Basic principles of backup policies Andrea Mauro vExpert and VCDX

About the speaker  17 years of experience in IT  Working for Assyrus Srl – Italy ●Server, Storage, Networking, Security & Virtualization  Certifications and accreditations  Italian VMUG founder and board member  VMTN Community Moderator  Blogger

Agenda What is a backup policy Design a backup plan What defines a backup policy What is a backup policy Where do backups go How will backups be performed

What is a backup policy? Amount of data principle or rule to guide decisions and achieve results procedure or protocol Backup policy set of rules to achieve the required backup goals several aspects: technical non technical

Input of backup policies  Requirements ●Recovery Point Objective (RPO) ●Recovery Time Objective (RTO)  Constraints ●Business needs ●Budget ●Max backup window ●Technical aspects  Business Continuity Plan (BCP) Risk analysis Backup solutions and products Procedures Requirements/Constraints Backup policies Backup/Business Continuity Plan

Properties & parameters & dependencies  What  Where  How, How much, How often  Several dependencies Synthetic Backup Real Time Replication Tape Backups Vaults Archival Disk Backups Staging Off-Host Protection Methods Recovery Methods Tape Restores Bare Metal Recovery Instant Recovery Disk Restores Search & Retrieve DaysMinsHrsWksSecs Recovery Point MinsDaysHrsSecsWks Recovery Time

Backup as a process Analysis + Selection list Backup policies Backup job Backup data

What – Define the sources of the backup  Required protection level  Way to handle the backup tasks  Type of sources  Type of “transport” at source side ●Full copy ●Incremental transfer ●Size of the sources Files Virtual machines Applications Systems

Way to handle the backup tasks  Agent vs. Agent-less ●Application level ●VM level  Hot vs. Cold ●Usually agent or specific API are needed for hot-backup  Push vs. Pull ●Also other models Data transfer options important

Type of sources  Files  Application data – Not a simple collection of files  Systems  Virtual Machines – It may include also system, files and applications backup  For details see specific lessons on Backup Academy  Which level of consistency? ●Windows ●Linux / Unix ●A system is not just a set of files ●It may include also files and applications backup

Consistency and integrity  Different levels  Files ●Open files dilemma ●Windows provide VSS  Application data ●Application that are VSS-aware ●Application specific solutions  Systems ●Problem with the system state  Virtual Machines ●Specific hypervisor functions are recommended  For details see specific lessons on Backup Academy

Type of “transport” at source side  Full copy vs. incremental copy  LAN based vs. LAN-free

Size of the sources  Amount of data  How data can be transferred from the source ●Full copy vs. incremental ●Using of compression and/or de-duplication at source side Data transfer options important Type of dataHow data changesBackup consistency

Where – Which kind of backup destination  Disk based ●D2D ●Logical disk or network shares  Tape based ●D2T ●Real or “Virtual” tape  Multi-level backup ●D2D2T ●Other levels  Cloud

D2D  Different type of solutions ●DAS or SAN ●NAS ●Backup Appliance −Most NAS (and sometime VTL) based  Pros of D2D ●Great capacity: 1,5 TB (LTO5) vs. 2-3 TB (SATA disk) ●Speed: disks IOPS could scale with RAID ●Bigger scalability ●Replication and disaster recovery ●More flexible

D2T  Type of tape based solutions ●Tape unit: DAS with SAS or SCSI cables ●Autoloader: DAS or SAN ●Tape library: SAN ●Virtual Tape Library (VTL): an appliance (hardware or software) that can be used as an autoloader or tape library but it works usually with disk instead of tapes  Pros of D2T ●Speed: throughput of 140MBps for LTO5 ●Removable support with long life?

VTL  A tape that is a disk ●Can be used as an autoloader or tape library but it works usually with disk instead of tapes  Implementation ●Gateway appliance ●Implemented in D2D appliances ●But could also implemented with software based products −Virtual appliance  Pros of VTL ●Migration from D2T to D2D ●Could be used to scale a D2T solution ●Could export to physical tape ●Backup over SAN

How – Save to sources to the destinations  Multi-tier (hierarchy backup) ●how data are distributed using different type of destinations  Destination “format”: ●how data are saved in which format ●with which kind of relations with previous data (full, incremental, differential, de-duplicated, …)  Backup frequency ●how often are performed the backup jobs  Backup retention ●how old data are removed from the destination ●how much data must remain

Multi-tier backup strategies  More techniques, levels or hierarchy organization  D2DT  Storage Snapshots as a first level ●But not a true backup!  Offline media  Replication as an additional level of protection

Destination “format”  Format of the backup data depends on the backup program  Common way to store the data ●Full ●Differential (Cumulative) ●Incremental ●Reverse incremental ●Synthetic  Other aspects ●Compression ●De-duplication ●Encryption

Backup frequency  How much ●Job scheduling  Defined by ●RPO and business requirements  Different schedules for different format

Backup retention  How much data must be stored?  Depends on ●Source type and its size ●Frequency −more backup could mean more data that could limit the retention) ●“Format” type −by using deduplication or incremental backup and/or compression we can reduce the amount of backup and increase the retention ●Destination type −that could define the amount of data that could be stored) ●Required Recovery Point Objective (RPO)  Reclaim of expired data

Retention on D2D and D2T  D2D ●Incremental model ●Retention vs. Space −More disks −Compression and/or deduplication ●Reclaim mean usually delete old files  D2T ●Full/differential/incremental models ●Retention vs. Space −Using off-line tapes ●Reclaim with media rotation policies

Media rotation policy  Round Robin (FIFO)  Grandfather, Father, Son (GFS)  Tower Of Hanoi  More info on ● ●

What we covered What is a backup policy What make a backup policy ●What ●Where ●How Why is important ●To design a backup solution −Consider the backup as an entire IT process ●Could be used as a documentation of the backup procedures and jobs ●Could be part of a BCP ●High level policy can be adapted to different type of backup products

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