Combining StorageCraft Backup & Recovery with Exablox Object Storage

I will begin by arguing from a technological standpoint that StorageCraft’s ShadowProtect SPX software is the leading backup & recovery technology on the market for Windows and Linux OSs (and that’s for virtual & physical machines). This is a powerful software suite that combines continuous incremental sector-level snapshot technology, instant on-demand VirtualBoot technology from any recovery point, pre-staged recovery via HSR (HeadStart Restore), HIR (Hardware Independent Restore) to restore to any platform, and a single-pane-of-glass monitoring and management functionality which is all available for purchase in an easy to understand per machine or socket based licensing model.

So, of course, I see it imperative that StorageCraft is used for backup & recovery in physical-only environments, mixed (virtual & physical) environments, and virtual-only environments due to its ability to be agnostic to hardware, hypervisor, and storage on the backup side and the recovery side. This capability stems from StorageCraft’s ability to use their time proven snapshot engine across any Windows or Linux physical or virtual machine and then leverage the HIR technology to recover to any platform on the fly.

Now, let’s specifically address what’s at the core of it all … the data. Data has to reside on some sort of medium. For fast retrieval and modification of data, we place that data on HDDs or SSDs. When it comes to backups, we need to place those backups created by ShadowProtect SPX on HDDs or SSDs so we can retrieve that backed up data easily and quickly and place it into production easily and quickly.

Unfortunately, tape is commonly used for backups due to the fact that tape has a longer lifespan than HDDs and SSDs. There are numerous problems presented by tape, but an important one is the speed in accessing the data and transferring that data to a production or DR environment from tape. This all negatively impacts RTO. On the other hand, using disk for backups, the shorter lifespans of HDDs and SSDs come into play and have a negative effect on the integrity of the backup data that resides on them. We’ve all seen this with data corruption due to the inevitable degradation that exists with HDDs and SSDs.

That was until the arrival of Object Storage.

Even more importantly to our discussion here ... that was until StorageCraft acquired Exablox and their Object Storage solution.

Object Storage provides us with the ability to ensure the integrity of data and quickly access that data via HDDs and SSDs. As I stated in a previous article, Amazon didn’t build AWS a decade ago using “Block Storage” … heck no! They used Object Storage.

I would argue that Object Storage dictates today’s, and more importantly, tomorrow’s “enterprise level features for storage”.

But … what’s soooooo cool about Exablox, is that it’s not priced to only be found at the “enterprise” level. Exablox provides a way for environments of all size to leverage the advantages of Object Storage. Notably with Exablox, you source your own HDDs and SSDs!

What else is soooooo cool with Exablox, is that the Object Storage itself is addressed by NFS and SMB shares … that means NO need to write to RESTful API’s!

With Exablox, you get a storage solution that requires no RAID configuration, no LUN configuration, no synchronous mirroring configuration, etc. Setup of an Exablox OneBlox appliance is less than 5 minutes! The zero downtime expansion of storage via the addition of an Exablox OneBlox appliance to a Ring takes less than 5 minutes!

So, what do we need to build a StorageCraft backup and Disaster Recovery solution running on an Exablox Object Storage solution? Specifically, let’s look at a VMware virtual infrastructure that has a production location and a Disaster Recovery location.

The StorageCraft software licensing and Exablox hardware will consist of the following:

Production Storage Environment

Quantity “X” Exablox OneBlox 5210 appliances where each 5210 has up to 10 2.5" SAS & SATA SDDs, and up to 7 OneBlox 5210s in a Ring

Production Backup Storage Environment

Quantity “X” Exablox OneBlox 4312 appliances where each 4312 has up to 12 3.5" SAS & SATA HDDs, and up to 7 OneBlox 4312s in a Ring

Production Backup/Recovery Environment

StorageCraft Socket Based Licensing. This licensing includes backup, file/folder recovery, VirtualBoot for VMware vSphere for on-demand recovery of any recovery point, bare metal recovery to any virtual or physical platform, and a single pane of glass web monitoring & management interface.

DR Site Backup Storage Environment

Quantity “X” Exablox OneBlox 4312 appliances where each 4312 has up to 12 3.5" SAS & SATA HDDs, and up to 7 OneBlox 4312s in a Ring

DR Production Storage Environment

Quantity “X” Exablox OneBlox 4312 (HDDs) or 5210 (SSDs) based Ring – Depends on the performance required for DR failover … HDD or SSD performance

That’s it!

It’s that easy … that simple … and it’s cost effective.

Rich Werhun