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VERITAS NetBackup Professional™ 3.5Centralized Backup and SimplifiedRecovery for Distributed Client Data

Table of ContentsExecutive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

VERITAS NetBackup Professional: Protecting Clients Anywhere in the Enterprise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

Executive SummaryWith the proliferation of desktop computers, home offices, remote offices and mobile systems, critical corporate data nowresides outside the traditional bounds of corporate IT responsibility. Studies show that as much of 60% of a corporation’sdata resides outside of its managed servers, on desktops and mobile systems. IT departments face the not uncommondilemma of having to take responsibility for desktop and remote client data over which they have little actual control. Bothstatistics and common experience show that end users rarely maintain consistent backups of their own data.

Data on desktops and mobile workstations can be enormously valuable to an organization. It can be the result of hours orweeks of work, and replacing it may be impossible. Worse yet, a slow recovery can cost days of lost productivity. Mobileusers need easy, fast backups and simplified, rapid recoveries of their critical data, even if recovering to a completely newsystem.

VERITAS NetBackup Professional™ is a comprehensive backup and recovery solution for client systems, designed specificallyfor the needs of the remote and mobile workstations that drive critical, field-based operations. VERITAS NetBackupProfessional gives IT departments a perfect tool to manage and automate distributed backups to a centralized repository in ahighly scalable architecture. For users, NetBackup Professional facilitates fast, easy backups and online recovery, fromanywhere in the world, over dial-up or network connections. Using NetBackup Professional, organizations have a totalbackup and recovery solution that protects client data anywhere in the enterprise.

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IntroductionProtecting corporate data was a straightforward job when all data business resided on data center storage, which fellsquarely into the realm of an operational support group. Today, however, with laptops, home and remote offices, mobiledevices, distributed servers and corporate data centers, the lines of responsibility are far more blurred. Nowhere is thatproblem more acute than in the issue of backup and recovery. Where does IT’s responsibility end – does it include the PCs onall desktops, all laptops used in transit, and all home offices as well? And how can IT manage that data when it is beyondthe scope of central networks?

Inconsistent backup coverage

Some organizations have implemented backup products that automatically back up desktop systems or synchronize desktopfiles that users leave on and that are connected to the corporate network. But this doesn’t handle systems that are not onthe corporate intranet, which may include remote offices, home offices and laptops. This strategy results in rapid growth ofthe back end data repository without offering a complete disaster recovery solution.

Other organizations require that users periodically connect to the corporate intranet and copy files manually to a centrallymanaged file server.

1. The manual approach means few users follow the procedure and even fewer do it consistently.

2. The lack of management controls makes server capacity unpredictable and planning nearly impossible.

3. Network administrators must scramble to find and restore lost files, often requiring days to do so, if able to locatethem at all.

4. In the end, these ad hoc procedures are at best a bandage, at worst give a false sense of security of a corporation’smost valuable asset, data.

Difficult recovery

In either situation, users need to work with IT or MIS staff to recover files when there is a problem, either through anaccidental file deletion, a system corruption, or a hardware failure. A complete recovery can take hours or days to perform.

Until now, there have been few solutions for helping IT protect the availability and recoverability of data in the expandingenterprise. That leaves organizations with considerable risk exposure. VERITAS NetBackup Professional was designed toaddress this specific problem.

This paper discusses the risks and challenges of remote and desktop client backups. It then explains how the NetBackupProfessional solution from VERITAS Software resolves these issues by addressing the needs of the end user and of corporateIT departments while reducing an organization’s overall exposure to risk.

Assessing the Risks to Distributed Data

Few organizations are untouched by the expanding quantity of distributed data that fall outside of traditional IT boundaries.To make matters worse, most companies today have an ever growing population of desktop and laptop computer systems.IDC estimates that the United States' mobile- and remote-user population will increase at a 9 percent CAGR (compoundannual growth rate) from 39 million in 2000 to 55 million in 2004. With this increase in computers comes an increase inbusiness critical data. As more of these computers are remote and mobile, that data exists outside the safety of corporatewalls.

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This growing amount of distributed data is vulnerable to a wide variety of risks.

• 15% of hard disk drives fail during their warranty period.

• “Board Watch” reports that over 200,000 laptops are stolen annually. The value of the hardware averages $1.4 billion, while the value of the data on average amounts to $15 billion.

• Research by Strategic Research Corporation finds that only 18% of more than 200 surveyed sites actually back up theirworkstations. For those that do perform workstation backups, only 12% of PCs were backed up regularly.

One could argue that, since the system users are the ones primarily affected, they should take responsibility for performingbackups, either to central storage or to a local peripheral such as a tape or Zip™ drive. That would rightly make theindividuals most affected by data loss responsible for preventing it.

If that attitude actually exists in a company, senior management is likely oblivious to the problem, IT management wishesthey could fix it, the network support staff is unlikely to address it, and corporate users are better off not knowing about it.

This is dangerous. Corporate desktops, remote offices, and mobile systems contain the daily work that drives theorganization, including letters, contracts, memos, and other information that is essential to the day-to-day productivity of thecompany. In fact, in many cases the people using laptop systems are among the most valuable knowledge workers – seniorexecutives, key sales personnel, and others. A data loss affecting a CEO’s laptop can be costly in terms of data andcompetitive positioning.

