Microsoft Azure Cloud Backup and Disaster Recovery.
Cloud Backup, Disaster Recovery, Migration, and Database Cloning in Microsoft Azure
OVERVIEW
Actifio provides a single platform for backup, recovery, cloning and analytics for Cloud and on-premises VMs & Databases, delivering low RTO, RPO, and costs.
Enterprises use Actifio for cloud backup to Microsoft Azure (Azure) and to reduce their data center footprint and costs.
Using a single pane of glass for all workloads, they can also protect Azure resident workloads, perform 1-click DR orchestration, and lower Recovery Time Objective (RTO) & operational burden.
And lastly, they reuse the backups to provision rapid database clones for test / dev / analytics in Azure.
“Actifio has enabled us to pivot from traditional tape backups, reduce our overall backup licensing costs, and expand our disaster preparedness by integrating the cloud as a backup target.”
Arthur Brant, Director of Enterprise Infrastructure
Challenges
Expensive Dedup Appliance Costs
Many enterprises have been stuck with legacy dedup backup appliances that are expensive and deliver very large RTO & RPO.
Large Recovery Time (RTO)
Some enterprises have started backing up to Azure Blob. However recovering from their dedup backups stored in Azure Blob takes forever, increasing the RTO to even days.
High Azure Disk Storage Costs
To overcome the above challenges, some solutions rehydrate data after each backup, from Azure Blob to Azure Disk volumes. 24×7 costs of using an Azure Disk for backup increases the costs by up to 10x.
Lack of DR Orchestration
Most enterprises lack 1-click DR orchestration to recover VMs, physical servers, and enterprise databases automatically as part of a DR plan, thus shifting the burden to operations.
HOW Actifio HELPS
Backup, Recover, and Clone, in just minutes, multi-tier applications including databases, VMs, Physical servers to Azure.
Cloud Backup with ZERO on-premises Storage
Reduce costs by using Actifio OnVault to backup VMware VMs from on-premises to Azure Blob with no on-premises storage. Also have an option to have a local on-premises copy.
Reduce Cloud Infrastructure Costs
For all on-premises workloads including Databases, Physical servers, NAS/file servers, VMware, Hyper-V, backup to Azure Blob Hot or Cool and reduce cloud infrastructure costs.
Low Recovery Point Objective (RPO)
Protect all workloads with application consistent, incremental forever backups to Azure Blob.
Low Recovery Time Objective (RTO)
Using Actifio CloudMobility, instantly mount and recover as Azure VMs directly from Azure Blob without having to restore to Azure Disk volumes. This reduces RTO and costs.
High I/O Performance
Get Azure Ultra SSD Flash performance even after instant mount and recovery from Azure Blob with Actifio’s intelligent I/O caching.
1-click DR Orchestration
Using Actifio Resiliency Director, create and execute DR plans with automated recovery of databases, VMs, physical servers as Azure VM instances. This eliminates operational burden for DR and DR testing.
Cloud Snapshot Management
Protect Azure cloud resident workloads using Azure Managed Disk snapshots. Catalog and recover Azure VM instances from Azure Managed Disk snapshots at scale in any region.
Accelerate Test / Dev / Analytics
Reuse backups in Azure Blob to provision rapid Database clones to Azure VM instances for Test/Dev/Analytics, without consuming any extra Azure Disk storage.
Frequently Asked Questions.
Yes. Actifio can backup physical machines to Microsoft Azure. It can also recover the entire Windows or Linux physical server as a Microsoft Azure IaaS VM. As part of this recovery, Actifio can also perform instant mount and recovery of the non-system volumes and databases, thus deliver instant recovery in the cloud.
Yes. Actifio can perform instant recovery from Microsoft Azure object storage, as well as Microsoft Azure managed disk.
There are two forms of replication from on-premises to Microsoft Azure.
For mission-critical workloads, enterprises use replication between Actifio Sky on-premises to Actifio Sky in Microsoft Azure IaaS VM.
For Tier 2 and Tier 3 VMs, enterprises can back up on-premises VMware VMs directly to Microsoft Azure object storage, thus reducing on-premises storage costs.
Yes.
Actifio can perform SQL Server backup to Azure. Actifio performs incremental forever backups of SQL using its own proprietary change block tracking technology and leverages VSS snapshots for database consistency. Yet, each point-in-time incremental backup results in a full virtual copy, i.e., no extra storage is consumed for the virtual full copy, and you can recover a full database without having to apply incremental data to full backups.
Actifio Sky then mounts the point-in-time backup image (which is in native SQL format and not a traditional dump) to the recovery server over iSCSI and recovers the database in minutes. Based on the specified point in time, it automatically replays any transaction logs that are needed.
Actifio can backup SAP HANA to Azure. Actifio does not use the BackInt database dumps, and instead relies upon the SAP HANA native snapshot API (‘HDBSQL’ calls to create a global savepoint for application-consistent backup). Actifio performs incremental forever backups. Yet, each point-in-time incremental backup is synthesized to be a full virtual copy, i.e., no extra storage is consumed for the virtual full copy, and you can recover a full database without having to apply all incremental backups.
Actifio Sky then mounts the point-in-time backup image (which is in native HANA Data format and not a traditional dump) to the recovery server over FC/iSCSI/NFS and recovers the database (using HANA API ‘recoverSys.py’) in minutes.
Microsoft Azure users can provision dozens of thin-clones of the database, in minutes, to Dev / QA / UAT / Analytics environments in Microsoft Azure. Actifio does this by reusing backups efficiently to provision thin clones, in minutes, to test environments with almost any configuration.
Yes. DBAs/administrators can use Microsoft Azure blob object storage for long-term data retention. Actifio can replicate backups in an incremental forever manner to a cloud object storage such as Microsoft Azure blob object Storage.