Cloud Database: Continuous Data Protection (CDP) with R1Soft Products

Continuous Data Protection

Provides an overview of Continuous Data Protection and how it compares with Traditional Backup techniques. Also explains how GigeNET uses the R1Soft range of CDP products and provides the best data protection for their customers.

Contents 1 Overview of CDP 1.1 Goals of CDP 2 Architecture of CDP 2.1 How it works 3 Differences between CDP and Traditional Backup 3.1 Different Goals 3.2 Lower Resources 3.3 Period of Data Retention 3.4 Media of Backup 4 CDP and Traditional Backup working together 5 R1Soft CDP Solutions 5.1 Features 5.1.1 Security 5.1.2 Ease of use 5.1.3 OS Independence 5.1.4 Reporting 5.1.5 Multiple Recovery Options

Overview of CDP

CDP is one of the latest technologies for data backup. As a separate process from traditional backup, it caters to businesses who have the need for really short recovery point objectives (RPO). Since different backup solutions have differing goals, it helps to understand what the goals of CDP are.

Goals of CDP

The aim of CDP is to ensure that when needed, data is restored to as recent a copy as possible. Furthermore, CDP allows business to restore their data to any given point in time. With traditional backup systems, when corrupt data goes unnoticed for a while, the backup itself becomes corrupted negating it's purpose. With CDP, business are allowed to restore their data to a point when they were sure that the data was clean.

These advantages have led to a widespread adoption of CDP in sophisticated colocation and dedicated server centers. GigeNET uses the most advanced CDP protection for the servers under it's management leading to true peace of mind for business owners. Let's find out more about how CDP works.

Architecture of CDP

CDP architecture varies from implementation to implementation. In this article, we refer R1Soft's CDP solution. Before starting, we need to identify the server that we need to backup. We call this the target server. The server on which we keep the backup is called the CDP server. Prior to CDP 3.0, the CDP server needed to be a dedicated machine. However, with the latest release, this is no longer necessary. The CDP server can run on the target server itself. This makes it easier than ever to set up CDP with just a single server.

The target server needs to have something called a CDP agent running on it. This is a piece of software that monitors changes and transfers that data to the main CDP server.

How it Works

R1Sort's CDP works by intercepting every request to modify a block on a file and saving that request. Over a period of time, this results in the ability to redo or undo any change in any given file. It also allows what is called a bare metal restore. This means that CDP allows a server to be restored from the ground up with nothing but the hardware to start with. For a backup to be called bare metal, it must be able to restore the server even without an OS running. This provides ultimate data protection.

Unlike other backup solutions like differentiated backups, CDP doesn't save the whole file. Instead, it saves only the changes to the particular blocks - resulting in block level protection. This means that if just one byte is changed in a 1GB file, then just one byte is backed up, resulting in significant space saving compared to conventional systems.

Differences Between CDP and Traditional Backup

Though CDP is a backup technology, it differs significantly from traditional backup technologies. There are basically two types of differences. The first difference lies in the goal, and the second lies in the techniques utilized. Let's go through them one by one.

Different Goals

The goal of CDP is encapsulated in it's very name - continuous data protection. This is meant for business that are not happy with the traditional daily or weekly backup. For some companies like financial institutions, even the loss or corruption of the data of a single day is disastrous. Such enterprises need to be able to restore their data to any given point of time. CDP is the technology of choice here, whereas traditional backup systems can be utilized for less intensive applications.

Lower Resources

CDP saves only the changes to the data instead of the data itself. Traditional backup systems take regular snapshots of the data, eventually overwriting data that has crossed a certain time frame. Apart from the problem of corrupt data, this approach utilizes a great deal of space as each backup is a complete mirror image.

CDP saves only those parts of the data that have changed, ensuring that the amount of space utilized is very low. There are back up systems called differential backups that are similar to CDP, but are not the same. The difference is that in CDP, we backup changes at a block level. This means that if a very large file changes, CDP backs up only the block within the file that has changed leading to further space savings.

Another advantage of this sort of backup is that one can perform a more thorough data restore - something which in technical parlance is called a "bare metal restore". A CDP restore can recreate the previous state of the server at a block level since it saves changes at that level itself.

Period of Data Retention

CDP can retain block level changes for any period of time, allowing a backup to be retained for as long as necessary. With advanced archiving capabilities, it's possible to store huge amounts of backup data cheaply and reliably. Companies can be secure in the knowledge that their systems enjoy complete real time protection while being able to restore back to any given point in time.

Compared to traditional backup, data retention is a much bigger issue due to the size of the backups. With CDP, you can retain data for much longer periods.

