CloudBoost is a cloud-enabling solution from EMC
Facilitates secure, automatic, efficient data transfer to private and public clouds for Long-Term Retention (LTR) of backups. Seamlessly extends existing data protection solutions to elastic, resilient, scale-out cloud storage
Thanks for taking the time to talk with us. During our discussion, we’ll walk through with you how cloud storage and EMC CloudBoost can help address the challenges presented by traditional LONG-TERM RETENTION strategies. I’m planning to highlight how CloudBoost works and some of the major features and benefits for you. For some, the concepts we discuss will be new. I’d like for you to bring up any questions or concerns you have about moving to cloud-based long-term retention.
Many organizations are required to retain copies of periodic backups for extended periods of time. Long-term retention or “LTR” policies may require, for example, that monthly, quarterly or yearly backups be retained for a specified time period. Traditionally, LTR has relied on tape storage. But tape is unreliable: the media can be lost or misplaced, and the data on it lost or corrupted.
EMC CloudBoost is a cloud-enabling solution that allows users of award-winning EMC NetWorker and Avamar protection software to replace risky and cumbersome tape with resilient, simple and scalable cloud storage -- specifically “object storage” -- for long-term retention of backups. LTR with CloudBoost is secure, automatic and effective in reducing consumption of precious resources such as network bandwidth and cloud capacity itself. CloudBoost extends your existing data protection solution to the cloud.
Another workload that’s very well-suited to tape is one that is not dedupable. In this scenario, LTR to cloud storage using CloudBoost can significantly reduce cost while meeting all data retention requirements.
It’s difficult to think of LTR as anything but a necessary evil. Most LTR backups will never be accessed again; and if they are, it will often be years in the future. But LTR data is like insurance: when you DO need it, it had better be available quickly and reliably. Yet you don’t want to spend an arm and a leg on the “premiums,” so to speak.
CloudBoost turns the necessary evil of LTR into a competitive advantage by ensuring ready, reliable, granular availability of LTR data when you need it – but at a very affordable price. CloudBoost is ideal for any organization whose LTR needs demand a cost-effective, high-performance, riskless alternative to tape.
CloudBoost offers choice on the front end, with several protection software options; and on the backend, with a selection of cloud storage alternatives. If you are implementing a hybrid or private cloud strategy, a particularly popular configuration combines EMC NetWorker backup and restore software, CloudBoost, and EMC Elastic Cloud Storage. ECS is an enterprise-grade private cloud that delivers the economics and agility of object storage with on-premises security and control.
NetWorker and CloudBoost integration is seamless. Your backup admin uses the same NetWorker Management Console for both operational and LTR backup and restore functions, so there’s no learning curve; and cloud-resident backup copies can benefit from the full range of NetWorker features, including retention policies, incremental restores, even DP Search queries that span all local and in-cloud backups.
On the backend, ECS provides an enterprise-ready, cost-effective cloud target for LTR workloads. One reason to choose an ECS solution is that, at scale – say 500TB+ and above – owning ECS costs less than quote-unquote “renting” public cloud capacity. Also, although CloudBoost provides enterprise-grade security with public or private cloud, the security afforded by keeping your cloud storage behind your firewall is a must for many organizations. And ECS is extremely resilient: it can handle multiple drive failures AND a node failure within a single rack and not lose data. You’d need two availability zones from public cloud to achieve this level of resiliency.
In a nutshell, CloudBoost enables simplified, automated long-term retention of backups. Whether your cloud target is private or public, CAPEX can be reduced relative to tape-based solutions. IT and business agility are enhanced, and the risk of lost or corrupted tape media is eliminated. And as I mentioned earlier, the backup admin uses the same console to manage LTR and operational backup and restore operations.
There’s another scenario in which a cloud-based LTR strategy makes a lot of sense: when on-premises storage designed and priced for operational backups, or even primary data, is being used for long-term retention. In this case, CloudBoost delivers a more cost-effective solution by substituting cloud, a more appropriate storage tier.
In short, CloudBoost lets you do LTR right by delivering tape-like costs with online performance and manageability.
This table lists the object stores supported by CloudBoost. On the public side, we have AT&T Synaptic storage, Google Cloud Storage – both Standard and Nearline – Microsoft Azure storage, and Amazon Web Services S3.
On the private cloud side, we have EMC ECS, EMC Atmos, and OpenStack Swift.
This diagram illustrates the CloudBoost workflow at a high level. Your protection storage software such as EMC NetWorker creates a backup to your protection storage such as Data Domain as usual. CloudBoost then creates a clone of that backup, encrypts and optimizes it as detailed in the following slides, and sends it to the cloud. For restores, the process essentially works in reverse, though NetWorker restores the data directly from the cloud to the application server. In both cases, the native NetWorker Management Console is used to manage the LTR workloads, and the data path is governed by NetWorker.
