symantec™ data center solutions for microsoft®...

Symantec™ Data Center Solutionsfor Microsoft® Exchange

INTRODUCTION

Protecting data and applications was once a simple story: Establish a routine policy for business applications along with

corporate data and back up all information seven days a week. As time passed and the volume of data increased, minimal

improvements were made to shorten the backup window or reduce recovery time because it was challenging to have all data

protected within the same backup window.

Fast forward to the present: Rich media and databases push corporate data growth at an alarming pace, business

applications are running on multiple platforms and are larger in size and complexity, and applications that were once thought

of as luxuries, such as email, have shifted to mission-critical status requiring reliable protection. Corporate governance,

industry regulations, and government compliance demand constant improvements and upgrades for processes, while

sensitive data dramatically rises at remote sites with increased service level expectations, proving the infrastructure is

anything but centrally managed.

Technical Brief: Data Center

THE CHALLENGE OF DATA CENTER COMPLEXITY

Although data protection processes and technologies are among the most mature in information technology, the growing

size, criticality, and complexity of data center environments—coupled with the surge of demand placed on them—are raising

new challenges. Moreover, enterprises face increasing complexity when using multiple vendors for point solutions to solve

problems of clustering, volume management, archiving (including email), file system management,

and backup/recovery.

This brochure outlines the synergy of the Veritas NetBackup™ Platform (which includes Veritas NetBackup,

NetBackup PureDisk™, and Veritas™ Backup Reporter), Symantec Enterprise Vault™, Veritas Storage Foundation™ for

Windows® and Veritas™ Cluster Server to eliminate this complexity by delivering next-generation solutions with centralized,

end-to-end management for heterogeneous protection services. This brochure is organized into three sections: Managing

Storage, Protecting the Application, and Addressing Compliance and Discovery.

MANAGING STORAGE

As email has become the central hub for communication in the office, the amount and size of messages circulating has

exploded. Managing storage for the inbound data within the environment has become a central issue and challenge

for the system.

To deliver the appropriate level of availability to Microsoft Exchange, a variety of protection requirements need to be

considered, including storage management, application clustering, disaster recovery, and data protection.

These disciplines minimize, or even eliminate, both planned and unplanned downtime. Symantec’s market-leading

Veritas NetBackup, Veritas Storage Foundation for Windows, Veritas Cluster Server, and Symantec Enterprise Vault

products deliver industry-unique capabilities that seamlessly manage infrastructure, reduce costs, and continue

to exceed the service level agreements expected by the business.

An integrated software stack comprised of Storage Foundation for Windows and Veritas Cluster Server—Veritas

Storage Foundation HA for Windows—combines robust storage management and clustering to provide comprehensive

protection against planned as well as unplanned downtime. Storage Foundation for Windows enables online administration

of storage hosting Microsoft Exchange mailboxes and Enterprise Vault stores. For instance, manual or policy-driven

automated online volume growth, online DAS to SAN migration, online array migration, and online volume re-layout. Veritas

Cluster Server tightly integrates with Storage Foundation for Windows to ensure data, access to data, and applications that

use or create data are protected at all times against local as well as site-wide failures.

The integration between Storage Foundation and NetBackup enables operational simplicity. Arduous and complex

scripts are no longer required, which is beneficial for initial set up, but the simplicity is also realized each time applications,

databases, Storage Foundation, NetBackup, or hardware is upgraded, changed, or retired over time.


Storage Foundation and its FlashSnap™ facility provide organizations with the ability to take point-in-time copies

of critical applications, such as Microsoft Exchange, as well as databases to create a consistent point-in-time copy that can

be used for off-host processing, disk-based backup, and disk-based recovery. FlashSnap is completely storage hardware

independent and is often used as part of a broader tiered storage strategy. Storage Foundation and NetBackup have the

ability to seamlessly coordinate with the NetBackup™ Snapshot Client when a consistent point-in-time copy can be made

and then ”handed to” NetBackup for an off-host backup. This coordination helps to minimize the burden on production

applications during backup processes. This same capability for Microsoft Exchange can be done with other applications on

other non Windows platforms to help to streamline processes across the data center environment.

