Information digitalization has created an unmanageable quantity of information to be backed up. For the last 15 years, one of the most difficult challenges that backup administrators have experienced is managing the backup of large logical unit numbers with thousands or millions of files and directories inside. With different factors like concurrency, the number of threads, and the block size or segment size, this task becomes an investment of a lot of time, resources, and money.

Data Protector 10.91 (2021.02) has a new technology called Block-Based Backup (BBB). This tool provides the means to back up a larger data volume without extra steps. You won’t need to create more threads or modify device configurations.

In the previous version, we used our Volume Backup Disk Agent (VBDA) to read data from a selected volume. Unfortunately, this approach was necessary to read the whole volume to determine the number of files and directories to be included in the backup. While it ran, the Read function was checking modified parameters in case of incremental backup, with BBB the approach is totally different.

How does Data Protector do it?

Data Protector’s BBB combines the features of the existing Raw-Disk-Backup with Disk Agent functionality to allow fast read/write and selection of individual items if needed. It has been optimized for larger file systems and has been built in a way so that you don’t have to change existing setups or strategies.

To determine which blocks are the used blocks, this is the basic process:

• BBB starts by analyzing the filesystem metadata
• Used blocks are backed up

During a backup session you can see that performance is improved because Data Protector is only reading used blocks. This feature alone saves time for you to use your backup device in a different backup specification.

How much time will be saved from improved backups?

This is the one-million-dollar question! The answer is dependent on the workload environment and available hardware, but we can use this runtime benchmark as an example.

Make sure to consider the following limitations for a block-based backup:

• Platforms:
  - Windows with NTFS
• Supported Features:
  Full & Incremental backup & restore, full overwrite and individual file restore
  HPE StoreOnce and Dell/EMC DataDomain (physical appliance and VSA) does not support volumes created on VHD/VHDX devices that are present as files on the target host. It only supports Hyper-V VMs on VHD/VHDX devices when the agent runs within a guest operating system
• Does not support volume mount points
• Object copy operations to devices are not supported because backup, restore, and recovery from these object copy sessions might not work

Driver Installation

• The BBB Incremental Driver (PSmon) is copied to every client with a Disk Agent, but it is not installed and activated since it is only needed for BBB incremental backup purposes. BBB full backup doesn‘t need the driver. A reboot is needed for activation.
  
  Installation and activation is done with
  the omnicc -chgblkdrvr_install command

Micro Focus Data Protector

Data loss can materially damage an organization’s reputation and its ability to do business. Data Protector delivers secure, compliant backups of all company data from a single management point. Fast restoration ensures operations quickly return to normal, minimizing revenue loss and maintaining reputation.

For more information on data backup and resiliency, visit our site.

The Micro Focus IM&G team

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