February 12, 2015 at 10:10 am
I'm sure we all struggle with hearing how long backups or restores take and how difficult it can be to get that presented to different environments in different capacities.
I've sat in on a demo of Actifio and some of my colleagues tout it as a replacement for our SQL Backup and Recovery strategy (if not this product they'd still be looking for a different product that didn't involve scripted restores).
You can see more about what they do here http://www.actifio-global.com/use-cases/development-test-data-management/.
First, I'd like to know if anyone knows anything (or has experience with) about Actifio in regards to SQL Server. Pros and Cons are welcome.
Second, if you could offer any advice on any technology replacing normal backup and recovery policy (san snapshots, vm snapshots, whatever) and your experiences with that I would greatly appreciate it. I'm kind of getting tired of defending SQL backups.
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February 12, 2015 at 10:36 am
With any backup process, the first question would you be able to restore to 23 minutes past mid-day if you need to. If you can't, and can only restore from an hourly snapshot - and the associated data loss, are the business users happy with that risk.
As far as scripted restores go, it's very easy to generate a restore script with every t-log backup and store it with them.
I'm a DBA.
I'm not paid to solve problems. I'm paid to prevent them.
February 12, 2015 at 11:13 am
actfio is one of those applications like the retired Redgate SQL VirtualRestore, or Ideras Virtual Database and others that allow you to load an existing backup and immediately treat it as if it was a real database. it keeps the changes/updates in a seperate log.
that means you still ar etaking regular full/log/dif backups.
That kind of feature is nice, especially if you don't have disk space, or you open and close lots of backups for testing/restoring.
the page blurbs there imply that it would save you a lot of hours from a restore, but in my experience, you'd only go through the process as described in theri picture if you had VLDB and no disk space to put them on. waiting three weeks for a restore? only if you ordered a SAN to put it on.
Lowell
February 14, 2015 at 12:56 pm
Full disclosure: I am an Actifio Employee. However, I spent the majority of my career on the customer side working as everything from an operator doing backups (on 9-track tapes in the 80's) to an architect for HA applications and storage infrastructure. I will attempt to provide some answers on how Actifio works for you without turning into a sales pitch.
Actifio has many different use cases for SQL Server data, as well as many other kinds of data. The general approach employed is always the same. Capture data in a non-disruptive way and store it separately from the production data. Store it in a usable format. Have user-specified SLAs drive the location, replication method, and retention of this data. Provide immediate access for nearly any reason a user could think of.
Specific to SQL Server databases, Actifio performs a block-level incremental-forever data capture process. This process runs on a schedule, most often daily. This is analogous to a database backup in that it results in a single point in time version being stored on Actifio. Unlike a traditional backup, Actifio only sends the complete database one time, and after that it is only changed blocks.
In addition to the point in time copies of the database that are captured and stored, Actifio can also perform traditional transaction log backups on databases in full logging mode. It then has the ability to do point-in-time restores of a database back to any desired moment in time, directly from the Actifio GUI and without scripting.
As Lowell mentioned, a virtual copy of the database stored on Actifio can be mounted to any SQL server in the environment and the database may be brought online without the need to first copy the database onto the SQL Server's local disks. This mounted copy can be used to provide quick access to a DBA for troubleshooting, or to stand up a development environment that will be persistent for months (and likely refreshed from production on a schedule). Even the mounted "virtual copies" can be made available with point-in-time roll forward support, although it is less often that users need to do this for non-recovery use cases.
Actifio's approach is designed with today's Datacenter in mind, and solves the challenges caused by legacy backup (dump) approaches with a high degree of scalability and efficiency. However, it is also very different than what we have all been doing for many years (or decades... cough cough) and it does take some getting used to.
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