Enterprise Vault enables organizations to eliminate quotas and message size restrictions and give users a mailbox of

virtually unlimited size at the same time controlling message store growth. Enterprise Vault also leverages optimized single

instance storage and compression technologies to further reduce the data footprint. By controlling the size of the storage

footprint, the applications and servers hosting them remain focused on real-time transactions. The online archive also

enables organizations to rationalize storage resources and dedicate primary storage to dynamic and transactional data.

Older, less frequently accessed content can be moved to a secondary or tertiary storage device, saving money for

more strategic purposes.

Enterprise Vault can also help organizations to migrate and archive email’s from end-user created .pst files into the

archive repository while maintaining end user access. Centralizing user search and accessibility to this information enables

companies to significantly reduce the amount of data stored in local and network based .pst. Ingesting this information and

effectively eradicating these files improves performance, scalability, and eases maintenance of Outlook clients and

Exchange servers.

NetBackup and Enterprise Vault provide integration that enables customers to define automatic, policy-based

migration strategies that move archived data from disk managed by Enterprise Vault to tape or other media managed by

NetBackup. A policy can be set for transparent migration from disk to tape all under the management of NetBackup. Data

remains visible, searchable and accessible to Enterprise Vault users, even though the data has moved to tape. Requests

initiate a transparent recall of data from tape using NetBackup. As data expires from the Enterprise Vault archive, Enterprise

Vault can instruct NetBackup to erase the data. Wherever Enterprise Vault data is stored—whether tape or disk—it is

transparent to the user. This helps customers to define automation and policy-based migration strategies that move archived

data from disk managed by Enterprise Vault to tape or other media managed by NetBackup, helping customers leverage their

backup infrastructure to manage archived data. NetBackup can also protect the Enterprise Vault archive by migrating it to

tape for longer-term storage.

NetBackup PureDisk offers storage and bandwidth-optimized data protection for the data center, remote office, and

virtual environments. It reduces the size of backups with a deduplication engine that can be deployed for storage reduction

of disk backups by 10 times or more versus tape. PureDisk can reduce the size of Microsoft Exchange backups at the source,

ideal for remote offices, smaller environments, or in the data center using proven application protection technologies. The


PureDisk deduplication engine can reduce the size of a full Microsoft Exchange backup by as much as 90%. All application

agents use Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) to perform backup and restores of Microsoft Exchange 2003 and

2007 Servers.

For advanced, business-level reporting, Veritas Backup Reporter can report on Microsoft Exchange across

NetBackup, Symantec Backup Exec™, PureDisk and even third-party backup environments. Backup Reporter gives a business

context to reporting which enables customers to track historical storage capacity growth as well as provide backup service

level compliance reports such as Recovery Point Exposure for critical applications such as Microsoft Exchange.

PROTECTING THE APPLICATION

Because Microsoft Exchange has become the de facto standard for communication across most organizations, it is not

surprising that employee productivity dramatically declines if email servers go down. To reduce the ramifications of this

happening, a clear disaster recovery plan is an integral component of any organization. It is essential that companies

implement reliable strategies for maintaining availability. The proven strategy for achieving this level of availability is by

deploying Microsoft Exchange in a clustered environment with Veritas Cluster Server.

While data protection solutions require application data to be recovered from disk or tape at a previous point in

time, some applications require more rapid recovery from unplanned failures, and Microsoft Exchange is no exception.

Veritas Cluster Server minimizes downtime of applications such as Microsoft Exchange and Enterprise Vault that comprise

the messaging ecosystem with the ability to quickly detect failures and failover an application (running on physical or virtual

server) to an available server over local, metropolitan, or wide-area distances.