The files on these systems may represent not only hours but also days, weeks or months of work, negotiation, andcollaboration. The loss of this information can be disastrous.

The corporation faces a two-fold risk. If data is lost, valuable information may take days to reconstruct, or be lost altogether.Even if the data can be recovered, a difficult and time-consuming recovery can mean lost sales, reduced productivity, andmissed opportunities. It is not enough that the data is backed up; users also need to be able to recover from problemsquickly and easily.

The answer lies in a data protection solution that offers company-wide benefits, is simple to deploy and operate,automatically protects desktop systems, complements the existing server data protection strategy, and actually reducesadministration time.

The Challenge

Organizations need a desktop and remote backup and recovery solution that meets the following high-level goals:

Requirements for a Distributed Client Backup/Recovery Solution

• Centralized management and protection of distributed data with minimal drain on IT staff and resources.

• Rapid recovery from a wide variety of failures.

• Flexibility to provide access to backups for mobile and distributed workstation and laptop users of all ability levels. Thiswill allow users to perform restores on their own, as long as the solution is as automated and easy as possible, andmust support both network and dial-up connections of varying quality.

Impossible? Not any more. Until recently, implementing an effective laptop and desktop data protection strategy has beendifficult, if not impossible.

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Inconsistent or intermittent connections to the corporate network

Executives or sales staff using laptops and home-based offices may connect to the corporate intranet only intermittently. Anybackup scheme that requires a high performance, secure connection to corporate resources is only partially useful for thesepeople. If a salesperson on the road for a week drops a laptop on the way back to the office, a week’s worth of criticalcustomer data may be lost.

Low bandwidth or low quality connections

For home-based or traveling systems, dial-up access may be the only alternative for connecting to the corporate repository.But most remote backup solutions cannot support dial-in access. Dial-in connections are flawed by relatively low bandwidthand unpredictable quality. In this situation, backups must be rapid, inherently secure (since the data is traveling overunknown connections), and restartable in the case of an error.

Wide range of recovery scenarios

The purpose of any backup solution is to enable a fast recovery in case of problems. The solution must account for a widerange of possible recovery scenarios, including:

• Accidental loss, deletion or corruption of an individual file or set of files

• System corruption due to improper software installation or a virus

• Hard drive failure

• The complete loss or destruction of the system itself

The solution must be able to support everything from individual file recovery to a so-called “bare metal” restore to newhardware. Recoveries must be user-directed and managed. A remote user cannot depend on a corporate MIS person tocome out to their location and fix everything. MIS, always strapped for resources, requires a solution that can access remoteusers machines and repair major problems, where required, from a central console.

Enormous quantities of data

When considering the total volume of the data distributed on desktop computers, laptops and mobile systems, scalabilityquickly becomes an issue. Not only are there hundreds or thousands of users’ systems to manage, but each system maycontain a gigabyte or more of data. Simply replicating all of this information centrally will create an ongoing storagenightmare and introduce significant network bandwidth problems. Imagine 1,000 users each backing up MS Office at200MB each. That’s 200GB’s of redundant data!

A better solution is to use intelligent software to identify the unique set of data on each system, and to only back up thatdata instead of the entire system.

Some network backup products may address one or two of these challenges, but few address them all. VERITAS NetBackupProfessional was purposefully designed to manage backups of distributed and remote clients

Technology Making Client Protection a Reality

The product has three main components:

• The NetBackup Professional Server accepts connections from clients and manages the backup database.

The NetBackup Professional Server may run on Windows 2000, Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Windows NT 4(Service Pack 4,5,6) and Solaris 2.7, 2.8.

• The Administration Console allows for centralized management and configuration of multiple servers. Administratorsconfigure and distribute client software centrally and create CD images for “bare metal” restores.

• The client software, installed on every client, schedules and performs automated backups and connects with theNetBackup Professional Server for recovery.

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NetBackup Professional works so well over low bandwidth situations in part because it writes the smallest possible amountof information to backup. Much of the data residing on distributed workstations is actually identical: the latest version ofMicrosoft Office™, for example, or a recent memo from the president. NetBackup Professional maintains a database ofcommon or shared files. Instead of backing up 1000 copies of an application or document, it writes it just once to thedatabase and makes a “logical” backup of the rest, pointing to the shared copy. By backing up only the unique files on eachsystem, NetBackup Professional significantly reduces backup times and volumes. The initial full backup of a system is typicallymanaged by a transfer of less than 10% of the total size of the protected file system. Using the latest in technology evenopen files are protected by NetBackup Professional. An additional benefit is the reduced time it takes to recover a NetBackupProfessional Server, should it fail, as there is far less data that needs to be restored.

On subsequent backups, NetBackup Professional applies an incremental backup to write only changed data. This furtherreduces the time and volume of the backup. The client software optionally encrypts and compresses all backups beforesending them to the NetBackup Professional Server. The server combines the changes, so the latest version of the file iscomplete and data integrity is ensured; NetBackup Professional stores a reverse delta copy to provide earlier versions of thefiles.

