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Did You Know: Efficient ROBO Data Protection

December 15, 2017


Did you know that HYCU provides the most efficient ROBO data protection solution for Nutanix?

In industries where a local business presence is essential, enterprises end up with hundreds of remote offices or branch offices (ROBO). Customers and employees expect the same service from ROBOs as they would from a central location. Being limited in budget, local expertise and connectivity, modern IT faces leviathan challenges for implementing efficient and flexible ROBO operations. As one can imagine, ROBO data protection is one of the most challenging items on this agenda.

Nutanix already provides an out-of-the box efficient ROBO DR solution by replicating data to the central location and enabling efficient VM failover. HYCU, our purpose-built data protection for Nutanix, is able to back up the ROBO data from datacenter replicas, which results in zero resource requirements on the ROBO and network side, at the same time enabling one-click recovery within the datacenter or at any remote location.

Maybe everything locally is the answer?

The first thought that could come to one’s mind is to deploy everything to a remote location. But wait a second… What would the consequences be of doing that? Staffing local admins, deploying/configuring/managing backup software and devices are a few tasks, none of which are easy and most of which are very expensive.

What if we back up to the datacenter?

This one is definitely a requirement for most enterprises, but as always, the devil is in the details. Yes, we potentially do not require local backup devices, but we definitely need to take care of the backup solution on-site. That means answering the following questions:

  • Who will manage it?
  • How much of the additional bandwidth does it need?
  • Does it mean that one needs to pay separately for the backup and separately for the DR/HA bandwidth?

What if we leverage the replication/DR capabilities of the backup solution?

In this scenario, which is usually pushed by backup vendors, the idea is to consolidate the DR and backup traffic and to use the datacenter backup targets/devices for instant recovery (DR).

The concept of consolidating the DR and backup traffic is the right one. However, there are several issues in this case including:

  • Use of the backup data replication rather than the native Nutanix platform replication
  • Use of a second class and non-native computing/storage environment for DR purposes resulting in much slower performance and much higher cost
  • There is still a ROBO site presence of the backup solution (known also as proxy VMs or agents) that requires babysitting and resources (ROBO cache/storage, computing for deduplication capabilities, etc…)

Nice try, but still expensive.

How HYCU does it?

Our design philosophy for HYCU has been simplicity and integration. Our goal is to protect the investment customers made for their enterprise cloud. If anyone can provide the most efficient replication and DR capabilities between the ROBO and datacenter, it is Nutanix. And, what is most important – the capability to provide an application consistent replica of data, meaning that one already has the data available in the datacenter!

What HYCU also brings to the table is an ability to provide additional layers of protection (backup copies) to non-Nutanix storage (recall the 3-2-1 best practice?) like: ExaGrid, tier-2 storage through NFS/SMB, and also public cloud options (Amazon S3 or Azure).

Efficient ROBO Data Protection diagram for HYCU for ROBO

What are the big benefits of HYCU for Nutanix for Remote Office/Branch Office (ROBO)?

 

What is even more important and required in this scenario is a one-click recovery capability. HYCU enables VM or file-level, admin or tenant-level recovery within the datacenter or on the remote site/office.

No ROBO staff required, no additional ROBO infrastructure required and no additional bandwidth required.

Elegant, efficient and extremely cost-effective. But, don’t just take my word for it, Try HYCU!

Try HYCU for free

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Seriously, you really need to experience HYCU to believe it.