How long is your backup window? for many data center managers, the answer is "longer than I'd like." Reducing the time required to back up and restore data in a disaster recovery scenario is a a key focus for FalconStor Software (FALC), which has optimized its Virtual Tape Library (VTL) to address this challenge.
On Monday FalconStor released results of performance tests that its VTL now delivers the fastest "total time to disaster recovery (DR)" in the industry, the company said. By running the backup and deduplication processes concurrently, FalconStor was able to back up, copy and restore 100 terabytes of data in 26 hours, with an average transfer of 2 gigabits of data per second during the backup and dedupe process.
"Total time to DR is critical to the resilience of any business that relies on 24-hour access to important applications," said Lauren Whitehouse, analyst with the Enterprise Strategy Group. "A high-performance backup infrastructure is critical to reducing a business’s exposure to downtime by ensuring data recovery and full return to operability in a timely manner. FalconStor has clearly taken the entire process from backup to recovery into consideration to achieve optimal efficiency in terms of both time and cost."
The test was conducted using a single cluster of two FalconStor VTL nodes supported by four deduplication nodes. FalconStor said the hardware components used are standard parts, including standard Linux-based servers and low-cost SATA-based storage subsystems with 4 gigabit Fibre Channel ports.
"We want to provide our customers some with some realistic numbers they could expect in their environment," said Fadi Albatal , Director of Marketing at FalconStor. "We found most of our customers do not have 8 gigabit Fibre Channel."
Albatal also noted that FalconStor's results exceeded the throughput in recent tests by rival Data Domain (DDUP) that used 10 Gigabit Ethernet instead of 4 gigabit or 8 gigabit Fibre Channel. "The 10 Gigabit Ethernet Eethernet used in the Data Domain test you could find in the data center for core conductivity, not for storage.
"The most critical step in the backup process is meeting the backup window, and high-speed backup is essential," said Albatal.
"Before we fully deployed FalconStor VTL with deduplication and replication, we were vulnerable to long restore times in the event of a system fault because of the inefficiency of restoring from tape," said Sangwon Lee, deputy general manager at Korea East-West Power Company, Ltd. "But now with VTL, we have eliminated a lot of wasted time. As we rolled out our new backup and DR process in stages, we can now appreciate the full impact the total deployment has had on our backup and restore speed – giving us the security that we can become fully operational in less than a working day in the event of a major data center failure."