As the box on the left side of the slide implies, CloudBoost can push any backup to the cloud, regardless of the type of backup – file system, database, application, etc. It’s important to note, however, that CloudBoost is performing long-term retention of these backups, not creating an operational backup of the file system, database, application, and so on.
CloudBoost is deployed behind your firewall. As shown in this slide and detailed a bit later, the CloudBoost appliance – whether virtual or physical – incorporates a data cache to speed LTR backup and restore operations. The base CloudBoost model – a virtual appliance with a 2 terabyte data cache – is included at no additional charge with every Data Protection Suite capacity license. Upgrades and the other CloudBoost models are purchased separately.
CloudBoost delivers enterprise-grade benefits across all key dimensions:
Performance. A large persistent data cache (or “Site Cache”) is critical for environments where CloudBoost connects to the target object store over a WAN link that may suffer from low bandwidth, high latency, or lack of reliability. With Site Cache, data is transferred over the LAN to CloudBoost’s Site Cache, where it resides until being pushed to the cloud in the background. Similarly, any restore operation requiring data that is resident in the Site Cache will benefit from LAN restore speeds. For these reasons, Site Cache is important in the following scenarios, where the CloudBoost-to-Cloud link is a Wide Area Network:
Remote and branch offices (or “ROBO”) sending LTR backups over the WAN to a public cloud or even to a private cloud located in a distant corporate data center.
LTR operations from the central data center to a public cloud over the WAN.
In addition, CloudBoost applies fine-grained source-side deduplication, compression and a host of WAN optimizations to speed performance – and, in the process, reduce the consumption and cost of resources such as network bandwidth and cloud storage capacity itself.
Scalability. A single CloudBoost appliance, whether virtual or physical, can support up to 6 petabytes of logical data in your cloud of choice.
Security. CloudBoost deliver an “on-premises” security model regardless of whether data is stored in a public or private cloud. All data is segmented into small “chunks,” and each chunk is individually encrypted with its own independent AES-256 key. All data transfers take place over TLS, and data remains encrypted at all times both in-flight and at rest. As a result, CloudBoost delivers enterprise-grade security even when data must move or reside outside your firewall.
Flexibility. CloudBoost is available as either a physical appliance or a virtual appliance, giving you both turnkey and deploy-it-yourself cloud-enablement options. Also, Site Cache comes in two sizes for each form factor: 2TB or 6TB for the CloudBoost virtual appliance and 10TB or 32TB for the CloudBoost physical appliance. Again, the 2TB Site Cache virtual edition is included at no additional charge with every EMC Data Protection Suite capacity license.
Centralized Management. CloudBoost appliances are managed through the EMC Cloud Portal, an intuitive, enterprise-grade, hosted management platform. With EMC Cloud Portal, your administrators can manage and monitor one or many CloudBoost appliances, from initial registration to cloud profile creation to reporting and alerts – all from a single pane of glass. At the same time, they continue to use the native Data Protection Suite management console to schedule backups, set retention policies, perform recoveries, and manage all other aspects of the backup and restore process.
Remote Support. Further adding to the manageability of CloudBoost is integration via Cloud Portal of EMC Secure Remote Support (or “ESRS”), which provides everything from register/unregister and KeepAlive services to alerts and PhoneHome for each CloudBoost appliance deployed.
Affordability. CloudBoost enables long-term retention using object storage, a technology designed for affordability. Object storage leverages a simple commodity hardware-based architecture, provides native data durability, and is hyper-scalable (a single object store can manage billions of objects). As a result, cloud storage itself is affordable to buy – or “rent,” as in the case public cloud – as well as affordable to manage and affordable to scale. CloudBoost enhances the native affordability of object storage by reducing the consumption and cost of network bandwidth and storage capacity, thanks to the integrated deduplication, compression and WAN optimization CloudBoost delivers.
Let’s drill down a bit on the highlights that were summarized on the last couple of slides, starting with the new local data cache or “Site Cache.”
One of the inhibitors to cloud adoption is the effect that a wide area network can have on performance. When the connection from the source to the cloud target is a low bandwidth, high latency, or unreliable Wide Area Network, it typically creates a bottleneck that hampers both backup and restore operations. This can obviously occur when the target is a public cloud accessed over a WAN. But it can also happen when remote or branch offices are pushing LTR workloads to a central private cloud.
With the new CloudBoost, the local data cache in the appliance itself addresses the problem by providing a LAN-speed destination for workloads, which can then be sent or trickled off to the cloud at whatever rate the link will permit. The same is true in reverse, the CloudBoost Site Cache can benefit both backup and restore LTR operations.
The cache is also smart: it automatically changes state from read-write to read-only when necessary – typically when the cache running out of space, upon disk failure, or when the site-to-cloud link is either down or compromised.
Site Cache is but one of the features CloudBoost offers in order to enhance performance and resource efficiency.
