“Actifio came on site to show us how it worked. To demonstrate restore speed, they deleted a one terabyte database and restored it from the snap pool. It was up and running again within two minutes and serving SQL requests. The process was so fast; my reaction was ‘How did that happen?’ When they explained the technology, we knew we needed to pursue it.”
Dave Palica – Engineering Manager
Microsoft SQL Server Copy Data Management.
Backup, Recovery, Cloning & Analytics for SQL Server Databases & Applications
OVERVIEW
Actifio provides a single platform for backup, recovery, cloning and analytics for SQL Server databases which reduces RPO, RTO and TCO – on-premises and in the cloud.
Enterprises create many copies of SQL Server databases for use cases including backup, disaster recovery, test/dev, DevOps, analytics, reporting and more.
For all of these use cases, Actifio software provides a scalable, enterprise-grade Copy Data Management (CDM) solution. It manages SQL Server database backups and copies of any size or flavor (Standalone, Windows clusters, AAGs) efficiently and securely on-premises or in any public cloud.
Download: Extending the Value of Microsoft SQL through Copy Data Virtualization
Use Case
Modernize SQL Server Backup and Recovery.
“Our Microsoft administrators were blown away the first time we actually had to recover a database for a production problem. What would have taken many, many hours to recover took just minutes. And everybody was just thrilled with it.”
Joe Butwell – Senior Storage Manager, Nasdaq
Backing up SQL
Recovering SQL
Challenges
Recurring Full Backups
Many solutions force a recurring full SQL Server VDI backup at least once a week, if not daily. This impacts the production database performance, increases backup window and Recovery Point Objective (RPO)
Large Recovery Time
With many legacy solutions, a point-in-time SQL Server database recovery involves recovering from a SQL Server VDI backup, applying SQL Server differential backups, followed by SQL Server transaction log restores. This whole process not only takes hours but also burdens the DBA with time, effort, and stress.
Large Database Cloning Time and Storage Costs
Actifio helps enterprises reduce total cost of ownership by automating the creation, management and deletion of SQL server copies using a single, powerful, software platform.
Very High Costs & RTO in the cloud
In a public cloud such as AWS, Azure, GCP, and IBM, users continue to use the approach of SQL Server dump to disk and snapshot to object storage, which leads to very high storage costs. Moreover, recoveries from dumps on disk or snapshots are slow, leading to large RTO.
How Actifio Helps
Backup, Recover, and Clone, in just minutes, a complete multi-tier SQL Server application including database, application, and middleware running in VMs, physical servers or any public cloud.
Reduce RPO
Actifio eliminates recurring full SQL Server backups. It leverages patented Actifio Change Block Tracking to perform incremental forever backups, thus reducing RPO to minutes, while maintaining application consistency using VSS snapshot integration.
Reduce RTO
Recover a 50TB SQL Server database in just minutes with Actifio’s unique instant mount and recovery technology.
Automated Log Management
Protect SQL Server transaction logs as frequently as every 15 minutes and recover to any point in time with automated log restores.
SQL Server Mount & Migrate
After instant mount and recovery, migrate the live SQL Server database to another storage tier without any downtime – with 1-click.
High-Performance
Instantly mount and recover SQL Server databases over Fibre Channel, iSCSI, or NFS with high performance.
Multi-Cloud Ready
Protect and recover SQL Server databases, VMs, and physical servers in hybrid cloud or in any public cloud such as AWS, Azure, GCP and IBM.
Reduce Costs using Cloud Object Storage
Store SQL Server backups in inexpensive, high speed S3-compatible cloud object storage and recover instantly with direct mount from cloud object storage.
Wide SQL Server Platform Support
Support for SQL Server standalone, Microsoft Windows clusters, and Always-On Availability Groups (AAGs) configurations.
Learn More: How Actifio Works for SQL Server Backup & Recovery
USE CASE
Accelerate Application Releases with Rapid SQL Server Database Cloning.
Cloning SQL Database
“We used Actifio to do destructive testing during a SQL upgrade. It greatly accelerated the conversion process, saving us time, money and aggravation. The Actifio system of virtualized data requires so much less time than our previous methods, it’s a quantum leap ahead.”