A few highlights of Veritas Cluster Server include cost-effective n+m clustering with as many as 32 nodes in a

single cluster, disaster recovery across wide-area networks and different IP subnets, non-disruptive disaster recovery

testing, centralized management from a single Web console, support for multiple operating systems and storage arrays, and

integration with multiple-disk replication solutions, including Volume Replicator from Symantec. Veritas Cluster Server has

the ability to monitor the health of the Enterprise Vault services and storage, and automatically trigger a failover if necessary

to maintain system availability.

NetBackup offers several different layers of protection for Microsoft Exchange depending on the recovery point

objective (RPO) or recovery time objective (RTO). Because not all applications or environments require the same levels of

protection, NetBackup provides the flexibility to pick the appropriate level while retaining central management.

To ensure minimal application disruption, NetBackup provides a Microsoft Exchange agent that provides hot online

backups. This prevents having to take the server offline or depend on scripting to export the application to the file system.

To help reduce the amount of storage required for Microsoft Exchange backups, NetBackup has built-in, patent-pending,


Granular Recovery Technology (GRT). GRT allows for a single-pass backup while maintaining full disaster recovery and

individual email, folder or mailbox restores. The benefit is that this single-pass backup allows for approximately half the

storage over the previously required two-pass backup while maintaining equal recovery functionality.

Depending on service levels, there is a variety of best practices for protecting Microsoft Exchange environments

with NetBackup, including:

• Leverage Microsoft Exchange 2007 Cluster Continuous Replication or CCR (the capability to replicate

data between clustered nodes) or Local Continuous Replication or LCR (the ability to replicate

locally between two disk volumes). The NetBackup client with the Microsoft Exchange agent option

recognizes CCR or LCR environments and will always back up the passive node. It also allows for

control if it should failover to backing up the active node if the passive node is not available.

• Off-host backup using the NetBackup Enterprise Client with the Microsoft Exchange agent option allows

a snapshot to be taken of the Microsoft Exchange instance and then mounted on an alternative server to

perform the backup. This practice is ideal for heavily utilized, 24x7 production systems that cannot afford the

disruptions or slowdowns that are caused by regular backups. All of the benefits previously described with GRT

and CCR/LCR can be realized without having a performance impact on the Microsoft Exchange server because

the NetBackup server is sending the data to the backup infrastructure. Microsoft® Outlook users continue to

use Microsoft Exchange after the snapshot has been taken while NetBackup does all of the heavy lifting.

• Through the hardware array or file system (such as Veritas Storage Foundation), the Snapshot Instant

Recovery feature available within the NetBackup Enterprise Client provides the ability to schedule,

catalog and retain snapshots. This allows users to retrieve point-in-time copies from disk for the fastest

recovery possible. Data is captured locally at the client, and therefore, does not need to move data across

the network or to tape. Only catalog entries (metadata) are sent to the NetBackup server to accurately

track the point-in-time copy that was created or identified for use with the NetBackup software.

• Continuous Data Protection (CDP) technology provided by NetBackup™ RealTime

Protection captures every write at the LUN level. This provides a higher level of protection

than regular backup and snapshots by offering any point-in-time restore.

• In the event of a disaster, NetBackup provides integrated Bare Metal Restore™. This allows a Windows

(or UNIX® or Linux®) server to be recovered within minutes from a network boot. This requires minimal

user intervention, automated hardware discovery, and the ability to recover to dissimilar hardware.

For added protection, Veritas Cluster Server provides resiliency to both the NetBackup Master Server and the Veritas


Backup Reporter Management Server and agent to ensure seamless failover onto another node in the event of a failure with

the primary node. Veritas Cluster Server technology is also integrated within NetBackup PureDisk to ensure automated

online failover of any node in the disk-backup storage pool.

