

Shared folder - Shared folder replication produces a read-only, point-in-time copy of a source production file system at a destination and periodically updates this copy, making it consistent with the source file system.

VMware NFS datastore - VMware replication supports NFS datastores. The replication session creates a point-in-time copy of VMware data and copies it to the destination. Only the data in the datastore is replicated to the destination, not the datastore itself.

For block-level (or iSCSI) replication, administrators use Replication Manager to create, schedule, and manage replications.

VNXe supports the following types of storage resources for iSCSI replication:

Microsoft Exchange

VMware VMFS datastore

Microsoft Hyper-V

Generic iSCSI

Administrators can use Replication Manager to replicate data from a storage resource to the local system or a remote system. During replication, Replication Manager creates a snapshot of the storage resource.

Synchronization Frequency

In a VNXe system, for file replication, administrators can control the frequency at which the source and destination systems are synchronized. The value can be set between 5 and 1,440 minutes (24 hours). The default value is 60 minutes, or 1 hour as shown in Figure 10. Settings greater than 6 hours will result in a warning to the user that they should increase their Protection Reserve storage amount to a size equal to 10 percent of the application’s size. The default 5 percent reserved from protection storage (given no protection schedule was chosen) will otherwise be sufficient for settings of 6 hours or less.


Figure 10 Recovery point objective (RPO) for a replication session

Administrators can automate the synchronization of replication sessions by using the scheduling mechanism in Replication Manager. Replication sessions are set up as a “manual refresh”. To meet an organization’s targeted RPO, an administrator needs to schedule or manually run a job.

Failover and failback operations

Once a replication connection has been established between the source and destination system, the following operations can be executed on the replicated data sets:

• Failover – In a failover scenario, the production site becomes unavailable and inaccessible, typically as the result of a disaster or unexpected outage. In response, the user can execute a failover from the destination system. The execution of a replication failover is not an automatic occurrence—it requires manual execution. A failover operation is asynchronous and will result in data loss if the data has not been synchronized between the source and destination prior to executing the failover. The "Sync Now" function can be used, if possible, to synchronize the production with the destination prior to executing failover to avoid losing data. During the failover process, read/write access is provided to the destination application. When the production application becomes reachable, only read operations are allowed. After the production site has been restored to service, the original replication session can be restarted by executing a failback on the production application.

• Switchover – The switchover feature is typically used for disaster scenario testing or data migrations. The switchover differs from the failover in that it synchronizes the production application with the destination using the differential snapshot from the source. Switchover stops the replication session and does not restart the replication session. This option should be used if the source site is available but administrators want to activate the destination as read/write. This command should be executed from the source system only. This command pauses replication, mounts the source object as read-only, and mounts the destination object as read/write so that it can act as the new source object.


• Failback – Following a switchover or failover, the user can execute a failback to restore the source as the read/write production application and to resume the replication session. Failback can only be initiated from the production side. The failback is performed from the Replication tab on the production application. Failback resumes the replication session without losing the data written to the destination while in a failed over or switched over state. It does this by synchronizing the applications as part of the failover process.

A local replication is initiated by clicking System > System Replication in the menu taskbar, selecting a replication session and by clicking the Failover button at the bottom of the screen.

If you initiate the local replication on the source VNXe system, the Failover dialog box shown in Figure 11 appears. You can select Sync Before Failover to start a switchover, or select the Failover Without Sync option to start a failover. However, if you initiate the local replication on the destination VNXe system, the Failover dialog box only allows you to initiate a failover operation; it does not allow you to initiate a switchover.

Figure 11 Remote failover dialog box when initiated on the source system

A remote replication is initiated by clicking System > System Replication in the menu taskbar, selecting a replication session, and by clicking the Failover button at the bottom of the screen. If an administrator initiates a remote replication on the source VNXe system, the Failover dialog box allows them to initiate a switchover operation. If the administrator initiates a remote replication on the destination VNXe system, the Failover dialog box allows them to initiate a failover operation.


For block-level replication, an administrator manually performs failover and failback operations using the Failover option in Replication Manager. Figure 12 displays a failover of a replication session from VNX to VNXe.

