A generational shift happened ever since Cloud applications/storage/compute emerged on the IT road map. Cloud storage has 3 traits. To begin with the storage service must be over a network. Next the storage pool must allow for easy scalability without downtime. Last and not least the storage pool must be easy to manage especially when scaled.

Cloud storage is a normal extension of Software-as-a-Service and online applications like SalesForce and Cloud computing have received huge popularity due to initiatives of Google, Amazon and VMware. The Wikipedia has defined the the cloud computing architecture as follows:

“The architecture behind cloud computing is a massive network of “cloud servers” interconnected as if in a grid running in parallel, sometimes using the technique of virtualization to maximize the utilization of the computing power available per server.”

With the advent of Amazon S3, the concept of Cloud migrated to a storage function. In a cloud storage scenario numerous commodity hardware devices are coupled together by software to build a pool of storage.

So cloud storage is not just a storage rental available online. It’s more about architecture, performance, and scaling where you add standard hardware from your preferred commodity storage vendor, and get shared access through a standard network.

Cloud storage is loosely coupled and the nodes do not need to communicate with each other to facilitate supercomputers writing in parallel to the same file spread across multiple nodes. Being loosely-coupled allows fine performance for multiple copies of a single file across multiple nodes or multiple files and offers huge scalability.

Are you wondering which good instances are for cloud solutions to fill in? Well, some of the good examples of Cloud Storage include File Archiving, Digital content distribution & serving, streaming media or backup, video surveillance, and archival storage.

The Cloud Storage is here to stay and certainly holds great promise in times of recessionary economy where corporations can buy storage gigabyte at a time in contrast to complete systems and yet get all the benefits of latest technology.

Source by Munesh Jadoun

At small companies or in brand-new virtual infrastructures, backup can be straight forward. You may be able to use a free tool that makes VMware backup deceivingly simple.

However, over time, your infrastructure will probably grow, as well as the number of virtual machines and the amount of data needing backup. As this happens, you’ll find what other virtualization experts have already figured out – virtualization backup can be much more complex that it seems and you need the right tool for the job.

In this article, you’ll learn how to save time, prevent data-loss, and create a bulletproof VMware backup infrastructure by employing the 7 valuable VMware infrastructure backup tips from virtualization backup experts.

Selecting the right tool for the job of backing up your virtual infrastructure is the critical piece of your entire virtual infrastructure protection plan.

1. Here are the steps I recommend to select the right backup tool for your virtual infrastructure:

1. Don’t assume you have to select the same tool as everyone else. There are a number of good tools on the market. Just because a tool has the best marketing strategy doesn’t make it the best tool. Do your own research and find the best tool for your environment.

2. Test tools for yourself and take your time doing it. Every tool offers a free trial period that allows you to test their product on your own infrastructure (plus, if you are really interested in the product, most companies will give you a free extension to try their product longer than the original trial). Make sure that you test these tools in a test environment and not your live infrastructure. Put these tools through their paces, with your applications, and focus on features related to recovery.

Remember, you aren’t just getting a tool to backup your VMs, what you really want is them to be restored and FAST. Test things like multiple restores at a time, file level restore, and application integrity after restore.

3. Make your life easier by selecting a tool that has the latest features. Your tool should offer features like fast restore for multiple VMs, application integrity in your backups, replication, backup of multiple hypervisors, backup of physical and virtual servers, deduplication, and more. Cost make effect your decision here…

2. Avoid VMware Snapshots of Virtual Machines

Snapshots aren’t backup. Snapshots should only be used for very short-term and not as your primary backup method. Let’s say that you are about to perform an application upgrade, you would take a snapshot (and do a backup) before the upgrade. Then, the next day, if the app upgrade was successful, you would remove your shapshot.

A week later you needed a pre-upgrade database then you could restore if from your backup and not the snapshot.

Snapshots take up tons of disk space and space in your backup repository. Space used by snapshots is, many times, forgotten and easily overlooked, causing unexpected results.

3. Plan for Offsite Backup and Replication

The problem with so many VMWare backup tools is that they stop once something is backed up. They leave the files on a disk and leave it up to you to figure out how to get them offsite in case there is a disaster.

Something else to consider is that you may need to recover a virtual server on a physical server or vice versa. Can your backup product cover all of these scenarios?

