How to Select the Best Virtual Tape Library
Content
Technology Brief: How to Select the Best Virtual Tape Library
8 Questions You Should Ask Your Vendor and More
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How to Select the Best Virtual Tape Library
8 Questions You Should Ask Your Vendor
1. What tape libraries and tape drives does your virtual tape library emulate? SEPATON Answer: The S2100-ES emulates tape libraries from STK, ADIC, and Quantum/ATL, and also supports LTO-1, LTO-2, DLT, SDLT, and AIT 2&3 tape drives. The S2100-ES can support the simultaneous emulation of up to 96 tape libraries, 384 tape drives, and can support up to 5000 virtual tape cartridges. 2. How scalable is your virtual tape library in terms of capacity? SEPATON Answer: The S2100-ES gracefully scales from 3.5TB of capacity up to a maximum configuration of 200TB in a single appliance. In order to determine how much capacity your organization requires for the S2100-ES, it is necessary to calculate the total amount of primary data stored, then compare that with your backup policy regarding the total amount of full and incremental backups that need to be available online. 3. What about performance? How scalable is your virtual tape library in terms of throughput? SEPATON Answer: The S2100-ES is a high performance virtual tape library, able to achieve speeds up to 10 times faster than traditional tape backup and up to 3 times that of host-based D2D backup systems. The combination of support for a large number of virtual tape drives, ATA disk performance, and SEPATON’s Scalable Replication Engine (SRE) with its additional coprocessing power drives the delivery of data for a single stream at up to 150MB per second per drive. The SRE is capable of 2Gb Fibre Channel read/write speeds, with the ability to emulate up to 64 tape drives per SRE. A single S2100-ES can be configured with up to three SREs to achieve its 1.6 TB/hour potential. 4. What enterprise backup applications does your virtual tape library support? SEPATON Answer: The S2100-ES emulates a variety of popular tape library environments and integrates with existing backup/restore applications, including: VERITAS NetBackup™, VERITAS Backup Exec, Legato Networker, CommVault Qinetix, BakBone NetVault, IBM Tivoli, and others. To users, it looks and operates exactly like their existing tape library—except that it delivers wire-speed data transfer. 5. Does your virtual tape library support the multiplexing (also called multistreaming) features of leading enterprise backup data applications? SEPATON Answer: Yes, the S2100-ES supports backups using multiple streams of data written to a single virtual tape cartridge. This feature is particularly useful in obtaining significant performance when backing up a large number of application servers (or clients) within the enterprise. As previously mentioned, the S2100-ES supports up to 384 virtual tape drives and can achieve speeds of up to 1.6TB/hour by aggregating the performance of multiple backup streams. 6. How difficult is it to install your virtual tape library into an environment with an existing backup application, tape library and established backup policies? SEPATON Answer: The S2100-ES is designed to be completely non-disruptive, to integrate Page 2 of 4
seamlessly into existing backup environments without any necessary changes to the infrastructure, applications or backup policies. Because the S2100-ES emulates a number of tape libraries and tape formats, your existing tape library is recognized instantly by your backup application. When purchased, the S2100-ES arrives at your site pre-configured to your specifications for a simple, pleasant out-of-the-box experience. In most cases the time from arrival until the first backup can be measured in minutes instead of hours. 7. Our company has been considering just upgrading our tape library to the next higher performing model. How does the TCO of your virtual tape library compare to that of traditional tape libraries? SEPATON Answer: We have analyzed the costs of a number of tape libraries in comparison to that of a similarly configured S2100-ES and in many cases the total cost of implementing the S2100-ES is actually less than that of the tape library. In every case, the performance of the S2100-ES is much higher, the number of drives and cartridges supported greater, and the future scalability far superior. Take a brief cost analysis of the ATL P4000 compared to the S2100-ES for example: Cartridges ATLP4000 S2100-ES 171 Up to 5000 Drives 10 Up to 384 Performance 540GB/hr 540GB/hr Capacity 17.1TB 17.5TB Aprox. Total Cost w/1Yr Warranty and Media $218,279.00 $148,000.00
