EMC for Network Attached Storage (NAS) Backup and Recovery Using NDMP

White Paper

EMC FOR NETWORK ATTACHED STORAGE (NAS)
BACKUP AND RECOVERY USING NDMP

Abstract
This white paper provides an overview of EMC’s industry leading
backup and recovery solutions for NAS systems. It also explains
how EMC’s backup solutions complement snapshots for
optimized data protection across the enterprise.
February 2014

Copyright © 2014 EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
EMC believes the information in this publication is accurate as
of its publication date. The information is subject to change
without notice.
The information in this publication is provided “as is.” EMC
Corporation makes no representations or warranties of any kind
with respect to the information in this publication, and
specifically disclaims implied warranties of merchantability or
fitness for a particular purpose.
Use, copying, and distribution of any EMC software described in
this publication requires an applicable software license.
For the most up-to-date listing of EMC product names, see EMC
Corporation Trademarks on EMC.com.
All other trademarks used herein are the property of their
respective owners.
Part Number H12835

EMC FOR NETWORK ATTACHED STORAGE (NAS) BACKUP AND RECOVERY
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Table of Contents
Executive Summary ................................................................................................. 3
Protecting NAS – Today’s Reality .............................................................................. 4
EMC Backup and Recovery for NAS ........................................................................... 4
Data deduplication ......................................................................................................... 4
EMC Avamar for NAS........................................................................................................... 5
Avamar NDMP Accelerator .............................................................................................. 5
EMC NetWorker for NAS ...................................................................................................... 6
Direct NDMP Method ...................................................................................................... 6
Remote NDMP Method ................................................................................................... 8
Integration with EMC Data Domain Deduplication Storage Systems .................................... 9
Reliability ........................................................................................................................... 9

Best Practices for NAS Data Protection ..................................................................... 9
Backup and Snapshots for Optimal Protection ................................................................... 9

Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 10

Executive Summary
As the amount of unstructured data continues to grow exponentially, enterprise
organizations face the daunting task of ensuring that critical data on Network
Attached Storage (NAS) systems is fully protected. And in many cases, backup
windows are shrinking, along with budgets and resources. Industry research confirms
the data protection challenge, noting that 54% of companies experienced data loss in
the last 12 months and that 74% of decision makers are not confident they can fully
recover data. 1
Unfortunately, traditional backup solutions simply cannot keep up. Some methods
inefficiently store data repeatedly across sites and servers, significantly expanding
total storage under management and increasing costs. And traditional tape based
recovery can take days or even weeks, especially if the data is stored offsite. Recovery
from disk is typically faster, but often requires multiple steps, which can be tedious.
And while snapshots are utilized for some applications, they are not a substitute for a
comprehensive backup and recovery strategy.
Organizations need the right balance of performance, reliability, management, and
cost to meet their desired recovery time and recovery point objectives. EMC delivers
proven, industry leading backup and recovery solutions including EMC Avamar, EMC
NetWorker, and EMC Data Domain deduplication storage systems that quickly and
1

EMC’s European Disaster Recovery Survey: Data Today Gone Tomorrow, How Well Companies Are Poised For IT Recovery

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efficiently protect unstructured data on NAS and application servers (physical and
virtual), across the entire organization.

Protecting NAS – Today’s Reality
Traditional NAS backup solutions typically rely on recurring weekly full (level-0)
backups and daily incremental (level-1) backups. However, the full backups often
extend beyond the available backup window, which risks leaving data unprotected.
And in some cases, daily incremental backups may take as long as full backups especially if only a portion of a large file has changed, since the whole file must be
moved. The use of tape is also challenging due to unreliable media and hardware,
delays in offsite shipments, and the risk of losing unencrypted tapes that contain
sensitive data.
From a recovery perspective, traditional methods often involve a tedious, multi-step
process, requiring restoration of the last good full and subsequent incrementals to
reach the desired recovery point. And retrieving tapes from offsite storage can take
days or longer with no guarantee the data is recoverable.
Also, the common practice of storing snapshots and primary data on the same NAS
system can lead to data loss if the local NAS system fails, the main volume is
corrupted or is destroyed and data has not been replicated offsite. And while offsite
replication is often desired, large amounts of data and limited WAN bandwidth can
make it difficult.
As a result, NAS consolidation and usage are often limited by the backup window, not
storage capacity. And traditional backup limitations can lead to data loss, declining
user productivity, constrained NAS performance, and overburdened IT staff.

EMC Backup and Recovery for NAS
Data deduplication
Unstructured enterprise data is highly redundant, with identical files or data stored
within and across systems (for example, a document or presentation sent to multiple
recipients across the enterprise). Edited files also have tremendous redundancy with
previous versions. Traditional backup methods magnify this by storing all of the
redundant data over and over again.
EMC backup and recovery solutions for NAS include Avamar, NetWorker and Data
Domain systems. They can all utilize deduplication technology to eliminate redundant
backup data at both the file and the sub-file data segment level. This ensures that
each unique data segment is backed up and stored only once across the enterprise.
As a result, EMC solutions dramatically reduce the required network bandwidth. And
the needed backup storage can be reduced by up to 30x for cost-effective, efficient
disk-based recovery. Now let’s take a closer look at EMC’s industry leading backup
and recovery solutions for NAS.

