COHESITY for Backup/Restore?

  • Harold Buckner wrote:

    I know this is an old topic but we are using Cohesity 6.6. It now has SQL log backup and Point in time restores. So far I'm liking it really well.

    Have you done test restores to point in time to verify it works the way you want ?

  • homebrew01 wrote:

    Harold Buckner wrote:

    I know this is an old topic but we are using Cohesity 6.6. It now has SQL log backup and Point in time restores. So far I'm liking it really well.

    Have you done test restores to point in time to verify it works the way you want ?

    So very much this!!!

    "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
    - Theodore Roosevelt

    Author of:
    SQL Server Execution Plans
    SQL Server Query Performance Tuning

  • homebrew01 wrote:

    Harold Buckner wrote:

    I know this is an old topic but we are using Cohesity 6.6. It now has SQL log backup and Point in time restores. So far I'm liking it really well.

    Have you done test restores to point in time to verify it works the way you want ?

    Yes we have tested the Point in time restores to verify restores are truly the correct point in time. It has been working great so far. Backups are quick. The GUI is easily to navigate. Restores can be restored back to original location or an alternate source. You can do manual backups or log backups if needed out side of job schedule. When setting up protection groups, you can  add servers by an automatic protection so any instance or database that gets added will automatically backed up.  Backups are being replicated to another Cohesity cluster. The Cluster is encrypted and we also are using the the immutability option to protect from ransomware attacks inside the network. Seems like a lot of good features.

  • Sounds good then. As I said, a long time ago, if the tool can meet the RPO & RTO, I'm fine with it.

    "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
    - Theodore Roosevelt

    Author of:
    SQL Server Execution Plans
    SQL Server Query Performance Tuning

  • We have been a Cohesity customer now for 8 months.  It has issues and we are helping to teach the Cohesity engineers about SQL.  Not kidding.

    Have you tried to migrate more than one database from one SQL instance to another?  Natively, it can't.  We are working with their PowerShell guru to create a very manual process to do so as we often do migrations with several hundred databases.  Lot's of issues.  If you have the product, please join their user group as this is the best way to get solutions to their frail model.

  • I too was asked to try Cohesity about 6 months ago.  Here's the Pros / Cons of my experience using Cohesity for SQL Server backups.  With a disclaimer that I did have a lot of time to "learn" Cohesity and I used it pretty much out of the box.

    Because of the limitations of Cohesity not supporting SQL Versions below 2012 I choose to go back to using a Native SQL Backup solution using Ola Halagrens methodology.

    We do use Cohesity to backup the File Server where the Native SQL Backups are stored as a failsafe.  I keep a week's worth of one Full, Daily Diffs, and Log Files on the File Server which are then backed up to Cohesity.  It seems to be a good compromise of still being able to use Native SQL Backups but take advantage of Cohesity's storage for long term backup file recovery.

    Pros:

    • Easy to setup and configure
    • Fast Restores
    • Cloning Databases - awesome for quickly standing up Test Environments
    • Good reporting / alerting - I particularly like the Log Chain break alert

    Cons:

    • Difficult to Automate Restores.  I did look at using the Powershell stuff on github but never had the time to figure out how to use if effectively and in an automated fashion
    • Does work with any SQL Server versions below 2012.  I understand this limitation but it forced me to use a mixed backup solution for versions below 2012
    • Cohesity masks the backup location in msdb.dbo.backupset so you can't see the actual file location.  That concerned me that I couldn't get to the actual backup file if I need to do a specific restore of a log file.  It all had to be managed through the GUI

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