In this example it is important to note that the S2100-ES can increase its performance through the addition of virtual tape cartridges and drives and the utilization of concurrent backup streams. Additionally, with no ongoing expense for tape cartridges, the ability to scale far beyond the capacity in this example configuration, the ability to leverage future functionality enhancements and more, the S2100-ES offers far more value than a traditional tape library. (Ask your SEPATON sales representative to assist you in analyzing the TCO of your current tape library when compared to that of the S2100-ES) 8. Our company has been looking at using the disk-to-disk capabilities of our enterprise backup application as a possible solution to our backup challenges. How does your solution compare to a host-based D2D system? SEPATON Answer: This solution looks attractive to many of our customers at first glance, particularly since they often have the application in-house already. In reviewing these solutions with our customers we saw that host-based D2D provides significant performance benefits (when compared to tape), and many of the benefits that are being sought by IT administrators looking to implement disk-based backups. Host-based D2D integrates with existing backup applications, and provides performance enhancements, however, the integration, compatibility and support concerns could outweigh (and out-cost) the benefits of the solution. For a more in-depth comparison of ask your SEPATON representative for a copy of our whitepaper titled, “Comparing Host-Based D2D to Virtual Tape Libraries for Backup and Restore”.
How VTL Appliances Differ From Software-Only VTL Products
There are essentially two technical approaches that vendors are taking to delivering virtual tape library functionality for their customers. The first is an integrated VTL appliance, complete with all of the necessary hardware and software, fully configured for delivery to the customer. The second approach is a software-only VTL offering which provides the desired functionality, but Page 3 of 4
must be built by the customer’s IT department or their systems integrator. SEPATON’s S2100ES is an example of an integrated VTL appliance, while products such as Securitus from Alacritus, Diligent’s VTF and FalconStor’s VTL Appliance Powered by IPStor are examples of software-only offerings. Software-only VTL solutions offer the customer a wide array of technical configurations using any number of hardware and software combinations. Flexibility of configuration and the ability to build the solution with almost whatever hardware the customer desires is the primary value of these solutions. The downside of these offerings is their complexity, difficulty of installation, and ongoing administrative support and maintenance of these varied configurations. The following chart compares a customer’s installation experience with an integrated VTL versus a softwareonly product.
Installation Steps Required for Each VTL Solution
S2100-ES Virtual Tape Library Software-only VTL solution
Assumption: Customer has existing enterprise backup application (i.e. Veritas or Legato) and was using a traditional tape library or tape drives for backups prior to the purchase of new system. 1.VTL Arrives –VTL arrives fully configured to the customer’s specifications, including RAID arrays, hardware and included software. 2. System is installed and plugged into existing Fibre Channel or Ethernet network infrastructure. 3. Backup is executed using enterprise backup application. Since VTL emulates previously used tape library or backup, the backup application sees VTL as existing library. Changes to policies rarely required. 4. Backup job is verified. Installation and test complete. 1. 3rd Party RAID Array system arrives.
2. IT administrator or vendor will have to install hardware, hard drives, cabling and other physical hardware necessary for RAID system. 3. IT administrator decides on RAID types, configures RAID sets, configures security access, zones, etc.
4. IT administrator installs physical application server for VTL solution, then installs operating system on that application server 5. VTL software is installed and configured on application server. 6. IT administrator configures host backup application to utilize VTL system as target for backup operations. 7. New backup job is created and run. 8. Backup job is verified. Installation and test are complete.
Contact SEPATON at 508.490.7900 or via email at [email protected] today for more information! About SEPATON Based in Southborough, MA, SEPATON, Inc. develops and markets a family of data protection solutions to medium and large data centers that must manage multiple terabytes of data daily. SEPATON’s data protection solutions integrate seamlessly into existing customer environments.
