Cloud Storage SAN & Remote Backup Solutions, Twinstrata

[nguyent]

Hi Everyone,
Does everyone use this? Cloud Storage SAN & Remote Backup Solutions│Twinstrata
Thanks
Tan

[Gostev]

Here is a case study about using Veeam with TwinStrata:
http://www.veeam.com/success_story_back ... ata_ss.pdf

[nguyent]

Thanks

[mmonroe]

[merged]

To All,

Anyone using Twin Strata CloudArray product or have thoughts on it?

http://www.twinstrata.com/VeeamBackupReplication.html

Thanks

MarkM

[dbetlow]

[merged]

Hello,

Strongly considering Veeam as a backup solution, however one of our requirements is to have a subset of our VMs and file storage backed up offsite.

Is there an appliance that works well with Veeam but can also backup to the cloud? Perhaps a NAS like ReadyNAS or Iomega. We have a couple of physical servers as well, so I guess we'll need 2 backup solutions if we go with Veeam, 1 for the VMs and 1 for the physical servers, but perhaps they both point to the same storage, and then some of the backup files would be replicated to an off-site hosting provider in case our server room blows up.

Thanks in advance.

Damon

[Gostev]

Hi Damon, TwinStrata would be one option you can consider
http://www.twinstrata.com/veeam-cloudarray-for-free

[Stephenv]

[merged]

i was looking for some kind of replication i came across this website that says they work well with Veeam.
has anybody tried it? does it work?

http://www.twinstrata.com/CloudArray-Ve ... eplication

Stephen

[NELWAR]

Stephen-

My company uses the Veeam software with the CloudArray Twinstrata device to replicate, compress, and encrypt our data to our DR location. Surprisingly we have found that the CloudArray device gives us great compression, 10:1 on average, and has given us virtual LAN speeds when creating the backups. We triple checked these compression numbers, it was hard to believe. This compression and speed has allowed us to start the process of converting from LTO4 to self-assured backups at our DR location at a fraction of the cost and disk foot print.

The device was easy to configure, transparent to the process, easy to allocate storage on the fly, public and private, and very intuitive. I did find the install videos posted on YouTube to be very helpful as well. During our proof of concept of this device, we deleted the CloudArray Virtual appliance, downloaded the appliance from their website, download our configuration from our portal, and had our backups available to restore within 10 minutes.

Their customer support port is spot on. We had an issue during the proof of concept while attempting to locate a 3rd party storage provider. TwinStrata worked
We had an issue with locating an acceptable geographic location of the 3rd party due to regulatory concerns. Twinstrata looked at their relationships with storage providers, arranged meetings, and helped us locate a partner.

This device works as advertised, is easy to use, and has given us great flexibility in our DR posture... I would highly recommend this. Please let me know if you have any questions about this.

Thanks Jerry

[emklennert]

I have been using Cloud Array the last few months with great results. We got on board when they began offering the 1 TB appliance with a Veeam license. Set up was very easy. We had a couple of minor issues along the way that were resolved quickly with tech support. I would recommend it without hesitation. It was an incredibly simple way of beginning to use the cloud for offsite backup storage.

[CeleritasPrime]

We have just begun using the free, 1TB version in a proof-of-concept project. I have followed a best-practices doc titled "Best Practices Guide: Using Veeam with CloudArray for Secure, Offsite Data Protection in the Cloud". The doc has had a couple of flaws but is otherwise a good starting point. One of the recommendations of said doc are to disable using the compression and de-duplication of the cloud provider (S3 in my case). I get the feeling that despite the Veeam B&R 6 logo on the document is newer than the doc itself, and I infer from this thread that many are in fact using the compression and de-duplication on the cloud side to de-duplicate across multiple Veeam backups.

We're using Veeam 6 and vSphere 5 and I have noticed a few extra options on the Veeam side of things, too, both in the configuration of the repository that sits on the CloudArray storage as well as in the Storage tab on the "Advanced" button in the job itself.

On the Storage tab the defaults are:
Enable inline deduplication - ticked - I would think you'd always want this
Level - "Optimal (recommended)" - hey, it's Optimal, right?
Storage optimizations - Optimize for - Local target - thinking we may want "WAN target" here - thoughts?

On the repository configuration wizard -
On the Repository step, there's an advanced button with the following options:
Align backup file data blocks --- Allows to achieve better deduplication ration on deduplicating storage appliances that leverage constant lock size for deduplication. Increases the backup size when backing up to raw disk storage.
Decompress backup data blocks before storing -- VM data is compressed at source (by backup proxy server) according to the backup job settings to minimize LAN traffic. Uncompressing the data before storing allows to achieve better deduplication ratios on most deduplicating storage appliances at the cost of backup performance.

Thoughts on the 'sweet spot' and best options to tick when using CloudArray?

These are not ticked by default; I can see

[Gostev]

Since you are backing up over WAN, of course you need to select "WAN target"

[CeleritasPrime]

I forgot to mention I am using a dedicated 1TB cache smother initial write is actually to a local vmdk file over NFS...

[Gostev]

Does not matter, your ultimate target is still WAN target.

[CeleritasPrime]

Got it. Any feedback on the other settings? Should I use the CloudArray's compression and deduplication?

How about the repository settings that seem suited for a deduplicating target?

[Gostev]

That would depend on CloudArray's compression and dedupe algorithm, which is something I do not know about unfortunately. Assuming they have smart synchronization algorithms, it would best to turn off Veeam compression (or use Low compression), because good compression brakes just about every data reduction technique that I am aware of. As a result, you may save on traffic and get improved WAN transfer sync. However, this will obviously cause the backup size to increase significantly, and I guess they charge you per TB, so it's a tough call really. Also, disabling compression will reduce the speed of backup to your staging area slightly (more data to transfer and store).

Veeam dedupe is usually best to keep enabled no matter what the target is.

[jbarrow.viracoribt]

Where do I find the "Best Practices Guide: Using Veeam with CloudArray for Secure, Offsite Data Protection in the Cloud" document? Google and the KB does not list it.

[jbarrow.viracoribt]

The case study is nice but where can I find out how to best configure a backup job for a TwinStrata destination?