ADDRESSING COMPLIANCE AND DISCOVERYWith the increasing criticality of email and the adherence of government regulations, search and discovery have been an

integral part of any organization. Specifically, IT is being asked to:

• Ensure that electronic records, including unstructured content such as email and IM,

are being collected, indexed, and retained according to corporate policies

• Respond rapidly to requests for finding specific documents and emails in backup and storage based on the

context, such as date, sender or recipient, and content, including keywords, subject line, and attachments

• Retrieve unstructured data from all variety of devices, including laptops and handhelds

• Restore data and present it in native format

Symantec Enterprise Vault facilitates data collection, storage, and discovery, and helps demonstrate compliance with

laws and standards. This enables organizations to:

• Proactively enforce email, file, and document retention policies

• Optimize data collection and ensure accessibility in order to reduce search, review, and legal discovery costs

• Comply with governance rules and standards and increase litigation preparedness

• Enforce legal holds on data destruction

Today, legal departments and IT must work together to develop email retention systems that not only ensure that

records are not accidentally lost or deleted, but can also ensure rapid recovery. Organizations faced with litigation involving

e-discovery must be able to apply indefinite litigation hold of relevant content with minimal strain on storage and

IT resources.

Enterprise Vault enables the discovery of content within email, file system, and collaborative environments. It

manages content via automated, policy-based archiving to online stores for the retention and retrieval of information. The

software manages archived information according to defined policies, including policies governing the amount of time files

are retained. It enables managers to set unique retention polices for different types of information and protect archived

items from deletion or expiry to save them for litigation. All content is fully indexed so archived information can be rapidly

accessed, and indexing supports more than 350 file types so a search can find information within a zip file, email, Microsoft

Office document, and more.

Enterprise Vault software works seamlessly with Microsoft Exchange journaling in order to satisfy the corporate legal or

regulatory retention requirements. Enterprise Vault can be configured to retain a copy of all email messages sent and received,

ensuring that they are kept for the appropriate period of time required to meet regulatory or legal retention requirements


More information

Visit our Web site: http://enterprise.symantec.com

To speak with a Product Specialist in the U.S.: Call toll-free 1 (800) 745 6054

To speak with a Product Specialist outside the U.S.: For specific country offices and contact numbers, please visit our Web site.

About Symantec

Symantec is a global leader in infrastructure software, enabling businesses and consumers to have confidence in a connected

world. The company helps customers protect their infrastructure, information, and interactions by delivering software and ser-

vices that address risks to security, availability, compliance, and performance. Headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., Symantec

has operations in 40 countries. More information is available at www.symantec.com.

Symantec World Headquarters

20330 Stevens Creek Boulevard, Cupertino, CA 95014 USA. +1 (408) 517 8000, 1 (800) 721 3934 www.symantec.com

Enterprise Vault Discovery Accelerator extends the basic search functionality to deliver more powerful and efficient

search capabilities, configurable enforcement of items during a litigation hold, and flexible export capabilities to simplify

production. This helps organizations search for and manage information related to legal cases. It allows multiple

individuals to perform complex searches across multiple archives and with multiple criteria in order to efficiently produce

information for court readiness. Of key importance is that the software agent enables the creation of automated legal holds,

ensuring that email, IM, and other records relevant to litigation are not deleted as part of an organization’s retention and

deletion schedule.

SUMMARY

Protecting a mission-critical application should not entail multiple point solutions across several vendors. Instead, it is

imperative to standardize on a well-established and reputable vendor that provides solutions that solve business problems.

Symantec provides market-leading, award-winning solutions across storage management, high availability, data protection

and archiving that work together to master the complexities associated with protecting Microsoft Exchange.

Copyright © 2008 Symantec Corporation. All rights reserved. Symantec, the Symantec logo, Backup Exec, Bare Metal Restore, Enterprise Vault, FlashSnap, NetBackup, PureDisk, Storage Foundation, and Veritas are trademarks or registered trademarks of Symantec Corporation or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

10/2008 20001718


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