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8 Questions You Should Ask Your Vendor and More
Page 1 of 4
How to Select the Best Virtual Tape Library
8 Questions You Should Ask Your Vendor
1. What tape libraries and tape drives does your virtual tape library emulate? SEPATON Answer: The S2100-ES emulates tape libraries from STK, ADIC, and Quantum/ATL, and also supports LTO-1, LTO-2, DLT, SDLT, and AIT 2&3 tape drives. The S2100-ES can support the simultaneous emulation of up to 96 tape libraries, 384 tape drives, and can support up to 5000 virtual tape cartridges. 2. How scalable is your virtual tape library in terms of capacity? SEPATON Answer: The S2100-ES gracefully scales from 3.5TB of capacity up to a maximum configuration of 200TB in a single appliance. In order to determine how much capacity your organization requires for the S2100-ES, it is necessary to calculate the total amount of primary data stored, then compare that with your backup policy regarding the total amount of full and incremental backups that need to be available online. 3. What about performance? How scalable is your virtual tape library in terms of throughput? SEPATON Answer: The S2100-ES is a high performance virtual tape library, able to achieve speeds up to 10 times faster than traditional tape backup and up to 3 times that of host-based D2D backup systems. The combination of support for a large number of virtual tape drives, ATA disk performance, and SEPATON’s Scalable Replication Engine (SRE) with its additional coprocessing power drives the delivery of data for a single stream at up to 150MB per second per drive. The SRE is capable of 2Gb Fibre Channel read/write speeds, with the ability to emulate up to 64 tape drives per SRE. A single S2100-ES can be configured with up to three SREs to achieve its 1.6 TB/hour potential. 4. What enterprise backup applications does your virtual tape library support? SEPATON Answer: The S2100-ES emulates a variety of popular tape library environments and integrates with existing backup/restore applications, including: VERITAS NetBackup™, VERITAS Backup Exec, Legato Networker, CommVault Qinetix, BakBone NetVault, IBM Tivoli, and others. To users, it looks and operates exactly like their existing tape library—except that it delivers wire-speed data transfer. 5. Does your virtual tape library support the multiplexing (also called multistreaming) features of leading enterprise backup data applications? SEPATON Answer: Yes, the S2100-ES supports backups using multiple streams of data written to a single virtual tape cartridge. This feature is particularly useful in obtaining significant performance when backing up a large number of application servers (or clients) within the enterprise. As previously mentioned, the S2100-ES supports up to 384 virtual tape drives and can achieve speeds of up to 1.6TB/hour by aggregating the performance of multiple backup streams. 6. How difficult is it to install your virtual tape library into an environment with an existing backup application, tape library and established backup policies? SEPATON Answer: The S2100-ES is designed to be completely non-disruptive, to integrate Page 2 of 4
seamlessly into existing backup environments without any necessary changes to the infrastructure, applications or backup policies. Because the S2100-ES emulates a number of tape libraries and tape formats, your existing tape library is recognized instantly by your backup application. When purchased, the S2100-ES arrives at your site pre-configured to your specifications for a simple, pleasant out-of-the-box experience. In most cases the time from arrival until the first backup can be measured in minutes instead of hours. 7. Our company has been considering just upgrading our tape library to the next higher performing model. How does the TCO of your virtual tape library compare to that of traditional tape libraries? SEPATON Answer: We have analyzed the costs of a number of tape libraries in comparison to that of a similarly configured S2100-ES and in many cases the total cost of implementing the S2100-ES is actually less than that of the tape library. In every case, the performance of the S2100-ES is much higher, the number of drives and cartridges supported greater, and the future scalability far superior. Take a brief cost analysis of the ATL P4000 compared to the S2100-ES for example: Cartridges ATLP4000 S2100-ES 171 Up to 5000 Drives 10 Up to 384 Performance 540GB/hr 540GB/hr Capacity 17.1TB 17.5TB Aprox. Total Cost w/1Yr Warranty and Media $218,279.00 $148,000.00
