After keeping it beta for more than a month, Druvaa on June 26th announced the general availability of Druvaa inSync v2.0. The idea behind v2.0 is fast and bandwidth/storage efficient backup. The much awaited release, brings two very interesting and unique features -
1. SendUnique - 10x Faster backup with 90% reduction in storage and bandwidth utilization.
Almost 80% of PC data (emails/docs) within an enterprise is common between users. SendUnique technology fingerprints the user’s backup set to send only one copy of data (emails/docs) common between different users to the backup server. This speeds up backup by almost 10 times and cut bandwidth usage by 90%.
2. Eternity - Never Lose a file. Ever.
Timeline based, from-the-past restore. Enables ultimate protection against data loss or virus attacks.
For further information and sales queries please contact sales@druvaa.com
About druvaa
Formed in 2007, Druvaa Software is a leading provider of Continuous Data Protection and Disaster Recovery solutions. Since inception Druvaa has released two products - Druvaa Replicator (Continuous Data Protection and Disaster Recovery) and Druvaa inSync (Enterprise Laptop Backup). Druvaa is angel funded by Indian Angel Network (IAN) and Accord Internation (HK).
The Gartner Report (here) says storage data de-duplication and virtualization are two main technologies driving innovation in storage management software this year. This makes sense, considering the fact that corporate data is increasing at a whooping 60% annual rate. (Microsoft Report says here).
Server Backup
Data is very rarely common between production servers of different types. Its not difficult to imagine that Exchange email server may not have same content as Oracle database server. But data is largely duplicate within file-servers, exchange server and say a bunch of ERP servers (development and test). This duplication creates potential bottlenecks for bandwidth and storage used for backup.
Existing players have offered two solutions to this problem -
Traditional single-instancing at backup server to filter out common content e.g Microsoft Single Instance Service (in Data center edition). This saves the just storage cost, depending upon at what level to filter commonalities - file / block / byte. A big player in this space is Data-Domain. These solutions don’t have a client component, they just save storage space.
New innovative solutions like Avamar (now with EMC) and PureDisk (now with Veritas) which try filter content at backup server level before the data goes to the (remote) store. This makes these solutions much better suited for remote-office backups. They save bandwidth and storage.
But, there are two unsolved problems with both these approaches as well ( Which also, explains a poor response for these products in the market )-
most of the times simple block checksum matching fails to figure out common data, as it may not fall on block boundaries . Eg. if you insert a simple byte in a file, the whole file changes and all the blocks shift. And the block checksum approach fails.
Checksum calculation is very costly and makes backups CPU exhaustive.
These approaches are targeting storage cost, not time/bandwidth which is more critical.
PC Backups
The problem is much more complex at PC level, as duplicated data is distributed among users and is as high as 90% in some cases. Emails / documents and similar file formats create large pool of duplicate data between users.
Also, since 50% of PC backup is mainly large email files, this is problem is particularly difficult to solve using simple file based de-duplication techniches used by servers.
Druvaa inSync v2.0 uses a on-wire (distributed) de-duplication technique which senses duplicate data before the backup starts and hences skips it from the backup. This is transparent to the user, all he notices is a 10 times boost in backup speed with over 90% reduction in bandwidth and storage usage.
How it works
This technology creates and maintains a Global “Single Instance” File System at backup server. Each time a user wants to backup a file, the insync clients prepares a file-fingerprint (using linear polynomial based hash) and compares it with the server. After the server sends a response, the backup happens only for the “unique” data within the file.
The (patent pending) advance file-fingerprinting makes it computationally very easy to filter common content like - same paragraphs in different documents, a same CCed email, media rich corporate presentations etc. This cuts down time for backup by 10 times and reduces bandwidth and storage utilization by 90%.
Other Interesting Features
Another good use of the Gobal Single Instance File System is - Continuous Data protection. The user after starting the restore can see how his files changes over time. Which gives him an option to restore point-in-time data from any point in the past. The marketing name for the feature is - “Eternity. Never lose a file. Ever.” A long name, but serves its meaning
Business Opportunities
The same technology/product can be stripped down to backup PDAs and scaled up to backup servers. A good use case would be to reduce time for backup of bunch of related remote servers.
