Backup Appliance Technology: How does it work?

Start with your existing network, whether Ethernet or fiber, and search out all the network or SAN connected data in terms of servers, workstations, and remote users. The STORServer will backup and archive everything on your networks. The Backup Appliance captures data whether the the data is owned by the servers or workstations and is:

• directly attached
• LAN or WAN attached
• NAS attached
• SAN attached

The STORServer Backup Appliance will automatically backup up or archive all of your data, no matter where it is. And, your data is always available for restore (Backup) or retrieve (Archive), according to your data retention policies (Compliance).

1. The backup appliance connects onto an existing network port, either 100mbps or Gig-E. In fact, it will allow up to five simultaneous network connections to support VLANs and/or Sub-Net isolation.
   
2. Backup Appliance software is installed on each server device you wish to have direct backup and restore, or archive and retrieve, services. The software is free. You can download and install on any machine. You are charged, however, for licenses on each server or workstation to move the data to the STORServer. Licenses are a one-time charge by CPU ($425) for servers, but only $45 for workstations.
   
3. File level backups flow from each server and/or workstation into the primary Backup Appliance disk storage pool, or “cache pool.” You can bypass the cache pool and go directly to the main storage pool, or “online pool,” if you wish, for large database volume backups, or "backup sets" for archives.
   
4. The benefit of a disk cache pool allows many devices to be backing up at once, each with their own independent stream, without worrying about tape mounts. You can multi-stream database volume or backup sets to the online pool to speed up online pool backups. Since online pools can be either tape or disk, you can have as many streams as you need.
   
5. The data file migration from the cache pool makes two more copies (or as many as you wish) to the internal online pool (which can be either tape or disk). This means you have two copies of the file level backup in online pool, and one in the cache pool. One of the online pool copies is a Disaster Recovery (DR) copy, which is either checked out on tape or has been created electronically in an offsite location to either tape or disk. The online pool copy remains in the appliance for restore, and the DR copy means you always have an offsite copy of all the online pool data in a separate recovery storage.
   
6. The data in the cache pool is kept as long as the cache size allows, flushing out older data to accept the new data. You can size the cache pool to hold anywhere from 2 days to as many days of data as you wish. Since the cache pool is disk, and since most of your file restores are files that have changed in the last few days, the disk cache pool storage makes file restores an extremely fast activity.
   
7. The data in the online pool (and the subsequent copies for DR) are held as long as your “data retention” settings allow. Typically, customers set data retention for 45 days after a file is deleted. You can set the days at any length, and adjust the data retention down to each individual file name. Any file still active as production data in your environment is not deleted from the online pool. The result is that you have in your online pool all files you want to restore. For a 45 day retention, then, you have up to 45 "full" backups online.
   
8. Once we capture the initial set of data, we only need to capture the changes from that point forward. Since all files are on-line, you essentially have every file you want to restore, and as many full backups as you want. This eliminates the need for ever running full backups again, because you already have them, online! You can automatically locate all the active and data retention data for a server or workstation on as few tape volumes as needed, which dramatically speeds up a bare metal restore.
   
9. You can automatically “archive” data that must be kept for long periods (months or years, rather than days) for compliance reasons. Archives can be held in separate online/onsite and offline pools, if you wish. Archive copies can be checked out completely from the STORServer, since they may have rare retrieval requirements.

Backup Appliance Technology is Different
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