NAS Backup & Archive Solution with Rubrik NAS Cloud Direct

Cloudian and Rubrik are simplifying enterprise data protection with a best-in-class NAS backup and archival solution that combines Cloudian HyperStore and Rubrik’s NAS Cloud Direct. This simple solution makes it easy to manage and migrate massive amounts of NAS data to Cloudian on-prem storage without impacting production environments. Cost-effective and highly scalable, this solution delivers new levels of operational efficiency and flexibility to solve challenges for large-scale NAS data management.

With the surging growth in NAS data volumes, the need for an affordable, simple and cost-effective approach to data life cycle and storage management at scale has never been greater. Enterprise organizations must be able to store massive amounts of data while also ensuring that data moving across data centers and to the cloud is simple, seamless, and secure.

Combining Cloudian HyperStore with Rubrik NAS Cloud Direct, a software-only product with a direct-to-object capability, provides a single data management fabric with automated, policy-based protection and allows users to store their NAS backup and archive data in one or multiple geographically separated regions or data centers. Enterprises can extend and scale their Cloudian capacity as needed and non-disruptively while keeping NAS data storage costs to a minimum.

Rubrik NAS Cloud Direct is deployed as a virtual machine that can be up and protecting data from any local and remote NAS platform to Cloudian HyperStore, within minutes.

At any scale – from terabytes to petabytes of data and millions to billions of files – Cloudian HyperStore and NAS Cloud Direct eliminate the complexity of tape solutions and the vendor lock-in of disk-to-disk backup solutions, all at a lower cost.

Learn more about this new solution: Download Brief

See how Cloudian and Rubrik are collaborating: https://cloudian.com/rubrik/

Learn more about Cloudian® HyperStore®

One Man’s Buying Journey to the Dark Side and Back

It’s the classic IT question: Do I stick with the incumbent vendor, or look at the alternatives? Here’s a story of one IT manager’s 2 1/2 year-long journey to hell and back.

Since this is the Cloudian blog, you can guess the ending, but it’s a fun read provided by Cloudian partner, SymStor.

The IT manager writing here prefers to remain nameless. Enjoy!

 

Well here we go…

I’ve just started a meeting with my incumbent storage vendor and today they want to talk to us about data protection. They are polite and professional, and introduce us to our new account manager, the third one this year. So, with a little smirk you imagine the first account manager left, the second has been moved to another vertical and the third account manager…well…err…his watch is bigger than his face and I’m finding it a little difficult to take them seriously.

The vendor pitch…

Round table introductions have now been completed, and they start the PowerPoint slides. Not one of them has asked about how our current environment is performing, what we have, what our requirements are, or what sort of issues we experience. They’ve just jumped straight into presentation mode.

Let the blind-siding begin I thought, they have bedazzled everyone in the room, including my manager who makes the final decision, by showing everyone amazing data protection PowerPoint and how they can solve all your problems.

A momentary pause happens. I grab the chance to intervene and start to explain our current issues, and how we would envisage how the future of data protection for our environment should be shaped. As soon as I take a breath the incumbent hijacks the conversation half-way through and describes how our infrastructure is architected with ANOTHER slide. This time, the slide details how applications, virtual and physical systems can be protected with cloud integration scalability.

At that point, I switch off and wait to voice my concerns to my colleagues and the management after the meeting.

Let’s fast forward 6 months, the decision’s been made…long sigh… whilst I exhale! My company has signed a five-year deal with ‘said’ incumbent vendor. The vendor’s professional services team rocks up and start deploying the “NEW” data protection platform. They are a nice bunch of chaps… wait for it…and they will be on-site for the next 3-6 months deploying, configuring and tweaking the platform.

What got delivered…

As I got started and into the swing of it (I don’t want the project to fail) I seem to feel that certain aspects of the truth are getting stretched and a little thin on content. The virtual backup server struggles to be “highly available”. We need to deploy multiple servers for reporting, media and device management. Every hyper-visor storage platform requires a virtual proxy…and the list goes on and on.