Figure 12 Failing over a replication session

Once the failover is complete, replication can be started manually, or you can wait until the next scheduled replication job runs.

The steps for the failback of a replication session are similar to the steps for the failover.

For additional information about how to configure and use Replication Manager, refer to Replicating VNXe iSCSI to VNX using Replication Manager 5.3.2 – Technical Notes on EMC Online Support (https://support.emc.com) > VNXe Product Page.

Backup and recovery The inability to recover company data after a critical failure can put an entire company at risk, with catastrophic consequences for employees, shareholders, and customers alike. In a typical data center, backups need to be performed on multiple application servers and successful backups are critical to the recoverability of data and systems enabling the business to run.

NDMP backup functionality in VNXe systems helps simplify backup and restore operations in a customer environment. VNXe systems support NDMP v2-v4 over the network; two-way NDMP backup configuration (commonly referred to as direct-attach backup) is not supported. Instead, administrators configure a three-way heterogeneous backup where the tape drives are connected to a media server, also referred to as a Data Management Application (DMA) server, and the VNXe system

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communicates with this media server over the network (see Figure 13). The following outlines the workflow of this NDMP design:

1. On the VNXe, enable NDMP and set a password for the NDMP account. The NDMP account credentials on the backup solution server and VNXe system must match.

2. The backup administrator requests data to be backed up.

3. The request is sent to the storage processor.

4. From the storage processor’s configuration, the VNXe system forwards data for backup to a DMA server.

5. The data is fed through a non-production network between the storage processor and DMA server.

From there, the data is sent from the DMA server to a tape device to get written onto tape.

Figure 13 Three-way heterogeneous backup configuration

With this implementation, VNXe systems store the application data at a central location, where the data can be backed up, and restored if required. Consequently, other storage systems can communicate with this DMA server and utilize its resources.

The following backup and recovery products are supported by VNXe systems to achieve the tasks above:

• EMC NetWorker®

• EMC NetWorker® FastStart

• EMC Avamar 6.0


• EMC DataDomain 5.03

• CommVault Simpana

• Symantec Backup Exec

• Symantec NetBackup with NDMP

For additional information, refer to the EMC Simple Support Matrix for EMC VNXe Series on EMC Online Support (https://support.emc.com) > VNXe Product Page.

Conclusion System and data availability is a top-most priority for customers. Outages are costly to businesses if not resolved immediately. This is particularly the case with small to medium size businesses. VNXe systems can ease these customers’ concerns and increase the availability of their storage.

VNXe systems enable administrators to protect data against localized failures, outages, and disasters through snapshots, replication, and NDMP backups. With snapshots, end users can recover files or directories deleted from a previous point in time from their local desktops. Snapshots are easily maintained via protection schedules. Administrators can also create a manual snapshot when appropriate, making it much easier to fulfill restore requests.

Data and application consistency via replication ensures that administrators will be able to recover and restart the application from the copy in the event of a service interruption. Replicating data remotely ensures disaster recovery protection for production applications. Further, these replicas can be repurposed for backup acceleration and restoration of data, or to simplify and automate data refreshes for testing and reporting. Implementing these measures in combination significantly decreases costs and alleviates staff resources.

NDMP functionality offers you the flexibility to back up data using different combinations of compliant network-attached file servers, backup devices (such as tape drives), and NDMP-compliant management applications. In addition, it provides centralized control of company-wide data backup management.

3 EMC DataDomain 5.0 is supported in a configuration where the DataDomain device is connected to the LAN and acts as an NDMP Tape Server.



References The following can be found on EMC Online Support (https://support.emc.com) > VNXe Product Page:

EMC VNXe Storage Systems – A Detailed Review

EMC Unisphere for VNXe: Next-Generation Storage Management – A Detailed Review

EMC Simple Support Matrix for EMC VNXe Series

Replicating VNXe iSCSI to VNX using Replication Manager 5.3.2 – Technical Notes


Technology

White Paper: EMC VNXe Data Protection — A Detailed Review