This is a 7-page solution profile by Taneja Group, December 2009.

1. S O L U T I O N P R O F I L E
IBM ProtecTIER Adds Native Replication
December 2009
Ever since their acquisition of Diligent in 2008, IBM has been a top
player in the enterprise-level deduplication market. The ProtecTIER
deduplication product line, which includes both easy-to-deploy
appliances and highly scalable gateway options, proved to be a good
acquisition for both companies and allowed IBM to supplement their
strong tape backup business.
However, we were initially concerned about a lack of native replication in ProtecTIER.
Diligent had not added the feature and IBM did not immediately provide it post-
acquisition. The main reason for the delay was that in enterprise accounts, where
ProtecTIER’s high performance and petabyte scalability played very well, customers
already practiced array-based replication and had little interest in using another method
of replication for ProtecTIER. But as IBM moved down-market, they found that mid-
market customers rarely used array-based replication, citing expense and complexity.
To serve this market – and any enterprise customers who wanted it -- IBM added native
replication capabilities to the ProtecTIER product family.
This Product Profile will detail where ProtecTIER is today, how native replication
increases its value to enterprise and mid-market customers, and how customers are
using ProtecTIER to protect their critical data.
Challenge solution. However, the storage
environment has changed dramatically
Tape still forms the backbone of many
over the past few years VTL-centric
backup infrastructures. In these
backup plans have not changed with it.
environments, the traditional backup
This has serious implications for backup
process begins with backing up data from
and disaster recovery (DR).
production servers onto tape or disk for
short term storage and retrieval. From
Many of the challenges center on never-
there the backups are typically copied to a
ending data growth. Corporate data is
tape library. Tapes are either placed into
growing at a minimum rate of 60% a year,
30-60 day retention cycles or are
and many environments experience
physically transported to a remote
breathtaking growth rates of 100% or
location for long-term archiving.
more year over year. These large volumes
of data make it extremely difficult to
With their fast disk and cache, VTLs used
backup within acceptable windows.
to keep tape-based backup a workable
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2. S O L U T I O N P R O F I L E
scale up to 1PB of physical storage
Large backups also require large media housing up to 25PB or more of
purchases and take up costly real estate in compressed data behind a single server.
remote archiving locations. Reliability High speed connections enable data to
suffers as media demand grows, and as flow at sustained speeds up to
tape management requires more manual 1000MB/sec and achieve size reductions
intervention. Increased tape media of 25:1 or more. ProtecTIER is available
handling also heightens security risks as as an entry-level 7TB plug-n-play
IT struggles to efficiently manage and appliance all the way up to ultra-high
transport tape. performance active-active cluster gateway
solution that is scalable to 1 petabyte of
Cost presents another major factor. useable capacity. The back-end disk may
Storing large amounts of data off-site is be IBM or non-IBM, which allows IT to
expensive in terms of capacity, leverage heterogeneous storage resources.
maintenance overhead, and real estate.
And finally, DR testing – never easy But IBM ProtecTIER is hardly operating
under the best of conditions – becomes in a competitive vacuum. Many
exceptionally difficult with tape-based deduplication vendor battles are fought as
backup. When testing requires restoring much over price as features, especially in
tape from backup, chances are it simply is the cost-sensitive mid-market. IBM’s
not going to happen. competitive advantage is not so much a
small price tag as it is an excellent ROI.
The business need for enterprise-class de-
Deduplication and IBM deduplication is undeniable. Customers
Deduplication technologies offer struggle to backup large data files within
tremendous advantages in solving these reasonable backup windows. This need
for both capacity and performance drives
thorny problems, and enterprise and mid-
market customers are embracing the customers to look at IBM ProtecTIER; not
technology. But deduplication for the cheapest per-device price tag, but
for very strong ROI from a system
technologies have never been one size fits
all and never will be. There are too many perspective. To match the kind of power
ways to engineer where the deduplication and scalability that one ProtecTIER
system provides, many other competing
process occurs, how fast it operates, how
robust it is, and how secure the data vendors have to sell multiple
remains. deduplication systems. This perspective
levels the playing field in favor of IBM
IBM’s ProtecTIER integrates ProtecTIER even in cost-conscious
deduplication with IBM’s storage and environments. (And who isn’t cost-
conscious these days?)
system expertise to benefit enterprise and
mid-market customers. ProtecTIER can
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3. S O L U T I O N P R O F I L E
Let us look at some of the primary environments with high performance
features in ProtecTIER, including new requirements. The flexible ProtecTIER
native replication capabilities. Gateway offers high inline
deduplication performance and serves
 Highly efficient design. The customers with specific design
ProtecTIER deduplication engine, requirements and support both IBM
called HyperFactor, has a highly and non-IBM storage systems.