In total, the following number of products and servers that had to be deployed to enable data protection for up to 2,500 servers is as follows:

  • 1 x Backup server
  • 1 x Backup Management Console
  • 1 x Reporting Database server
  • 1 x Reporting Application server
  • 1 x License Manager server
  • 4 x Media & Device Management nodes
  • 7 x Virtual Proxies for backup up virtual machines
  • 2 x Data target deduplication appliances
  • 2 x Cloud Appliance (different deduplication algorithm than above?)
  • 2 x Virtual Machine Recovery appliances

That’s just bonkers…

The above deployment list was made up of seven different technologies that were supposedly integrated and seamless. Casting my mind back I referred to the copy of the PowerPoint that the vendor left us. They must really pay their marketing department big bucks to produce such a slick slide deck!

Operational nightmare and the cost…

Now, fast forward 2.5 years and I’m rapidly losing the will to be in this industry. Over the last 30 months, I counted that we had opened 47 support calls over this period. Remember we are half-way through our 5-year term and now we need to pay for more hardware to expand our deduplication appliances and increased support renewal costs, as well as pay for professional services to come back and upgrade our backup software etc.…

What’s that on the horizon?

The moment I took that call, the voice on the other end of the phone claimed that they do backup better, simpler, faster and with a TCO that will stack-up against all the upgrades that I am about to be burdened with from our existing vendor.

Not sure if I should laugh or cry at the moment…The chap on the phone said he was technical and proceeded to ask me questions about our existing environment, capacities, applications, platforms, issues, challenges etc.

At this point I have nothing to lose, so I opened-up and talked to them for over an hour. It was an enjoyable hour, as they were genuinely interested in making sure that they could deliver everything that I wanted.

At first, I was pessimistic, with a pinch of “all vendors tell me that they can do it all”. So, we agreed to have an online demonstration a few days later to give me a chance to herd my co-workers together.

Well, what can I say? The demonstration was amazing, easy to use, simple to configure and deploy. All applications were protected, ultra-fast search was available for backup data, application recovery was a no brainer and recovery of systems on-premise or in the cloud was just…. WOW!

How do we proceed, we asked? “Well, what we would like to do is understand how much you have to spend over the next three years on your existing backup platform, including software upgrades, hardware expansion, maintenance renewals and professional services engagements.”

All this was shared with the company and they performed due diligence and kept it realistic. They worked out that we would be saving £1.3 million over the next three years, over the cost of keeping our existing backup platform.

The result…

The company officially presented to our management team. Our finance team verified and validated the savings. Two weeks of discussions followed, and we then agreed that a purchase order be placed with terms, conditions and criteria to be met for their solution to replace the existing data protection platform.

What did SymStor deliver?

SymStor spent four days implementing the whole solution, two of which was physical racking and stacking. The other two days were spent configuring data protection, archiving and cloud tiering policies.

Do you know what the nicest thing was? The customer thanked SymStor for delivering such an easy-to-use data protection platform.

Data Management Partners Unite to Provide Comprehensive Object Storage

We just announced our Data Management Partners program to help our customers solve more capacity management problems in less time. The program combines technology, testing, and support to make it easy to put object storage to work. Inaugural members of this program are Rubrik, Komprise, Evolphin, and CTERA Networks.

Here’s why this program is exciting: object storage has the potential to solve many capacity management problems in the data center. It’s 2/3 less costly and infinitely scalable. In a recent survey, Gartner found that capacity management was the #1 concern of Infrastructure and Operations managers, so these are important benefits.

The question is how to get started with object storage? You can piece together solutions on your own, but that can be risky. We’ve done the homework for you and proved out these solutions.

The Solution for Unstructured Data Consolidation

These solutions solve capacity-intensive challenges where Cloudian’s scalability and cost benefits deliver huge savings. Cloudian consolidates data into one big storage pool, so you can add as many nodes as you want. With one set of users, groups, permissions, file structures, etc, storage managers see still only see one thing to manage. This cuts management workloads by 90% and makes it possible to grow with less headache and cost.

Solution areas in this program include:

  • Data protection: Rubrik and Cloudian together unify and automate backup, instant recovery, replication, global indexed search, archival, compliance, and copy data management into a single scale-out fabric across the data center and public cloud.
  • Data lifecycle management: Komprise and Cloudian tackle one of the biggest challenges in the data center industry, unstructured data lifecycle management, with solutions that offload non-critical data that is typically 70%+ of the footprint from costly Tier-1 NAS to a limitless scalable storage pool.
  • Media active archiving: Evolphin and Cloudian help media professionals address capacity-intensive formats (e.g., 4k, 8k, VR/360) with the performance to handle time-pressed workflows.
  • File sync and share: CTERA Networks and Cloudian provide enterprises with tools for collaboration in capacity-rich environments.