In this example it is important to note that the S2100-ES can increase its performance through the addition of virtual tape cartridges and drives and the utilization of concurrent backup streams. Additionally, with no ongoing expense for tape cartridges, the ability to scale far beyond the capacity in this example configuration, the ability to leverage future functionality enhancements and more, the S2100-ES offers far more value than a traditional tape library. (Ask your SEPATON sales representative to assist you in analyzing the TCO of your current tape library when compared to that of the S2100-ES) 8. Our company has been looking at using the disk-to-disk capabilities of our enterprise backup application as a possible solution to our backup challenges. How does your solution compare to a host-based D2D system? SEPATON Answer: This solution looks attractive to many of our customers at first glance, particularly since they often have the application in-house already. In reviewing these solutions with our customers we saw that host-based D2D provides significant performance benefits (when compared to tape), and many of the benefits that are being sought by IT administrators looking to implement disk-based backups. Host-based D2D integrates with existing backup applications, and provides performance enhancements, however, the integration, compatibility and support concerns could outweigh (and out-cost) the benefits of the solution. For a more in-depth comparison of ask your SEPATON representative for a copy of our whitepaper titled, “Comparing Host-Based D2D to Virtual Tape Libraries for Backup and Restore”.
How VTL Appliances Differ From Software-Only VTL Products
There are essentially two technical approaches that vendors are taking to delivering virtual tape library functionality for their customers. The first is an integrated VTL appliance, complete with all of the necessary hardware and software, fully configured for delivery to the customer. The second approach is a software-only VTL offering which provides the desired functionality, but Page 3 of 4
must be built by the customer’s IT department or their systems integrator. SEPATON’s S2100ES is an example of an integrated VTL appliance, while products such as Securitus from Alacritus, Diligent’s VTF and FalconStor’s VTL Appliance Powered by IPStor are examples of software-only offerings. Software-only VTL solutions offer the customer a wide array of technical configurations using any number of hardware and software combinations. Flexibility of configuration and the ability to build the solution with almost whatever hardware the customer desires is the primary value of these solutions. The downside of these offerings is their complexity, difficulty of installation, and ongoing administrative support and maintenance of these varied configurations. The following chart compares a customer’s installation experience with an integrated VTL versus a softwareonly product.
Installation Steps Required for Each VTL Solution
S2100-ES Virtual Tape Library Software-only VTL solution
Assumption: Customer has existing enterprise backup application (i.e. Veritas or Legato) and was using a traditional tape library or tape drives for backups prior to the purchase of new system. 1.VTL Arrives –VTL arrives fully configured to the customer’s specifications, including RAID arrays, hardware and included software. 2. System is installed and plugged into existing Fibre Channel or Ethernet network infrastructure. 3. Backup is executed using enterprise backup application. Since VTL emulates previously used tape library or backup, the backup application sees VTL as existing library. Changes to policies rarely required. 4. Backup job is verified. Installation and test complete. 1. 3rd Party RAID Array system arrives.
2. IT administrator or vendor will have to install hardware, hard drives, cabling and other physical hardware necessary for RAID system. 3. IT administrator decides on RAID types, configures RAID sets, configures security access, zones, etc.
4. IT administrator installs physical application server for VTL solution, then installs operating system on that application server 5. VTL software is installed and configured on application server. 6. IT administrator configures host backup application to utilize VTL system as target for backup operations. 7. New backup job is created and run. 8. Backup job is verified. Installation and test are complete.
Contact SEPATON at 508.490.7900 or via email at [email protected] today for more information! About SEPATON Based in Southborough, MA, SEPATON, Inc. develops and markets a family of data protection solutions to medium and large data centers that must manage multiple terabytes of data daily. SEPATON’s data protection solutions integrate seamlessly into existing customer environments.
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