efficient index design that allows it to
scale up to 1PB of base capacity  Highly reliable. ProtecTIER does
without impacting indexing not use a hash algorithm, avoiding the
performance. This avoids a possibility of data loss from hash
considerable problem for competing collisions. ProtecTIER’s non-
products that are based on hashing or disruptive inline architecture makes
content-aware algorithms. sure that the deduplication runs
smoothly without interrupting
 High performance from existing backup processes. In addition,
aggregated throughput. In non- ProtecTIER is built on premium Fibre
aggregated deduplication systems, Channel drives and highly available
single system throughput identifies a cluster configurations, making it
throughput number against a single exceptionally reliable.
repository. Each node supports its
own repository and when another ProtecTIER and Replication
node is added a second single In addition to these enterprise-class
repository comes online. But features, IBM has added native
ProtecTIER leverages a global replication to ProtecTIER. Replication
repository using multiple gateways. serves to improve DR operations and
This enables ProtecTIER to scale its enables more data to be protected at a
system with the addition of each new lower cost, and is fast becoming a
node. For example, a single node can necessity for data protection.
sustain speeds of 500MB/sec or more,
while a two-node cluster can sustain Replication allows for fine-grained and
1000MB/sec or more as opposed to fast recovery, and when it comes to
independent node-based data silos. recovering from backup tape it is orders
of magnitude faster than going through
 Flexible systems. IBM sells the backup application’s recovery process.
different implementations of However, replicating backup is only
ProtecTIER to match different practical if the size of the backup has been
environments. The ProtecTIER 2- controlled via deduplication. The great
Node Cluster offers high performance mass of primary data otherwise requires
and high capacity in an active-active massive bandwidth and huge capacity,
cluster and is especially effective in
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4. S O L U T I O N P R O F I L E
making it far too awkward to replicate as ProtecTIER works at the cartridge level to
a matter of course. ProtecTIER replicates clone cartridges to the DR site via the
only unique new deduplicated data, backup application. Replication is policy-
making ProtecTIER-based replication an driven and its inline architecture lets it
important piece of a disaster recovery replicate concurrently with backup and
solution. deduplication operations. It can also be
scheduled to run during set replication
Mid-market customers are embracing this windows. ProtecTIER replication keeps
approach to replication, which is far bandwidth demands to a minimum by
simpler and less resource-intensive then deduplicating replicated data at both the
array-based replication. (Not to mention primary and secondary sites.
considerably less expensive than buying a
costly array for its replication features.) From the policy interface, IT assigns
repositories or cartridges to be replicated
ProtecTIER replication is also far more and schedules the replication time frame.
efficient than transporting physical tape IT may prioritize policies for a granular
to off-site locations. With ProtecTIER level of control. ProtecTIER native
native replication, this market can now replication emulates moving tapes in and
practice a number of DR scenarios. out of VTL import/export slots, and IT
Examples include replicating within a may use the slots via backup application
cluster or across the data center, to to virtually move cartridges from one
devices on opposite ends of a campus, to a library or site to another. IT may define
remote data center, or to an externally which cartridges remain visible to the
hosted DR site. replication operation and may assign
locations to the cartridges. Customers
ProtecTIER’s powerful deduplication may also choose to clone remote
capabilities reduce backup disk capacity ProtecTIER virtual cartridges to tape for
by up to 25 times or more. This also long-term storage at the DR site.
reduces the bandwidth required to
replicate data by 90% or greater. Native In case of disaster, an affected primary
replication is built-in to all new site will failover to the DR site. IT can use
ProtecTIER gateways and appliances and the ProtecTIER interface screen to
is available as a software upgrade on all maintain full access to management and
existing models. (Older ProtecTIER monitoring during the disaster. When the
models may need to add a 2nd NIC card to primary site resumes normal operations,
use replication.) ProtecTIER replication the DR site will failback to the primary.
does one-to-one replication from one site
to another, and IBM’s roadmap includes
many-to-one and many-to-many
capabilities in the near future.
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5. S O L U T I O N P R O F I L E
ProtecTIER in the Real World extremely helpful to immediate recovery
of end-user files. Finally, this very
Nonprofit Fox Chase Cancer Center is one dynamic data center changes frequently.
of the leading cancer research and
ProtecTIER’s architecture scales
treatment centers in the United States.
throughput and capacity to manage
The hospital and the research center dynamic environments like this.
make for an extremely demanding data
protection environment. ProtecTIER Native Replication
The hospital generates critical patient Now that IBM has added native
care and case management records, and replication to ProtecTIER, Fox Chase
the research center continually produces plans to expand their ProtecTIER
data from nearly a hundred ongoing installation and to add replication as part
research programs. IT is charged with of a comprehensive disaster recovery and
economically protecting this large volume business continuity revamp.
of critical and highly regulated data.
Fox Chase maintains two data centers 12
IBM ProtecTIER is a strong component of miles apart. Fox Chase plans to add a
IT’s data protection success. Before second ProtecTIER to the secondary site,
ProtecTIER, Fox Chase was generating where almost 50% of their servers are
nearly a terabyte of new data a month and now located. Fox Chase will use each
backups were taking longer than 10-12 site’s ProtecTIER for local backup, and
hour backup windows. Even with these each will then replicate their backup to
long windows operating all night and on the opposite site. This setup will maintain
weekends, growing data was pushing full data protection and failover/failback
backup times to unacceptable levels. access from either location.