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EMC Avamar for NAS
Avamar customers can easily expand their data protection umbrella to include NAS
data. Avamar provides fast, daily full backups via existing network links - without the
need for a dedicated, high-speed NDMP backup network. By deploying the innovative
Avamar NDMP Accelerator, enterprise organizations can enjoy high-performance
backup and single-step recovery for EMC Isilon, VNX, VNXe, and NetApp NAS systems.

Avamar NDMP Accelerator
With an Avamar NDMP Accelerator node, a level-0 backup is performed only once,
during the initial full backup. Subsequent daily full backups are achieved by
requesting only level-1 incremental dumps, enabling Avamar to dramatically reduce
backup times and the impact on NAS resources and networks. When recovery is
needed, Avamar presents the data as daily full backups. This enables efficient onestep recovery, eliminating the hassle of restoring full and subsequent incremental
backups to reach the desired recovery point.
For enterprise environments that have multi-site deployments, Avamar’s intuitive
interface and at-a-glance dashboard views make it easy to manage backup, recovery,
and disaster recovery from a single location. And data can be encrypted in-flight and
at rest for security.
Avamar eliminates backup bottlenecks and provides the freedom to consolidate
storage and optimize NAS systems - without limiting the number and size of files or
volumes due to potential backup performance limitations.

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Figure 1. Avamar delivers fast, daily full backups for NAS and flexible, scalable
storage on Avamar Data Store and/or Data Domain systems

EMC NetWorker for NAS
NetWorker also efficiently protects NAS, including EMC Isilon, VNX, VNXe, NetApp and
other NAS systems. NetWorker enables organizations to reduce costs by bringing
management and control of the entire information environment into one central
offering. To backup data on NAS systems, NetWorker customers typically utilize the
direct NDMP or remote NDMP method.

Direct NDMP Method
When utilizing the direct NDMP method (also referred to as 2-way NDMP), NetWorker
controls the backup process and the NAS system writes data to a direct attached
Fibre Channel device (e.g. a Data Domain system). With this approach, the NDMP data
does not traverse the network, which eliminates network congestion.

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Figure 2. Direct NDMP NAS backup method with NetWorker and Data Domain storage.
Backup data can be efficiently replicated offsite daily for disaster recovery.
Direct NDMP with Isilon Backup Accelerator
For Isilon NAS environments, NetWorker can seamlessly integrate with the Isilon
Backup Accelerator, which enables customers to leverage their existing investment in
SAN infrastructure. With this approach, NetWorker communicates with the Isilon
system via NDMP over the Local Area Network (LAN). NetWorker instructs the Isilon
Backup Accelerator, which is also a NDMP tape server, to start backing up data to a
Data Domain system attached to the Backup Accelerator via Fibre Channel. The
Backup Accelerator is an integral part of the Isilon IQ cluster and communicates with
the other nodes in the cluster over the internal InfiniBand network.
The NetWorker Server controls the media management. File History, which includes
information about files and directories, is transferred from the Isilon Backup
Accelerator via NDMP and sent via the LAN to NetWorker where it is maintained in a
catalog.
In the example below, an Isilon Backup Accelerator is installed along with a Data
Domain system configured as a tape library (or any supported Fibre attached tape or
virtual tape library).

Figure 3. Direct NDMP NAS backup method with Isilon storage and Isilon Backup
Accelerator. NetWorker manages the process and data is stored on Data Domain.

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Remote NDMP Method
When utilizing the remote NDMP method (also referred to as 3-way NDMP), NetWorker
controls the backup process and emulates an NDMP tape server. The NAS system
sends data via an IP network to the NetWorker Server. NetWorker uses NDMP over the
LAN to instruct the NAS system to start backing up data to the NetWorker server,
which is attached via LAN or directly attached to the storage device. The NetWorker
Server controls the media management and File History, which is information about
files and directories, is transferred from the NAS system via NDMP and over the LAN to
NetWorker where it is maintained in a catalog.

Figure 4. Remote NDMP NAS backup method, controlled by NetWorker with data
efficiently stored on Data Domain systems.
Remote NDMP with Isilon
When protecting Isilon NAS systems, the remote NDMP method does not require an
Isilon Backup Accelerator. In the following diagram Data Domain or any supported
tape library can be the backup target, allowing organizations to leverage existing LAN
backup infrastructure.

Figure 5. Remote NDMP NAS backup method for Isilon does not require an Isilon
Backup Accelerator.