Bill Croteau – Information Services Director, Electric Insurance
Challenges
Many Days to Provision SQL Server Test Data
Manual processes for approvals, capturing data from production, scrubbing & subsetting – it costs days or even weeks to provision SQL Server test data to DevOps and Analytics, introducing wait cycles and delays.
Poor Performance
Some solutions can provision SQL Server virtual database clones, consuming no extra storage, over NFS. However, it delivers poor performance either because of no Fibre Channel support or custom deduplication format.
Very High Costs
Some tools that can provision SQL Server virtual database clones need staging servers with live Windows OS and SQL server DB running 24×7. This increases the infrastructure and DB license costs. Additionally, users still have to buy more point tools for backup, and disaster recovery. This increases the license & infrastructure costs.
How Actifio Helps
Clone your multi-TB SQL Server databases in just minutes for Dev, QA, UAT, Analytics teams. Accelerate application testing, reporting and release cycles.
Reduce SQL Server Database Cloning Time
Reuse backup copies to instantly provision dozens of rapid SQL Server virtual database clones to any point-in-time for Dev/QA testing, analytics and reporting.
Reduce Storage Costs
SQL Server virtual database clones do not consume any extra storage. For example, 10 clones of a 10 TB SQL Server DB can be provisioned without consuming any extra storage.
High-Performance
Provision SQL Server virtual database clones over Fibre Channel for best performance. iSCSI and NFS are also supported.
High Availability
Use Actifio CDX 2-Node cluster for high availability, ensuring that the SQL Server virtual DB clones are always accessible for DevOps and Analytics.
Wide SQL Server Platform Support
Supports provisioning virtual DB clones in SQL Server standalone, Microsoft Windows clusters, and AAGs configurations. Also supported in AWS, Azure, GCP, and IBM cloud.
Reduce License Costs
Use a single platform and license for backup, DR, and DB cloning for Test Data Management and manage on-premises and cloud instances from a single pane of glass.
Self-Service & CI/CD Integration
Dev, QA, UAT, Analytics users can provision SQL Server virtual database clones in a self-service manner. Actifio can also be integrated into existing CI/CD pipelines via REST APIs.
Security
Administrators can specify role-based access controls (RBAC), encryption at rest and automate sensitive data masking using Actifio workflows.
Learn More: How Actifio Works for SQL Server Database Cloning
Frequently Asked Questions.
Every enterprise creates multiple copies of their production SQL server databases.
DBAs dump SQL server images backups to disk.
Backup Admins backup these dumps to backup storage and replicate to a remote site for vaulting or DR purposes.
For low RPO and RTO DR, DBAs set up SQL AlwaysOn replication.
Test/Dev, DevOps, Analytics, Security, UAT users need copies of production SQL databases for testing purposes.
These siloed copies lead to a copy data explosion that drives very high infrastructure costs & operational burdens. With no automation to manage all these SQL database copies, data provisioning for testers takes many weeks, stretching application test and release cycles.
Actifio’s VDP software platform solves this Copy Data Problem with its Copy Data Management (CDM) solution.
Actifio’s pricing model is very simple and easy to understand. It’s based on the amount of source data protected. For example: If an enterprise wants to use Actifio to protect 5 SQL databases, each with 10 TB source database size, the enterprise would need Actifio license for 50 TB of source data. Enterprises can use this license anywhere in private or public cloud.
For more details, refer to this licensing page.
Actifio VDP is the patented core Virtual Data Pipeline technology that can be consumed in multiple form factors.
Actifio Sky is a VM appliance that runs Actifio VDP engine and can be provisioned in a public cloud VM or on-premises in VMware and Hyper-V VMs.
Actifio CDS/CDX is a physical appliance cluster that runs the Actifio VDP engine with High Availability and is typically used on-premises.
Yes. Actifio supports all major public cloud providers including Azure, AWS, Google, IBM, and Oracle. It’s also in the leading public cloud marketplaces.