ProtecTIER enabled them to cut their Fox Chase must allow for two different
backup time from an unacceptable 13 critical data types, each with its own set of
hours or more to just 6 hours. backup and data protection challenges.
ProtecTIER’s flexible virtual tape The first type is very large files containing
interface let Fox Chase saturate its study and experimental data from its
Ethernet network with backup traffic research arm. The hospital generates the
without experiencing performance loss. second type of data, which includes
patient and medical care that is highly
The customer also achieved strong regulated and very sensitive.
storage compression in the primary data
center where ProtecTIER stores 250TB of The first type requires high capacity and
data in a 22TB allocation. Fox Chase fast throughput to store and replicate the
keeps several weeks of backups on the very large files within acceptable
ProtecTIER system, which has proved windows. High compression ratios enable
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6. S O L U T I O N P R O F I L E
Fox Chase to back up these large backup IT to manage local and remote
objects at high speed, and to use highly ProtecTIER installations from a single
compressed storage for lower capacity local console.
costs. The storage arrays will do array-
based, live frame-by-frame replication of 3. Benefit #3: Strong disaster
the critical clinical data. ProtecTIER will recovery and business
provide backup replication for both file continuity. ProtecTIER disk-based
types. archives are optimized for DR and
business continuity. Failover and
failback options between primary and
Benefits of ProtecTIER with remote sites ensure continuity during
Native Replication disaster recovery. Fast ProtecTIER-to-
ProtecTIER connections greatly
ProtecTIER offers strong benefits to
increase the speed of data restores
enterprise and mid-market customers.
over the WAN. ProtecTIER
Together they form ProtecTIER’s high
replication’s compact bandwidth also
ROI in the data protection environment.
enables more frequent testing of DR
plans.
1. Benefit #1: High performance
backup and restore. ProtecTIER is
4. Benefit #4: High scalability and
a game-changing technology for
throughput. ProtecTIER’s
backup and restore. It greatly
architecture achieves very high
increases the speed and reliability of
sustained throughput for extremely
backup operations, which in turn
fast processing and replication.
supports service level agreements,
Clusters and a global repository allow
recovery point objectives, and backup
single nodes to sustain throughput in
performance.
the 500MB/sec range with peak
throughputs topping 650MB/sec. By
2. Benefit #2: Secure and available
adding a second node and supporting
offsite archives. Instant electronic
a global repository, IBM can push the
vaulting between primary and remote
sustained throughput rate into the
sites protects data integrity and
1000MB/sec range, with peak
recoverability. ProtecTIER only
throughputs even higher.
replicates a small amount of unique
new data, resulting in extremely 5. Benefit #5: Native Replication.
efficient bandwidth use. Electronic
Automated data replication to the
data movement replaces physical remote site yields dramatic
transport and its attendant risk of data improvements to the backup and
loss. IT management overhead can be
recovery process. Inline deduplication
a real issue with remote data enables ProtecTIER to replicate
management, so ProtecTIER enables concurrently with backup operations.
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7. S O L U T I O N P R O F I L E
Concurrent deduplication saves like clustering and global repositories
significant backup and replication further demonstrate IBM’s commitment
time and dramatically lowers to developing the ProtecTIER line.
bandwidth requirements. IT can also
replace risky physical tape transport By adding native replication to the
by cloning virtual tape cartridges to ProtecTIER mix, IBM makes a compelling
physical media at the remote site. case for small enterprise and mid-market
adoption as well. These price-conscious
customers can be leery of what they
Taneja Group Opinion perceive as an initially higher cost.
No one has ever accused IBM of doing However, IBM’s ROI proposition is a
compelling one with a strong dollar-to-
things by halves and ProtecTIER with
native replication is no exception. IBM value message. For all of these reasons,
ProtecTIER is already deployed across we expect to see IBM continue to increase
its large customer account base and make
hundreds of installations in demanding
verticals like healthcare, financial services serous inroads into the downstream data
and telecommunications. ProtecTIER’s protection market.
in-line, single system throughput and .
petabyte-level scalability make it highly
attractive to these customers. Features
NOTICE: The information and product recommendations made by the TANEJA GROUP are based upon public information and
sources and may also include personal opinions both of the TANEJA GROUP and others, all of which we believe to be accurate and
reliable. However, as market conditions change and not within our control, the information and recommendations are made
without warranty of any kind. All product names used and mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners. The
TANEJA GROUP, Inc. assumes no responsibility or liability for any damages whatsoever (including incidental, consequential or
otherwise), caused by your use of, or reliance upon, the information and recommendations presented herein, nor for any
inadvertent errors which may appear in this document.
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