Media of Backup

Due to the large volumes involved, and the very nature of traditional backup systems, tape was often the best medium for storage. In traditional backup, data is written to tapes en masse at regular intervals, meaning that tapes can be loaded, and prepared before being written onto.

With CDP however, the data is continuously being written in small amounts, and the therefore tape is not a suitable backup media. Due to the nature of CDP, disk based backups are used. With the increasing amounts of data needing to be written, tapes are a legacy solution anyway.

CDP and Traditional Backup Working Together

Fully professional enterprises, often use CDP and traditional backup together. The reason for this is that they are complimentary to some extent. Traditional backup solutions are easy to configure and maintain, but they don't give the granularity of CDP. In addition, CDP suffers from the disadvantage of being able to replicate only disk I/O. So if you have an application that is holding some data in the cache and is performing read writes, that won't be backed up.

For this reason, CDP and traditional backup usually work together. Most organizations don't need second to second reversibility, but would yet like to have shorter recovery times. Using this mix, the achieve near CDP. But one thing is for sure - the days of merely taking snapshots of disks and storing them on tape are getting over.

R1Soft CDP Solutions

R1Soft is a leading provider of near CDP solutions. At GigeNET, we provide near CDP backup solutions to our customers for a reasonable price. R1Soft's products provide complete protection for a wide range of purposes. The several features and benefits of R1Soft's CDP are detailed below.

Features

Security

Backups always have a built in security risk. With all your data being kept in one place, companies that have sensitive information are paranoid about any unauthorized use. And the longer the backup copies are retained, the greater the risk. R1Soft ensures that all backup data is stored safely. With a proprietary disk format called Disk Safe, R1Soft makes sure that data is as secure as it can get.

In addition, a security threat is present whenever data is transferred from the server to be backed up to the machine where it is to be stored. R1Soft ensures that this weak link is taken care of by encrypting the data that is sent. The blowfish algorithm along with RSA encryption ensure that the highest industrial grade security is applied to all data transactions.

Ease of Use

R1Soft makes restoring and backing up data easy. All the complexity of CDP is hidden through the use of well designed interfaces that allow an authorized user to easily browse and restore individual files to any given point in time. In addition, the use of a web browser ensures that no special software is needed to perform these actions. It is accessible from anywhere and at any time.

The browser can also be used to perform advanced management operations including policy management and quotas.

OS Independence

R1Soft has solutions that cater to both Windows and Linux Servers. With one CDP server being able to manage the backups of 100 servers. The particular architecture of R1Soft's CDP ensures seamless protection of Windows as well as Linux servers. The CDP server can interact with agents from both operating systems transparently. This makes it easy to manage and administer all machines from one central location.

Reporting

When managing the backups of single or multiple servers, it's important to ensure that you know what's going on at all times. Sure, you'd like to leave the routine work to the software which automatically performs maintenance functions, but you would also like to get updated regularly just to make sure that all is on track.

The frequency and detail of the reporting varies depending on who is being reported to, as well as how many servers are being managed. You don't want to be inundated with information all the time - if you are, you can easily miss an important message in the clutter. At the same time, you don't want detailed error tracing if you're not a technical person.

The hallmark of a great backup system, is the ability to provide useful reports to the person who needs it. The name of the game is ease of use and customization. R1Soft's CDP backup system includes advanced reporting capabilities that allow a user to get exactly the reports he or she needs.

You can view the reports of all backups of your servers in one single area, making it easy for you to get an overview at a glance. In addition, this interface is web based - meaning that the reports are accessible to you from anywhere, at any time. The unmatched flexibility is further extended by the product's emailing capabilities. You can choose which emails you receive about which events and how frequently you would like them. This puts you in control of your backups - not the other way around.

Another great feature is the support for the syslog standard, meaning that you can forward the backup logs to a UNIX server, ensuring interoperability with existing systems.

Multiple Recovery Options

Things can go wrong in several different ways. In these situations, it's important to know that your backup solution is both powerful and flexible enough to handle them.

For example, your server can crash entirely losing absolutely everything on it. In which case, R1Soft's CDP solution can initiate a Bare Metal Restore' (BMR) that will replicate your previous state on a block level. Or if you need to merely restore a partial backup, you can browse and restore sections of the disks to the original or alternate locations.

In addition, depending on your situation the exact methodology for a bare metal restore is important. R1Soft provides the ability to restore from a Live CD, a Pre Execution Network Boot (PXE) and even a Live Boot remote restore. The last option is critical when your computer is in a GigeNET datacenter. This ensures that you never lose control of your system and it's backups.