Reducing Risk with Proven Partners

This program is 100% proven solutions. All are deployed, with customers, in live production data centers, right now. They solve real capacity management problems and do not create new problems along the way.

Object storage is seeing rapid adoption. It costs significantly less than traditional storage and fixes the capacity problem with infinite scalability. If you’re looking into object storage, make sure you’re getting a complete solution, though. Learn more about our Data Management Partners today.

 

Better Backup With the Software You Already Have

You know the challenges of the backup process. Veritas and Commvault are good products, but backup is still a chore. Your three choices for a backup target all have challenges: Tape is troublesome, disk is expensive, and backup to the cloud is slow.

How to save cost, reduce stress, and keep using the software you already know

The New Backup Target: Hybrid Cloud

You know the challenges of the backup process. Veritas and Commvault are good products, but backup is still a chore. Your three choices for a backup target all have challenges: Tape is troublesome, disk is expensive, and backup to the cloud is slow.

As an IT manager, you pick the best solution you can afford, but you’re often forced to make compromises along the way. Too often, the result is busted backup windows and unmet RTO and RPO SLAs, not to mention hours of wasted time and accumulated stress.

Now there’s a fourth backup target option:  Hybrid Cloud. (see Backup Solutions Note)

Hybrid cloud as a target gives you a faster, more reliable, lower cost process — free of capacity constraints. It works right now with the software you already know. And you can get started at zero upfront cost.

How the Hybrid Cloud Helps

Hybrid cloud integrates an on-premises disk-based target with a cloud-based target. Both the on-prem storage and cloud storage use the same interface and are managed as a single storage pool.

Their respective functions are:

  • On-prem target: Fast disk-backup. Provides predictable backup time; ensures immediate access for RTO/RPO SLAs
  • Public cloud target: DR repository; low-cost and offsite, it provides the ideal long-term archive, plus overflow capacity for limitless scalability

Works with Existing Backup Software

Backup procedures are proven through years of development. And you know well the software you have. The hybrid cloud approach leverages all of that investment and learning by preserving your existing processes.

To the backup software, the hybrid cloud appears exactly as cloud storage. (Connectors to Amazon S3 and other services are now available with most popular backup software.)

With hybrid cloud, that connector is simply directed at the on-prem storage. The on-prem storage then connects to the cloud. The two are managed as a single, limitlessly scalable storage pool.

The on prem S3-compatible storage is then directed at the S3 public cloud for data tiering purposes. The most recent backups — ie, the ones you’re most likely to use — are kept on prem. The older copies are migrated to the cloud.

The combined solution becomes a simple, drop-in replacement for existing backup target technologies. The result: on-site storage for fast access, and cloud storage for low-cost archive and DR.

In summary, hybrid combines a petabyte-scalable, high-performance on-premises backup target with seamless cloud storage integration. Together they let you retain a familiar workflow while ensuring success on the objectives that matter to you: backup window predictability, and repeatable RTO / RPO.

Start Small and Grow

Best of all, you can start with a small deployment, prove it out, and grow. On-prem S3 storage can be deployed on servers you already have, or deployed as preconfigured appliances.

There are even zero-upfront-cost options using Amazon metered-by-use software from the Amazon Marketplace.

Eight Ways Hybrid Cloud from Cloudian Makes Backup Better

Cloudian is the on-prem storage node in a hybrid storage configuration. It features the industry’s highest level of S3 compatibility, ensuring full interoperability with Veritas, Commvault, and Rubrik.

The Cloudian architecture is a scale-out storage cluster comprised of shared-nothing storage nodes. Your media servers connect to the on-prem Cloudian cluster via Ethernet and communicates via an S3-compatible API. Your backup software views the cluster exactly as it views cloud storage. It stores data to Cloudian exactly as it would to cloud storage.

