Announcing EMC DataDomain DD Boost for Enterprise Applications

EMC has announced availability of DD Boost for Enterprise Applications.

 

What is this then?

New ways of protecting data?

Something new to learn, again?

DD Boost for Enterprise Applications consists of two parts:

• Modules for using EMC DataDomain DD Boost together with native data protection functionality from:
  • SAP HANA
  • SAP with Oracle (BR*Tools)
  • Oracle (RMAN)
  • Microsoft SQL
  • IBM DB2
• EMC Data Protection Advisor (DPA) for monitoring and reporting on the various sources.

The modules allows application administrators (DBAs) to work with their own interfaces and workflows, yet still move data to protection storage in an efficient manner.

This means that instead of having to install third party backup software and giving another team the control over scheduling and workflow, the DBAs now control, when and if they protect their data.

In some applications they even stay in control of moving this data offsite, simply specifying that the DataDomain target should perform what is known as a Managed File Replication to one (or more) DataDomain system(s). Recovery of the data can take place from any of these systems.

For some of the systems, replication can be controlled by writing to different folders in the DataDomain system, if they write to one that is enabled for DataDomain mtree replication, the data is moved offsite as soon as the backup is done, write to one where it isn’t and data stays onsite.

The whole point of developing this functionality is that in many organisations, there is a rift opening up between what application owners demand and require and what the IT operations department can deliver. Eventually, you see everyone rolling their own solutions and creating the dreaded silos that breed cost, complexity and poor interoperability.

DD Boost for Enterprise Applications addresses one of these rift creating scenarios, namely the classic problem that DBA’s does not want someone else to interfere with their often very complex environments, in this case through backup and recovery via a backup application.

The “classic” way, dump and sweep or backup agents:

EMC began addressing this with DD Boost for Oracle RMAN which allowed Oracle DBA’s to continue using their own RMAN scripts, schedulers and so on.

They could write directly to highly resilient data protection storage in an efficient manner.

‘The success has been great with this, thousands of EMC customers has adopted it and carved out complexity and cost while doing so.

For the rest, it was still dump and sweep or backup agents.

Now, the same opportunity comes to administrators of SAP, SAP HANA, Microsoft SQL Server, and IBM DB2.

Nothing new to learn for the backup admins, minute long deployment and automatic monitoring for the data protection teams. That’s what this announcement means!

Backup to the future: Datadomain DDOS 5.4

In this post I will try to pick apart some of the new functionality that appeared in the latest and greatest DataDomain DDOS release.

In one of my earlier posts , I have an overview of the four new DataDomain systems and what they are, you can read that here:

Backup to the future: New DataDomain systems

DDOS is the denominator for the operating environment (OE) of EMC Datadomain systems and these have now reached version 5.4.

Functionality in DataDomain systems come in play both in the Protection Storage part as well as in the Data Source Integration parts of the overall EMC data protection architecture.

 

The object of DataDomain, a Purpose Built Backup Appliance (PBBA) is of course backup, but also to protect archival data, DataDomain systems are designed to take care of both use cases.

 

A big part of the DDOS 5.4 release was supporting the expanded integration into Avamar 7, which I wrote about here:

Backup to the future: Avamar 7

We also launched support for what is now a very extensive list of Archive partners:

 

SAP HANA backup

Something we can all be sure of is that all databases will get bigger and have higher and higher demands on availability and performance.

This usually translates to database administrators will demand control over the protection of their data, if the backup teams doesn’t deliver the protection architecture, they will take matters in their own hands, this has been discussed by people much smarter than me, such as the CTO for EMC Backup & Recovery, Steve Manley.

What EMC presented today is a way to protect SAP HANA in-memory databases, all within the database administrators control.

Backups will flow directly to the DataDomain system, without any need to stage it in between. This means significant savings on infrastructure and storage.

At the same time, the efficient replication that DataDomain systems provide will make sure that protected data is sent off-site in the shortest time possible.

Oracle Exadata Backup and DR

Another really exiting industry first is that EMC presented support for direct integration to Oracle Exadata environments through EMC DataDomain DDBoost.

Again, this means that administrators or Exadata systems can take direct control of their data protection and if need be, disaster recovery.

Data Domain systems are the first deduplication storage to be Oracle Backup Solutions Program validated for Exadata.

Thank you for taking your time to read my musings on this and keep an eye open for upcoming posts where I dig deeper in the subjects.