When considering a backup solution for backing up VMware vSphere environments, there are many key features you want to look for, in a capable data protection solution. A modern backup solution is able to backup VMware vSphere environments effectively & efficiently and provide administrators, a single pane of glass solution to manage VMware vSphere backups.
Data protection solutions in today’s modern world of IT infrastructure are expected to do more than simply backup virtual machines. They are also expected to facilitate organizations to be able to meet RTO and RPO objectives as well as allow them to follow best practice considerations with data protection such as the 3-2-1 backup methodology. Let’s take a look at VMware backup solutions’ key features and the functionality you would look for while choosing your next VMware backup solution.
VMware Backup Solutions Key Features
The complex virtual infrastructure found in today’s enterprise data centers require a modern data protection solution to be versatile, effective, efficient, and cloud integrated. In fact, let’s take a look at the following key features you would look for in a data protection solution that is robust and forward thinking in addition to being technically proficient.
- Multi-hypervisor support
- Efficient use of storage
- Built-in security to secure backup data
- Ability to backup, replicate, and copy backups offsite or to the cloud in a single product
- Cloud Integration
- Meets compliance standards of today and tomorrow
We will look at the importance of each of these objectives one by one.
Multi-Hypervisor Support
Even though this discussion centers around VMware backup solutions, a capable VMware backup solution needs to also be able to understand other hypervisors as well. Today’s enterprise data centers are utilizing multiple hypervisors in many cases and with different use cases in mind. Organizations benefit by having a capable backup solution that is able to protect VMware and other hypervisors as well. Being able to interoperate with multiple hypervisor platforms allows being flexible and versatile in an environment where workloads are running. It also ensures having the workload protected by a single backup solution that is capable on multiple hypervisors. This results in having a backup solution that reduces complexity and technical debt.
Efficient Use of Storage
When choosing a VMware backup solution to protect your environment, you want to choose a solution that makes efficient use of storage. While storage costs in general have dropped over the past few years, enterprise datacenter storage is still at a premium. When thinking about a backup solution that targets enterprise datacenter storage, you want a backup solution to use the latest technologies that allow minimal data storage to protect your data. VMware backup solutions today must take advantage of VMware’s Changed Block Tracking to efficiently copy only the changes made since the last backup. Additionally, utilizing compression and deduplication technology eliminates duplication of blocks on disk, thus ensuring the footprint of the backup data is minimized.
Built-in Security to Secure Backup Data
When it comes down to it, the data that is contained in backups is “production” data and is simply a snapshot of production data at a point in time. Securing backups of production systems is crucial and prevents someone from compromising sensitive data by gaining access to backup of production data, virtual machines, etc. A VMware backup solution today needs to have the native built-in capability to secure backup data. This means your VMware backup solution needs to be able to encrypt data both in flight and at rest. Data that is encrypted in flight is encrypted as it traverses the network. Data encrypted at rest is encrypted as it sits on disk. This is referred to as “End-to-End Encryption” or E2EE. The industry standard encryption technology for ensuring E2EE today is AES 256-bit encryption. This encryption standard ensures data is protected from attackers or an unscrupulous employee.
Backup Replicate and Make Backup Copies with Single Product
When thinking about choosing a VMware backup solution, you want to leverage a product that is able to perform backups, replication, and offsite DR copies all within a single product. This greatly reduces the administrative overhead of multiple solutions or interfaces for backing up virtual machines, replicating virtual machines, or copying backup data offsite. Having one console, logging, and other unified tools also makes troubleshooting any backup issues much easier. In choosing a VMware backup solution, choose one that is able to perform all the necessary data protection tasks in a single solution.
Cloud Integration
Organizations who aren’t migrating resources to the cloud today, will be at least thinking about migrating resources there in the near future. Hosting at least a subset of applications or services in the public cloud for most organizations is on the horizon. Choose a VMware backup solution that integrates with public cloud resources for offsite DR storage. Cloud storage provides cheap and easy “DR” locations for storing business critical data and allows you to have a cost effective offsite DR storage strategy. This allows you to meet the 3-2-1 rule more easily by having an offsite storage location in separate geographic regions.
Additionally, many are looking to move to SaaS offerings for resources such as email or productivity solutions such as Microsoft Office 365 or Google G Suite. Choosing a VMware backup solution that also has tight integration and support for both storing backups and protecting cloud-based services greatly extends the business value to the backup solution. Most organizations today are looking at “swiss-army knife” type solutions that allow protecting their data wherever it may live.
Meets compliance standards of today and tomorrow
Being able to meet compliance objectives today is a huge concern for most businesses. The importance of meeting compliance guidelines is only going to grow. Initiatives such as the new General Data Protection Regulation(GDPR) is set to go into effect from May 2018. This new initiative will drastically change operations for businesses who store data for anyone who is an EU citizen. The new regulations empower EU citizens to own their own data and enables them to request being “forgotten” at any point in time. Additionally, it puts into practice new standards on data security.
Organizations need to choose a VMware backup solution that facilitates being in compliance with new regulations such as GDPR and any future regulations in regards to data protection, archiving, privacy, etc. Backup solutions will no doubt be under much more scrutiny than before with these types of privacy regulations and being able to protect sensitive or personally identifiable information that may be contained in production backups is certainly one of the primary factors to be considered while choosing a backup solution for your organization.
Vembu BDR Suite – A Modern VMware Backup Solution
Vembu BDR Suite provides all the tooling and capabilities that today’s businesses look for when thinking about a VMware backup solution. Vembu BDR Suite is a fully featured multi-hypervisor backup solution that is equally adept at protecting the major hypervisors used in today’s enterprise datacenters. It incorporates the VembuHIVE file system that makes efficient use of available storage. It provides state of the art encryption at the backup job level.
Vembu BDR Suite is an all-encompassing product that contains all the tools necessary to backup, replicate, and create offsite DR copies of business-critical data allowing organizations to meet both Recovery Time Objectives and Restore Point Objectives. This even includes support for archiving backups to tape for long-term storage which allows you to meet 3-2-1 backup recommended best practices. It tightly integrates with today’s public cloud environments and allows backing up both Microsoft Office 365 and Google G Suite environments. It is fully capable as well of satisfying the requirements of the new GDPR regulations and many others. When it comes to picking the right VMware backup solution, you want to make the right choice in line with the key features that organizations need to look for today. Vembu BDR Suite enables you to meet those key requirements and satisfy the most important requirement for any business – protect your data.
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