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Integration with EMC Data Domain Deduplication Storage Systems
Avamar and NetWorker environments can utilize Data Domain systems for enhanced
performance and scalability with industry-leading protection storage. By integrating
with Data Domain, the backup data deduplication process is efficient and easy to
manage. And by storing only the new, unique sub-file variable length data segments
on Data Domain systems, the amount of data stored to disk is dramatically reduced in
most cases.
Backup data can also be asynchronously replicated daily between multiple Data
Domain systems to meet disaster recovery objectives. The entire backup, recovery,
and replication process is managed via the Avamar or NetWorker interface,
simplifying management of the backup infrastructure. WAN efficient replication
eliminates the need for tape-based solutions for disaster recovery.

Reliability
Avamar Data Store and Data Domain deduplication storage systems both deliver
reliable protection storage to help ensure backup data can be recovered when
needed. For example, Avamar uses a patented redundant array of independent nodes
(RAIN) architecture that provides high availability across Avamar servers. In addition,
Avamar system integrity is verified twice daily via internal system checkpoints and
data recoverability is also verified daily.
Data Domain storage systems utilize the Data Domain Data Invulnerability
Architecture, which provides the industry’s best defense against data integrity issues.
Key capabilities include end-to-end data verification, fault avoidance and
containment, continuous fault detection and as well as a self healing file system.
Data Domain also implements a proprietary implementation of RAID-6, which protects
against up to two disk failures per RAID set.

Best Practices for NAS Data Protection
Backup and Snapshots for Optimal Protection
Snapshots are one piece of an overall data protection strategy. They bring value when
the Recovery Point Objective (RPO) is shorter than the traditional backup schedule,
and when traditional recovery takes longer than the Recovery Time Objective (RTO).
For specific applications, snapshots can provide point-in-time copies to quickly revert
corrupted or deleted data blocks. And snapshots can be configured to occur many
times per day in order to provide more granular RTOs and RPOs. These point-in-time
copies allow for near-immediate restores from data blocks maintained for very short
retention periods.
However, snapshots can also put data at risk, especially if stored on the same array
as the primary data, since failure or corruption could result in complete data loss. And
in some cases, the number of snapshots can be limited, they can require preallocated space on expensive storage, and may require a specific vendor’s storage

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system. Also, data deduplication may only occur within a given volume or file system
container, not globally, which limits the benefit. And blocks referenced by snapshots
of the volume prior to deduplication may not be candidates for deduplication, limiting
the overall value and savings.
An ideal data protection solution improves SLAs, RPO/RTO, NAS system utilization,
and productivity while reducing costs and the risk of data loss. EMC offers solutions
that can be applied to a variety of datacenter and remote office locations. Data
protection best practices include daily backups, snapshots for some applications,
and offsite replication for disaster recovery to meet business and operational
objectives.
The immediate cost and operational efficiencies realized with the combined
snapshot, deduplicated backup, and backup data replication architecture include:
•

Improved SLAs with the ability to perform fast, daily full backups, one-step
recovery, and disaster recovery via existing networks

•

More granular recovery points and shorter recovery times

•

Data Domain systems for increased scalability and performance

•

Increased NAS productivity and use by removing backup bottlenecks and reducing
the required backup window

•

Sub-file backup data deduplication to reduce required network bandwidth,
storage, datacenter floor space, power, and cooling

•

Tiered service offerings can reduce the amount of data requiring additional
protection (such as replication, multiple snapshots and long-term retention)

•

Less reliance on proprietary vendor snapshot management solutions for
maintaining backup data reduces vendor lock-in and provides flexibility

Conclusion
EMC delivers proven, industry leading backup and recovery solutions that quickly and
efficiently protect unstructured data on NAS systems (including EMC Isilon, VNX, VNXe,
NetApp) and other servers (physical and virtual) across the enterprise. By eliminating backup
bottlenecks and improving recovery performance, EMC provides the freedom to consolidate
storage and optimize NAS systems—without the hassle of limiting the number and size of files
or volumes due to backup performance limitations.
For existing Avamar environments, customers can easily expand their data protection umbrella
to include NAS systems. By deploying the innovative Avamar NDMP Accelerator, customers can
enjoy fast, daily full backups via existing network links - without the need for a dedicated,
high-speed NDMP backup network. And backup data can be efficiently stored to Avamar Data
Store or Data Domain systems.

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NetWorker also efficiently protects NAS, enabling organizations to reduce costs by bringing
management and control of the entire information environment into one central offering.
NetWorker customers typically utilize the direct NDMP or remote NDMP methods to protect
their NAS environments.
Both Avamar and NetWorker environments can leverage Data Domain systems for increased
scalability, flexibility, and performance. And backup data can be efficiently replicated offsite
daily for disaster recovery. By deploying EMC data protection solutions, IT managers can
reduce the amount of time and resources spent on NAS backup and also lower their total cost
of ownership.
EMC enables data protection best practices, which include daily backups, snapshots for some
applications, and offsite replication for disaster recovery to meet business and operational
goals. This allows companies to optimize their desired recovery point and time objectives,
while ensuring data is readily available when needed. And flexible licensing options, including
the EMC Data Protection Suite, make it easy to purchase, deploy, and maintain industry
leading backup and recovery solutions across the enterprise.

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EMC for Network Attached Storage (NAS) Backup and Recovery Using NDMP

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