Druvaa announces the availability of Druvaa inSync 2.0 Beta. The idea behind v2.0 is fast and bandwidth/storage efficient backup. The much awaited release, brings four very interesting and unique features -
1. SendUnique - Enterprise wide on-wire data de-duplication. Almost 80% of PC data (emails/docs) within an enterprise is common between users. SendUnique technology fingerprints the user’s backup set to send only one copy of data (emails/docs) common between different users to the backup server. This speeds up backup by almost 10 times and cut bandwidth usage by 90%.
2. Eternity - Never Loose a file. Ever. Timeline based, from-the-past restore. Enables ultimate protection against data loss or virus attacks.
3. NetworkSense - Automatic network sensing and prioritization. Allocates a user defined percentage of bandwidth for backups.
4. TrueSecure - Client triggered secure backups. 256 byte network (SSL) and 256 bit (AES) storage encryption.
You can sign up here for beta evaluation and updates.
The following presentations describes the 2.0 feature set -
Druvaa Software today announced the general availability of Druvaa Replicator version 2.0. Druvaa Replicator is a volume data replication and disaster recovery solution. It near-synchronously and non-disruptively replicates production data to target storage across heterogeneous operating environments (storage, application and OS) and over unlimited distances. The new release brings significant performance improvements for large servers and WAN based replication.
The new release comes with five key improvements -
Performance improvements in replication agent specially for large servers
Caching server is now an optional and separately priced
Intelligent Data compression, minimal de-duplication and enhanced caching support at Caching Server
Advanced reporting with detailed/searchable activity log
Simplified user interface and license management
Version 2.0 is released on Microsoft Windows 2000/2003 server and RedHat Enterprise Linux release 4.x/5.x
Formed in 2007, Druvaa Software is a leading provider of Continuous Data Protection and Disaster Recovery solutions. Since inception Druvaa has released two products - Druvaa Replicator (Continuous Data Protection and Disaster Recovery) and Druvaa inSync (Enterprise Laptop Backup). Druvaa is angel funded by Indian Angel Network (IAN) and Accord Internation (HK).
“We are paid to Backup not Restore … “, this was the company slogan at my last job.
And the team really followed it well, seriously. Look at the existing backup solutions, they have tons of options for backup and most of these options are derived for pre-historic tape-based backups. In fact most of the solutions confuse backup with archival. Take a look at following backups options -
Backup Rule Engines
Complicated Scheduling and archival times
Naming a backup or scheme or snapshots
But, there are hardly any options for restore , besides they hardly even work
I guess restores can be made much better, with options like -
Self-serve, web based restore.
Give and option to restore just a part of backup.
Search a file in Restore.
Restore based on Timeline. ( Choose a date and restore based on that date. )
Support compression for faster restores (just like backups).
With Druvaa inSync we tried to address most these issues. Now with upcoming 2.0 we plan to add file-searching and time-line based restores.
Should the results differ for a larger set of users ? Looks difficult, but would soon try and publish (upcoming) version 2.0 benchmarks with larger set of users.
Backup is a necessary evil. At Druvaa, our goal is to get rid of the evil part of backup. The first step in that process is to find out the pain points of traditional backup.
Backup schedules: Traditionally, a backup is a scheduled process that runs at fixed intervals. In case of a failure, the data updates since the last backup are lost. The recovery point objective (RPO) is weaker with traditional backup. Refer to Understanding RPO and RTO for a discussion on RPO.
Backup slots: Traditional backup process is resource heavy. Also, the server appplication needs to be quisced to get a consistent backup image. This implies that the regular server activity cannot continue during backup. Hence, backup is schduled to run during a timeslot when the regular application activity is not present or is present at a lower scale. As the amount of data and the time to backup grows, it becomes harder to find time-slots for scheduling backup. The increase in the number of business hours also puts additional pressure on the backup slots.
User interface: Traditional backup interface is complex due to the concepts of full/incremental backups and schedules. Due to the coplexity of the user interface, it becomes harder to let the end user control the backup process. Typically, the administrator configures the backup for enduser desktop/laptop. The configuration remains static and cannot easily adapt to dynamic data layout. Instead, the end user is asked to arrange his/her data to suit the backup configuration.
Backup media: Traditional backup is performed on media like magnetic tapes or optical disks. Complete automation (using robotic media libraries) of the backup process is too costly. In absence of an automated process, an administrative attention is required to manage the backup media. Maintaining the backup media also requires administrative effort. The restore operation also requires administrative attention because the right backup media needs to be loaded.
