Networker a good backup & recovery solution from EMC

NETWORKER

As we know that backup on tape is very slow so most of IT manager is looking for some software which can increase the performance of backup on tape, so that they can backup data fast and retrieve it back with good speed as we know that Symantec is the leading company in selling their backup solutions

Now EMC is also giving the tough fight to Symantec by their backup product such as networker and Avamar, DataDomain

As I don’t know much about backup and I don’t have much of hands on on any backup software, so as I was going through the white paper of networker, I thought of discussing it and writing something on it

As the survey done by many IT product based company they found that in 2012 lots of company is going to spend their money in buying the backup solutions , so that means backup software sales is going to increase this year.

Now let’s talk about the networker solution given by the EMC.

Networker is a backup and recovery solution.

The below given is the Networker definition given by EMC and ESG group.

EMC NetWorker is a well-known and trusted backup and recovery solution that centralizes, automates, and accelerates data protection across the IT environment. It enables organizations to leverage a common platform for backup and recovery of heterogeneous data while keeping business applications online. Networker operates in diverse computing environments including multiple operating systems; SAN, NAS, and DAS disk storage environments; tape drives and libraries; and cloud storage. It protects critical business applications including databases, messaging environments, ERP systems, content management systems, and virtual server environments.

Now EMC networker software comes integrated with some of good EMC software such as Data Domain, DPA (data protection advisor), VADP (vmware vstorage API for data protection), DDBoost(Data Domain Boost).

Let’s see each features functionality and definition.(these definition is given by EMC and ESGgroup).

EMC NetWorker Clone-controlled replication with Data Domain Boost. A key feature available with the integration of NetWorker and DD Boost is clone-controlled replication. Through the NetWorker GUI, administrators can create, control, monitor, and catalog backup clones using network-efficient Data Domain Replicator software. NetWorker also enables administrators to move backup images to a central location where they can be cloned to tape, consolidating tape operations. With NetWorker wizard-based clone-controlled replication, administrators can schedule Data Domain Replicator operations, track save sets, set retention policies, monitor the local and remote replicas available for recovery, and schedule cloning automatically. It also takes advantage of Data Domain’s deduplication, compression, and high-speed replication to reduce data amounts and speed cloning resulting in improved performance and reduced network bandwidth requirements.

EMC Data Protection Advisor. DPA provides unified monitoring, analysis, alerting, and reporting across the data protection environment. It collects information about data protection automatically to inform IT decisions and help administrator’s correct problems and meet SLAs. The software’s single, integrated view brings simplicity to a complex environment, reduces risk, and helps IT work more effectively. DPA takes volumes of disparate data and turns it into actionable knowledge, enabling organizations to reduce costs by more efficiently managing people, processes, and equipment.

Integration with VMware vStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP). NetWorker supports VADP, VMware’s recommended off-host protection mechanism that replaces VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB). VADP improves performance by eliminating temporary storage of snapshots and enabling support for Change Block Tracking (CBT) as well as improving network utilization and reducing management overhead. NetWorker communicates with VMware vCenter to auto-discover and display a visual map of the virtual environment, streamlining administrative tasks dramatically.

EMC Data Domain. Data Domain systems deduplicate data inline during the backup process. Deduplication reduces the amount of disk storage needed to retain and protect data by ratios of 10-30x and greater, making disk a cost-effective alternative to tape.  Deduplicated data can be stored onsite for immediate restores enabling longer-term retention on disk. NetWorker not only can use Data Domain systems as disk targets, but also can leverage Data Domain Boost (DD Boost) software to achieve faster and more efficient data protection. DD Boost increases performance by distributing portions of the deduplication process to the NetWorker storage nodes and/or application modules so that only unique, compressed data segments are sent to the Data Domain system.

DD Boost also provides visibility into Data Domain system information, and it enables NetWorker to control replication between multiple Data Domain systems while maintaining a single point of management for tracking all backups and duplicate copies.

As we know that in today’s world data keeps growing with continuous rate and managing and backing up data is getting complicated day by day, even after virtualization came in picture it saved us by buying more Hardware but in other hand made the backing up & managing data more complicated.

And I hope that networker is good solution for the above problem.

Even we all are very well aware of that after buying the product the next thing comes in picture is support , and according to my knowledge and some customer review  I can say that Symantec is not good in support providing,  they keep you waiting for long to provide the proper solutions.

Well in other hand EMC is very good in support, they don’t make customer wait long for their support help.

Well want to know more about the Networker and want to know how the customer feels after using this product.

Please visit http://www.enterprisestrategygroup.com/2012/01/field-audit-emc-networker/

In above given link you can get good LAB report about NETWORKER software by ESGgroup and even you can get customer report who had deployed this software in their huge Environment.