Variable-length source-side deduplication ensures that only unique data is sent over the wire or saved in the cloud, increasing speed and reducing the consumption of precious network and cloud resources
Compression and a host of WAN optimizations further enhance performance and resource efficiency.
CloudBoost’s split-plane architecture, which separates data and metadata, enables CloudBoost to work optimally with a variety of object stores without the need for connectors or any other cloud-specific add-ons.
When it comes to data security, CloudBoost doesn’t take chances. Upon ingestion, each dataset is first segmented into many small “chunks,” and each chunk is encrypted with its own, INDEPENDENT AES-256 key. All data transfers occur over TSL; and CloudBoost takes full advantage of request signing and other verification features offered by object stores to ensure data integrity and to prevent buggy or malicious client access. For these reasons, we say that CloudBoost offers an “on-premises” security model even when data is stored or transferred beyond your firewall.
The new CloudBoost let’s you get physical as well as virtual. The turnkey physical appliance comes with either 10TB or 32TB of local data cache.
CloudBoost is now managed using the EMC Cloud Portal. Boasting a rich feature set as summarized on this slide, the Cloud Portal is a secure, EMC-managed, Web-based console that lets admins manage one or many CloudBoost appliances and cloud profiles. Note that admins still use their familiar backup and restore management console to administer both LTR and operational backup and restore operations.
The new CloudBoost also integrates with EMC’s Secure Remote Support service, the same ESRS leveraged across the EMC product portfolio.
Object storage is natively durable; unlike tape, it prevents data loss or corruption. To eliminate any weak links in the chain, CloudBoost Disaster Recovery ensures that the loss of a CloudBoost appliance does not compromise the integrity of data stored in the cloud. CloudBoost automatically copies and encrypts its metadata and system configuration information and stores it in the cloud. If the CloudBoost host fails or the whole site goes down, an admin at a remote site can retrieve and decrypt the data and upload it to a new CloudBoost instance, enabling operations to resume. CloudBoost DR is managed through EMC Cloud Portal.
Launched in Q4 of 2015, CloudBoost version 2 provides many significant enhancements over the original CloudBoost:
The new CloudBoost version can manage fully 15 times as much data in the cloud as the original CloudBoost – 6 petabytes in all.
Data compression augments the dedupe and WAN optimization we already had in version 1 and can drive a 2x improvement in efficiency -- that is, in the way CloudBoost manages its consumption of network bandwidth and cloud capacity.
Third is throughput. CloudBoost 2 delivers 2-3x the throughput of CloudBoost 1, thanks to new tools for reconfiguring the appliance and big changes to the on-disk metadata layout.
So that’s a Trifecta of scalability and performance enhancements: 15x scalability, 2x efficiency, and 2-3x throughput.
And speaking of performance, CloudBoost 2 also includes – as a standard feature – a local data cache or “Site Cache” that speeds up LTR backup and restore operations and provides access to cache-resident data even when the network is inaccessible.
CloudBoost 1 was available only in a virtual form factor. You can still get CloudBoost 2 in a virtual form factor as well, but also ships as in a physical form factor.
CloudBoost 2 adds centralized management through EMC Cloud Portal. While each CloudBoost 1 appliance had its own UI, an admin can manage and monitor one or many CloudBoost 2 appliances and cloud profiles from the Cloud Portal single-pane-of-glass.
And CloudBoost is now integrated with EMC Secure Remote Support or “ESRS,” which provides a host of remote management features and capabilities across the EMC portfolio.
As you can see, with an Avamar deployment, CloudBoost uses a 2-step process that leverages the NetWorker workflow. This is beneficial because it ensures central catalog entries for all data stored in the cloud.
The CloudBoost virtual appliance runs on ESX 5 or later and requires the virtual resources shown here.
The CloudBoost physical appliance is a turnkey solution. The 10TB Site Cache model is a single 2U rack mount chassis, while the 32TB model adds a 3U disk array enclosure.
Choose the virtual or physical form factor and Site Cache capacity that best fits your environment and LTR requirements.
In addition to EMC NetWorker and Avamar, CloudBoost now supports Symantec NetBackup as well, giving NBU 7.6 users a more cost-effective and efficient path to the cloud. When using NBU’s native cloud enablement, you must run media servers in the cloud in order to get both incremental restores and dedupe simultaneously. This can be a very costly and complex undertaking. With CloudBoost, on the other hand, NBU users get dedupe and incremental restores without the need to run any additional infrastructure in the cloud.
CloudBoost deployment with NBU requires only the installation of CloudBoost Client software on an virtual or physical NBU media server running Windows 2012, which presents a NAS share using NBU’s “Advanced Disk” option.
CloudBoost-enabled NBU admins use the same NBU console they’re familiar with to manage all LTR workloads, with both manual and automated “SLP-driven” duplication supported.
Again, support for CloudBoost requires NetBackup version 7.6 and an NBU media server running Windows 2012.