I recommend moving to 100% virtualization, backing up all VMs, and then replicating those backups offsite. In the event of a disaster, you’ll be able to bring them up at the DR site. And more importantly all your data will be on another site if you just need to restore one VM.

4. Test your backups!

Just because your backup software tells you that backups were “100% successful”, doesn’t mean that you can restore your data. You need to either manually test your virtual machine restores AND applications inside or have your backup software do this for you.

How many VMs have you restored that bluescreened when they were booted up?

How many VMs have you restored that had corrupted Exchange or SQL server databases?

To ensure that your backups will be 100% recoverable, make sure that you test:

• VM image level restore

• VM file level restore

• The VMs boot successfully and filesystems (like NTFS) mount perfectly

• The application databases mount and services start (e.g. Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint)

Testing all of this on a periodic basis can be very time consuming but it is vital to save your bacon and your job / company should it ever be needed in an emergency.

5. Cloud Backup and DR

Replicating to your own secondary datacenter is an option however not everyone has a secondary datacenter, nor does it make sense for everyone to build one. Cloud-based disaster recovery services are now available that can store your replicated data pretty affordably so worth considering.

6. How Applications Affect Backups

End users now expect applications like Exchange, SQL, and Sharepoint to be available 24 x 7. There is no more backup window. Your backup software must be able to:

• Backup mission critical applications without downtime

• Verify that backups have application integrity

• Restore individual items from mission critical applications back into production

The purpose of your backups is to also protect your applications. Make sure that your backup software not only backs up VMs, but recovers your critical application data.

7. Agent-less vs agent-based backup

From our experience, agents may be a headache to deploy but they do tend to be more reliable communication with the agent and server. However, agent-less backups means it is very simply to deploy and manage. So look at both options and see which one works best for you.

Conclusion

Make sure that you plan for offsite backup and replication, consider cloud-based backup, and use automated testing to ensure backups are recoverable. Selecting a backup tool that knows your applications and can reliably restore them is crucial. Finally, don’t dismiss any tool without fully understanding and testing its capabilities, personally in your test environment.

Source by Colin Durrant

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is an on-demand service that has obtained mass appeal in corporate data centers. The cloud enables the data center to operate like the Internet and computing resources to be accessed and shared as virtual resources in a secure and scalable manner.

The Cloud offers three primary services, which can be matched as per your unique requirements in Cloud Computing:

1- SaaS: Software as a service (SaaS) is a software distribution model in which a third-party provider hosts applications and makes them available to customers over the Internet.

2- PaaS: Platform as a service (PaaS) is a complete development and deployment environment in the cloud, with resources that enable you to deliver everything from simple cloud-based apps to sophisticated, cloud-enabled enterprise applications.

3- IaaS: Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is an instant computing infrastructure, provisioned and managed over the Internet.

Why cloud computing beneficial for small business?

– Always-on availability – Most cloud providers are extremely reliable in providing their services, with many maintaining 99.99% uptime.

– Improved mobility – Data and applications are available to employees no matter where they are in the world.

– Cloud computing is more cost effective – Because companies don’t have to purchase equipment and build out and operate a data center, they don’t have to spend significant money on hardware, facilities, utilities and other aspects of operations.

– Expenses can be quickly reduced – During times of recession or business cut-backs (like the energy industry is currently experiencing), cloud computing offers a flexible cost structure, thereby limiting exposure.

– Less environmental impact – With fewer data centers worldwide and more efficient operations, we are collectively having less of an impact on the environment. Companies who use shared resources improve their ‘green’ credentials.

What is IT infrastructure?

The term IT infrastructure is defined in ITIL v3 as a combined set of hardware, software, networks, facilities, etc. (including all of the information technology related equipment), used to develop, test, deliver, monitor, control or support IT services. Associated people, processes, and documentation are not part of IT Infrastructure.

What makes IT management so important and popular these days are its large numbers of advantages. These services optimize your IT infrastructure in order to meet all your business needs.

This IT infrastructure build service pertains to application-centricity, seller’s neutral approach and enterprise architecture methodologies in order to create and build a business aligned, strong and optimized IT environment for the businesses.

Few Companies offer such computing services, hence named as “Cloud Computing Providers/ Companies”. They charge its users for utilizing such services and the charges are based on their usage of services. Here are some companies name

– Amazon Web Service

– Microsoft Azure

– Google Cloud Platform

– Adobe

– VMware

– IBM Cloud

Source by Sairaj S