The difference with Cloudian vs cloud alone is that all recent backups are stored locally for quick recovery when needed. Policy-based migration then allows older snapshots to be migrated to the public cloud. This frees up local capacity, and also provides an offsite copy for DR use.

Here are eight ways this helps:

1) Performance to handle the largest environments

Cloudian scales to petabytes with a scaling model that grows in both capacity and bandwidth. Predictable backup windows result from Cloudian’s high streaming bandwidth: Writes in excess of 5000 MB/s can be achieved, or 18TB per hour.

2) Petabyte-scalable

You can start small with just three nodes, and scale to petabytes simply by adding nodes. Scaling is seamless and does not require downtime.

3) 70% less cost than conventional disk

Built on industry-standard hardware, Cloudian drives down the cost of on-prem, disk-based storage to 1¢/GB/month or less, depending on capacity.

4) Manage one data pool

Cloudian maintains data in a single pool across all nodes. You get one-to-many auto-replication, enhancing data durability. No need to juggle what’s “active” or “passive,” create complex policies and snapshot management techniques, or track which sites are replicating to where.

5) Distributed architecture for global data protection

Enterprises struggle to manage backup at remote offices. With Cloudian, clustered nodes can be deployed globally and interconnected, thus allowing data to be automatically replicated across sites.  Because the nodes form a single namespace, you can implement policy-based data migration to the cloud for DR purposes. You get global data protection with fast local recovery, all managed from a single location.

6) Deploy as appliances, or on your own servers

Cloudian is built on industry-standard hardware. You have the flexibility to buy either pre-configured, fully supported appliances, or software for installation on the servers you choose. Either way, you benefit from the value of commodity hardware.

7) Drop-in integration

Cloudian can be immediately integrated with backup software packages that support cloud storage, including Veritas NetBackup, Veritas Backup Exec, Commvault Simpana and Rubrik. Cloudian is viewed exactly as cloud storage for both backup and recovery. For information that has been migrated to the cloud, Cloudian transparently retrieves that data and presents it to the media server.

8) Start small, even at zero upfront cost

Contact Cloudian to get started. We can even show you options that get you started at zero upfront cost, with Cloudian from the Amazon Marketplace.

For more information, read the Backup Solutions Note or specific data protection solutions with

Configuration Guides for Veritas and Commvault are also available.

  • Veritas
  • Commvault

Simplifying Enterprise Data Protection with Rubrik

Data center sprawl can be a real pain to manage, and it’s only made worse when dealing with legacy architecture. As data needs continue to grow exponentially, having an efficient and cost-effective data protection solution in place is more necessary than ever. If you’re still dealing with outdated hardware and software, then it will only become increasingly complex (and frustrating) to deal with data migration, backup, and recovery.

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Working with Rubrik for Better Data Protection

 

To help address these pain points, Cloudian has partnered with Rubrik to bring simple, seamless, and secure backup and long-term data retention solutions to enterprises.

Rubrik acts as a sort of ‘time machine’ for VMs. Backup software, catalog management, replication, and deduplicated storage are all brought into a single appliance. As a result, you get incredible ease of use and infinite scalability. Rubrik is able to deliver near-zero recovery times without the need for rehydration.

How Rubrik and Cloudian work together

How Rubrik and Cloudian HyperStore work hand-in-hand to provide efficient and affordable data backup and protection.

How Cloudian Fits In

 

Rubrik serves as a smart on-ramp to Cloudian HyperStore – no additional software installations or plugins necessary to connect the two. This, in turn, lets IT automate backup, replication, and archival via a policy-based engine. By sending the deduplicated data to HyperStore, IT can save money on data transfer and storage costs.

Furthermore, Cloudian HyperStore is fully software-defined with no affinity to hardware. It is a scale-out, 100% native S3 object storage platform designed for large but flexible storage solutions – ideal for storing unstructured data and content. HyperStore is robust and durable, but also flexible, and we kept ease of management and usability in mind from the start. Additionally, HyperStore provides seamless tiering and replication to public cloud providers such as AWS, Glacier, and other S3-compatible endpoints, including tape.

You can read more about Cloudian HyperStore’s features and benefits here.

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Having ironclad data protection in place is vital. Read more about how Rubrik and Cloudian can help in our joint solution brief.

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