HP StoreOnce replication technology
Replication enables a copy of the backup data to be created at a second location. This remote copy is most
commonly used for disaster recovery (DR) and copy to tape. The replication is bandwidth optimized by the
deduplication technology. After the initial replication, only new backup data is replicated to the target site. This can
result in bandwidth savings, in line with the deduplication ratio achieved. For a 20:1 deduplication ratio this equates
to approximately a 95 percent bandwidth saving compared to having to replicate the full contents of the backup.
There is some overhead of control data but typically less than two percent of the total replicated backup size.
If the network between the source and target StoreOnce Backup System is used for other traffic, the replication usage
can be throttled by using bandwidth limits as a percentage of the link bandwidth so as not to affect the performance
of other applications transferring data over the same network. To prevent StoreOnce Backup System replication at
busy times, replication windows can also be configured. Another way to optimize the use of the network is to limit the
maximum number of concurrent replication jobs supported by source and target StoreOnce Backup System.
Replication can be configured between any StoreOnce Backup Systems. A single appliance can house Shares that
are replication sources and Shares that are replication targets. The fan-in replication of multiple source appliances to
a single target appliance is supported, as shown in Figure 7.
Once configured, replication starts when the backup file is written to the Share. If a backup spans multiple files on the
Share, replication will start on the first file as soon as the backup job spans to the second file.
Quest vRanger Data Protection Software
vRanger offers comprehensive data protection for VMware environments, delivering fast and reliable backup,
recovery, and replication. vRanger captures the entire image of a virtual machine and enables restore at the image,
file, or application level.
An intelligent resource manager improve backup speed by leveraging all available ESX and ESXi hosts and
controlling the number of simultaneous jobs using any given resource. To optimize use of disk storage and make
multiple recovery points (Savepoints) economic, vRanger supports several space savings mechanisms including—
VMware Change Block Tracking (CBT), incremental backup, differential backup, compression, and Active Block
Mapping (ABM). These space-saving technologies reduce the size of the backups sent to the StoreOnce Backup
System which further reduces the physical size of the backup with its inline deduplication and compression. The
vRanger space reduction technologies and appliance deduplication and compression are configured to give the
optimum end-to-end data compaction.
All backup jobs are executed while the source machine is running which means the backup
job causes no service interruption.
For scalability, vRanger allows you to connect to multiple vCenter servers to easily protect larger or distributed
environments while consolidating backup data onto the StoreOnce Backup System.
Architecture and backup modes
Three backup architectures are supported to meet different requirements and environment sizes. For more detailed
information about them, please readHot Add
This is an excellent solution for smaller environments using ESXi servers. Hot Add works when vRanger is installed in
the virtual machine. It is the least costly way of implementing data protection since it requires no additional hardware
other than the StoreOnce Backup System.
vRanger uses Hot Add to mount the source disk directly to its own virtual machine, allowing direct access to the data
through VMware’s I/O stack rather than through the network.
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When using Quest Recovery Manager.
