Synthetic Backup - New method for effective data protection

Adnan Khan

Large and small businesses have been seeing their data growth following exponential levels in the last few years. That's why data security issues are becoming one of the most complex issues that need to meet the growing demand. Clearly, data protection is a major concern for businesses of all sizes, so it needs a significant investment (depending on the size of the company) and this is also One of the factors contributing to the company's profitability. With a good idea in planning to deploy IT infrastructure and implementing best practices for maintaining company data such as Disaster Recovery (DR) plan [1] for protection and security data; Companies can also save significantly and improve their interest rates. Synthetic backup is the best solution for DR disaster recovery, it can provide you with effective data protection at lower operating costs. It also provides system file backup techniques during system backup and restore.

What is synthetic backup?

Synthetic backup is a new technique for creating a full backup from periodic backups. It includes a full backup as regular backups (only for the first time) and from that point towards periodic backup backups are applied to the first full backup. Because this type of backup is created by aggregating a full backup, they are taken so as to express the meaning of this new technique.

About technical issues

The word "synthetic" means "synthetic", the idea of ​​this new method is that the collected file is not a direct copy of any previously created or existing file. Instead, a synthetic file is merged or synthesized by a special application program from the original file and many changes to it.

Synthetic Backup - New method for effective data protection Picture 1
Introducing the concept of Synthetic with Full backup

This backup procedure is called "synthetic" because it is not a backup created from the original data. Figure 1 shows the steps in a traditional full backup and a synthetic backup. Less data, this will of course be transmitted with less network traffic. The truth is, traditional methods need to transmit all of the user's data blocks from the drive to the backup location. In contrast to synthetic backup techniques, the system will only need to periodically change, transmit them on the network and then run a special program at the storage location to update changes to the previous backup. there. After the first full backup, you only need to periodically backup without the need for full backup. Each new periodic backup will be aggregated and maintained for replication for full backup.

Why should we use Synthetic backup?

Synthetic backup is not just a new way of performing backups; it is an upward trend (progressive way). In previous solutions, the system administrator will have to process a lot of periodic files when it comes to restoring the system using those backups. However, with synthetic backup, the administrator only needs one file to keep all changes from the last regular backup.

This type of backup is suitable for enterprise environments where network bandwidth is not redundant. Enterprise models such as Application Service Providers are a good example, where hundreds of gigabytes of data are transmitted via shared systems, mainly T1 or T3 lines. Even with a T3 line, backing up to 20-30 servers with up to 150 GB of average data on each machine will require a significant investment of bandwidth to meet. Along with that you will have to spend a large amount of money for storage and factory warehouse systems of all previous full backups.

Synthetic backups can be best when the system time or needs do not allow for a full backup. Some of the main benefits of this new technique are:

1. The time and need for relatively small space for performing backups - because the change of storage drives is periodically combined into existing full or synthetic backups, requiring less storage space. .
2. Reduce recovery time - the number of system restore decreases, as it only views a single backup file instead of a full backup combination and periodic backup files.
3. Reduce expensive full backups - ensure system availability in a backup file.
4. ROI - less resource-hungry phenomenon, less CPU power consumption, less network traffic, less storage space, thus saving investment costs.
5. Reduce clutter - Avoid the hassle of keeping full backup control.

Featured users

Application service provider (ASP)

Application Service Providers (ASPs) provide software from centralized data centers, by hiring high-speed, dedicated or Internet networks. Its application services must take into account the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions and applications to software groups, individual product suites, printing services and desktops. complete. To ensure data protection, these solution providers have faced the tough challenges of backing up important data with time using their leased lines such as T1. . It is a costly operation and requires a significant investment to pay for backbone and network traffic.

Synthetic backup allows ASPs to drastically reduce costs in this regard (multiplier may be taken into account) and also provide many benefits in terms of time and space.

Management service provider - MSP

Managed service provider (MSP) is a company that manages IT services for other companies through the Internet. MSP is a company that provides 'outsourcing' of IT functions continuously. It provides all the technical support for the server including software upgrades, backups, hardware, bandwidth, firewalls and other technical issues. The cost-effectiveness and optimization of space and time of new techniques make the MSP business model able to achieve a significant increase in income.

Small and medium sized businesses (SMB)

Data is an intellectual property for any company whether an insurance company, ISV, bank, data center, software developer, ASP / MSP, and whatever half. Synthetic backup ensures optimum performance in terms of time and storage needs. Reducing the complexity of the production system's resources, it can provide full backup intermittently with minimal impact on shared and non-shared applications running on the system. production system, including servers, database servers and print server. Another advantage is that it provides little time to recover from a backup. Contrary to dealing with multiple backup backup files, it is just an aggregate file, which includes changes recorded over time in each backup backup.

Conclude

This article provides you with a technical overview of the technical backup of a whole new backup file system. This is the technique that allows us to be cost effective, to have a strong solution for data protection. Thanks to this new technology, we can optimize the time and storage space. That can help large companies with important data efficiently manage backups and archives.