Special hardware: Tradional backup is performed using media like magnetic tapes that require special hardware like tape drives. Special hardware means additional procurenement and maintenance cost.
Restore operation: With traditional backup, the end user cannot restore her files by herself. Typically, a service request is sent to the administrator, thus increasing the time taken for restore. The recovery time objective (RTO) is weaker with traditional backup. Refer to Understanding RPO and RTO for a discussion on RTO.
In the next post, I’ll discuss possible approaches to address the painpoints of traditional backup.
For the first timers - Druvaa inSync is a Fast Enterprise Laptop Sync solution mainly targeted at LAN/WAN based backups for mobile workforce and cross office backup consolidation.
Druvaa inSync 2.0 is being targeted as a complete laptop data sync protection solution.
Feature Set
a) Server Side
Performance improvements - Improved sync algorithm (based on xdelta-3).
Continuous Data Protection - Date/time based “from the past” restore.
Network Profiles - admin configures network profiles with -
IP addresses
Network Type LAN/WAN/Auto (to optimize on backup packet sizes)
On-wire compression levels
Pluggable Storage Architecture - to make way for storage engines like encrypted, compressed, single instance, Amazon S3
Single Instance Store - powerful block level de-duplication/single instancing.
Storage Profiles - admin configures storage profiles with storage engine and capacity
User Profiles - binds network and storage profiles with user profiles/groups. A totally flexible way of choosing which user syncs using which network and what storage type.
Remote Data Deletion/Encryption - Theft protection
Live Reports - Statistic, Graphs and email Alerts.
b) Client Side
Bandwidth QoS - Choose backup bandwidth cap by percentage not value.
Search backed-up files - allow users to search files in backup by names
Auto restore/heal - automatically “heal” the laptop by restoring all files to default location
Live Console - View live logs and backup activity
.
Feedback Suggestion
Druvaa inSync team would like to hear your feedback/suggestions -
Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovey Time Objective (RTO) are one of the most important parameters of a disaster recovery or data protection plan. These objectives guide the enterprises to choose a optimal data backup (rather restore) plan.
“Recovery Point Objective (RPO) describes the amount of data lost measured in time. Example: If the last available good copy of data upon an outage was from 18 hours ago, then the RPO would be 18 hours.”
In other words if the answer to question - “Up to what point in time could the data be recovered ?“.
“The Recovery Time Objective (RTO) is the duration of time and a service level within which a business process must be restored after a disaster in order to avoid unacceptable consequences associated with a break in continuity.
…
It should be noted that the RTO attaches to the business process and not the resources required to support the process.”
In another words its the answer to question - “How much time did you take to recovery after notification of business process disruption ?“
The RTO/RPO and the results of the Business Impact Analysis (BIA) in its entirety provide the basis for identifying and analyzing viable strategies for inclusion in the business continuity plan. Viable strategy options would include any which would enable resumption of a business process in a time frame at or near the RTO/RPO. This would include alternate or manual workaround procedures and would not necessarily require computer systems to meet the objectives.
There is always a gap between the actuals (RTA/RPA) and objectives introduced by various manual and automated steps to bring the business application up. These actuals can only be exposed by disaster and business disruption rehearsals.
Some Examples -
Traditional Backups
In traditional tape backups, if your backup plan takes 2 hours for a scheduled backup at 0600 hours and 1800 hours, then a primary site failure at 1400 hrs would leave you with an option to restore from 0600 hrs backup which means RPA of 8 hours and 2 hours RTA.
Continuous Replication
Replication provides higher RPO guarantees as the target system contains the mirrored image of the source. The RPA values depend upon how fast the changes are applied and if the replication is synchronous or asynchronous. RPO is dependent on the fact that how soon can the data on target/replicated site be made available to the application.
Druvaa Replicator
Druvaa Replicator is Continuous Data Protection and Replication (CDP-R) product which near-synchronously and non-disruptively replicates changes on prodhuction sever to target site and provides point-in-time snapshots for instant data access.
The partial synchronous replication ensures that the data is written to a local or remote cache (caching server) before it application can write locally. This ensures up to 5 sec RPO guarantees . CDP technology (still beta) enables up to 1024 snapshots (beta) at that target storage which helps the admin to access current or any past point-in-time consistent image of data instantly, ensuring under 2 sec RTO.
, besides they hardly even work 