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4.2.1 Typical Needs and Problems Facing Customers

Backup is an important means for data protection. It is widely used in various application scenarios and vertical industries, for example, file backup, database backup, banking data backup, and transportation data backup. Media used by backup systems vary. The backup media can be tapes, virtual tape libraries (VTLs), CD-ROMs, and disk arrays. All mainstream storage vendors launch their backup storage products, for example, Symantec's NetBackup and Backup Exec, and CommVault's Simpana. However, traditional backup systems have the following disadvantages:

1 Dedicated personnel must be arranged to manage and maintain tapes of physical tape libraries.

2 Physical tape libraries must be maintained periodically.

3 Data can only be recovered to the state since the last tape backup.

4 Data in physical tapes can only be sequentially accessed, causing long backup and recovery windows.

5 Power consumption of physical tape libraries is low but that of VTL is high.

6 Tape libraries, particular VTLs, have limited capacities.

7 Both physical and virtual tape libraries cannot be infinitely expanded. New devices have to be purchased.

8 Tape drives and robot arms of physical tape libraries may be damaged and storage array engines and disks of VTLs may be faulty.

9 Physical tape libraries must be carefully relocated.

To cope with the preceding challenges, customers require a new backup solution that has the following capabilities:

 High reliability: Storage of backup data is secure and reliable, and backup data is highly available in recovery.

 Ease of manage: A GUI-based web management system is provided to manage all backup tasks and hardware devices in a unified manner. Self checks are periodically initiated and alarms are automatically reported once faults are detected. A backup task-oriented service process is set up to simplify backup and recovery.

 Easy expansion: Capacities can be expanded from the initial minimum configurations to large capacities without affecting performance.

 Low cost: Massive data can be backed up at low power consumption and TCO.

4.2.2 Solution

The UDS provides the centralized backup solution to resolve the preceding problems and meet the preceding needs. The solution is oriented to massive data scenarios, providing customers with a comprehensive backup solution for ensuring data security. The solution requires that upper-layer services comply with interface specifications. Currently, the UDS has passed the interface tests of Symantec's NetBackup and CommVault's CV backup software. Later, the UDS will participate in more interface tests of new backup software. The cloud backup solution is described as follows:

 The UDS adopts the scale-out architecture for flexible capacity expansion, allowing the system capacity to be easily expanded from the minimum capacity of 448 TB to exabyte level for massive data storage.

 The performance is improved in line with capacity expansion to prevent performance bottlenecks caused by increasing data.

 Underlying massive storage space interwork with upper-layer backup software for massive data backup solutions.

 All UDS nodes are clustered and multiple data protection technologies (such as MC and EC) and automatic fault detection and repair technologies are employed to ensure system reliability.

 The underlying massive resource pool provides highly reliable and low-cost storage space.

 Backup resources are allocated on demand to make full use of storage capacities.

 Data can be recovered to a specific point-in-time without the need of sequential access, saving recovery time and improving recovery efficiency.

 Upper-layer backup services support various backup types such as files, databases, and applications.

 The entire solution can be automatically and quickly deployed across regions.

 Backup resources across regions can be managed and schedules in a unified manner.

 Solution components and services can be centrally managed.

Figure 4-2 shows the scenario of the centralized backup solution.

Figure 4-2 Scenario of the centralized backup solution

4.2.3 Software and Hardware Configurations

This section provides a list that describes the devices, interfaces, and software to be configured.

[Sample is omitted.]

Table 4-2 Software and hardware configurations of the centralized backup solution Location Hardware/Software Model Quantity Remarks Equipment

room in XXX DC

A-Node RH2288 3

UDSN UDSN 14

SATA disk 2 TB 224

Service switch S6748 2

Management switch S3728 1

Cabinet 1

Optical module 4

Distributed storage software

1

Desktop data backup software

1

System management software

1

License 10

Backup servers are provided by customers and are not listed in the preceding table.

4.2.4 Benefits

The UDS backup solution meets customers' requirements for massive data backup by combining a massive storage system with upper-layer backup software. It also reliably protects customers' data by providing diversified data reliability mechanisms. This solution is economical, efficient, and easy-to-manage, saving customers' costs and creating larger value for customers.

 Massive capacity: The UDS provides storage for massive data and a storage capacity up to exabyte level.

 Low TCO: The UDS employs power-saving ARM chips to reduce energy consumption per capacity and green technologies such as disk spin-down and intelligent fan speed control to lower the power consumption of the entire system. Compared with VTLs, the UDS enables the same backup software to provide a larger storage capacity, without the need to add new backup software for capacity expansion, lowering the TCO.

 High reliability: The UDS provides multiple data protection technologies such as MC, EC, and MDC to ensure data reliability. Data can be recovered when any storage device, cabinet, or data center is faulty, minimizing the recovery point objective (RPO). Besides, all nodes in the UDS are deployed in clusters such as service cluster, switch cluster, and storage cluster, eliminating single points of failure. Data can be restored upon lost and the recovery time is not affected by any device fault, minimizing the recovery time objective (RTO).

 Ease of manage: A GUI-based web management system is provided to manage all backup tasks and hardware devices in a unified manner. Self checks are periodically initiated and alarms are automatically reported once faults are detected. A backup task-oriented service process is set up to simplify backup and recovery.

 High efficiency: Storage capacities are allocated on demand and expanded dynamically, making full use of storage space and improving storage efficiency.