EMC Adds Cascaded Replication to DR Infrastructure

EMC Corporation announced the industry’s first cascaded replication capability for its Data Domain inline deduplication storage, one of several enhancements to the company’s Data Domain Replicator software option.

The ability to cascade replicated data enables enterprise organizations to enhance their disaster recovery (DR) strategy by using network-efficient replication to electronically transfer deduplicated backup and archive data to a third destination or to additional offsite locations. In addition, Replicator software now supports up to 180-to-1 remote site fan-in to a single controller for expanded automated cross-site deduplication and up to 100% faster directory replication throughput using highly optimized, multi-stream replication. Together, these capabilities provide scalable, enterprise-ready deployment flexibility to large, distributed enterprises. Users can now more easily and cost-effectively achieve their DR and tape consolidation objectives while simplifying and accelerating DR readiness.

Data centers and large enterprises are looking to deploy ultra-reliable, disk-based backup/restore solutions with automated, multi-site DR capabilities. Most enterprise deployments of Data Domain systems include its Replicator software, which enables the rapid transfer of optimized data over low-bandwidth WAN links to simplify and accelerate DR readiness while reducing WAN costs. The combination of high speed inline deduplication, cross-site deduplication and simultaneous vaulting of data offsite means fast time-to-DR for Data Domain users. With cascaded replication users can extend that protection to additional offsite locations, adding further resilience to data sets where a single DR site is not sufficient. Replicator’s existing many-to-1 topologies can be used to protect more remote offices or regional and distributed data centers by efficiently replicating data to core data centers or additional DR locations over existing WAN connections.

"We were grappling with significant tape backup challenges, high data growth rates and very limited bandwidth across our locations. We needed a reliable, scalable solution that was manageable from an enterprise level," said Corey Kos, Infrastructure Manager for Alaska Department of Fish & Game (ADFG). "By combining EMC’s Data Domain deduplication storage systems, Replicator software and deploying a managed infrastructure services model, we have gained a more efficient, reliable and cost-effective backup and disaster recovery strategy for our core data centers in Juneau, Anchorage, Kodiak and Fairbanks."

"In particular, we are very pleased with the testing of cascaded replication which enables a simple, high performance, set it and forget it approach to off-site backups," continued Kos. "We are currently protecting our VMware clusters, Microsoft 2008 Active Directory as well as SQL and Oracle databases. These datasets are replicated from Fairbanks and Kodiak data centers into Anchorage, which then is bi-directionally replicated with our primary data center location in Juneau – basically we can now quickly restore any ADFG site in Alaska from Juneau or Anchorage."

"According to our 2009 spending survey, the top storage investment enterprises plan to make is in replication for offsite data protection," said Brian Babineau, senior analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group. "It is clear that companies want to shift from transporting backup tapes as the primary means of moving data between multiple sites so long as they can find an affordable disk alternative. With its inline deduplicated replication, EMC Data Domain provides an economically feasible, disk-based, off site data protection solution as it minimizes the amount of bandwidth and secondary storage needed to set up a disaster recovery site. The company’s latest advances in cascaded replication capabilities and fan-in ratios for remote office make it possible for larger enterprises to cost effectively incorporate even more applications – regardless of where the data is stored – in their business continuity initiatives."

"Most deduplication storage systems are very immature and inflexible in replication," said Brian Biles, vice president of Product Management of EMC’s Backup and Recovery Systems (BRS) Division. "Data Domain Replicator not only has more production implementations and years of production use than comparable deduplicating VTLs, it also has significant functionality differentiation, as demonstrated by these new features."

EMC’s family of Data Domain deduplication storage systems easily integrate into most IT environments by supporting leading enterprise backup and archive applications as well as a variety of network types and transfer protocols simultaneously. These include CIFS or NFS fileserver over Ethernet, Virtual Tape Library over fibre channel and the OpenStorage interface from Symantec Veritas NetBackup. Data Domain Replicator software is available today.