It was very important to us to give the end user all necessary tools to independently restore data. By integrating withMicrosoft Explorer, we have reduced the learning curve for end users and have made file selection as easy as possible forrestore. In addition, data integrity in Windows 2000 environments is assured through the backup of alternate data streamsas well as primary data streams.

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WAN

Remote Clients

Servers

Solaris

LAN

WindowsNT/2000

Administration (Windows Console)

Clients

Windows 2000 ProfessionalWindows NT 4 Workstation

Windows 2000Windows NT 4Windows XP

Administration (Web Console)Internet Explorer 4Netscape Navigator 6

Windows 95/ Windows 98Windows XPWindows Millennium Edition

Windows XPWindows Millennium EditionWindows 2000 ProfessionalWindows NT 4 WorkstationWindows 95/ Windows 98

To support a “bare metal” restore, the administrator creates a bootable “rescue” disk or CD and a unique recovery CD foreach system. Administrators can furnish these resources in advance or supply them on demand when an emergencyhappens. Taken together, the CD and disk, once required, give the user the capability to perform a complete systemrecovery, even from a new system. The user boots the system from the CD or disk, runs the recovery CD, and then connectsto the Media Server to update files. The total recovery is fast and simple, and easily managed by the end user without MISsupport.

VERITAS NetBackup Professional addresses the needs of the end users, the IT department, and the organization as a whole intoday’s expanding enterprise.

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Remote Clients� Transmit changed blocks only� User-driven recovery� Single-file or complete restore

NetBackup Professional Server� Single Instance Store� Bare Metal Restore from CD-ROM� Supports 10,000 users

Supported Operating Environments:� Windows 2000 Server� Windows 2000 Advanced Server� Windows NT 4 Server� Solaris 2.7 and 2.8

WAN/LANWorkgroup or

Enterprise

NetBackup Professional Clients

Windows 95/98Windows XP/Windows Millennium Edition

Internetconnection

Dial-upconnection

Windows 2000Professional

Windows NT 4 Workstation

� Encrypted and compressed data

NetBackup Professional ClientsSupported Operating Environments:� Windows XP� Windows ME� Windows 2000 Professional� Windows NT 4 Workstation� Windows 98� Windows 95

VERITAS NetBackup Professional: Protecting Clients Anywhere in the EnterpriseWhile some backup software vendors have tried to “retrofit” their products to support remote and mobile clients,NetBackup Professional was built with these most challenging requirements in mind. NetBackup Professional is the mostscalable solution available for client backup in the enterprise, and is the only one that allows fast and secure backups andrecoveries over low bandwidth or low quality network or dial-up connections.

Summary of Overall Business Benefits:

Corporate Laptop and Desktop Data Protection

Simplifying Backup and Enabling Fast Recovery for End Users

NetBackup Professional was written with the needs of a diverse community of end users in mind.

Daily system snapshots

NetBackup Professional lets users schedule automatic backups when they are connected to the network. Users connectingonly intermittently or through dial-up lines can perform manual backups quickly and easily. In either case, the NetBackupProfessional client software connects to the NetBackup Professional Server to create an online “snapshot” of the currentsystem. This records the system’s information as of the current date, writing new unique files and changed data to therepository. Having a consistent snapshot lets users recover files or the entire system to a specific day’s state.

Fast, restartable backups

Because it only writes changed data on backup and compresses all transmissions, the backup is very fast and efficient toperform.

If the backup is interrupted, which is usually caused by unstable communication links, it resumes where it left off once theconnection is restored.

Self-service recovery

If users need to restore one or more files, they can do so from anywhere, over phone lines or networked connections. Theycan do so at any time of the day or night, without the assistance of IT staff. The self-directed, 7 x 24-recovery model suitsusers’ expectations for continuous service.

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IT Benefits Automatically protects corporate data assets on all workstationsReduces the total cost of ownership for all workstationsComplements existing server data protection strategy and procedures

Administrator Benefits Improves manageability over other current approachesEasily deployed and policy-managed from a single, central console for single or multiple server installationsEliminates administrator time required to find and restore individual filesand entire systems

User Benefits Provides continuous, unobtrusive data protection and availabilityEnables self-initiated restores using Microsoft Windows ExplorerEnsures complete disaster recovery and data integrity

Bare metal restore

Users can restore their entire system using the recovery CD created by the backup administrator to boot the system andbring it up to date. This restores all data files, program files and personal settings, so they can be back and running quickly.

File exclusion

Even though the backup is inherently secure, with encrypted transmission and a secured repository users can also choose toexclude specific files from backups, either for security reasons, or to prevent backups of temporary data.

A Scalable, Manageable Solution for IT

VERITAS NetBackup Professional lets IT departments protect distributed data without burdening individual users with difficultbackup tasks and without draining IT or MIS resources.

Scalability

NetBackup Professional is doubtlessly the most scalable solution on the market for remote client backups. Our testing facilityhas shown that NetBackup Professional with its new proprietary database can support more than 10,000 clients per day.

• NetBackup Professional’s single instance storage, in which common files on each system are only stored once, typicallyreduces disk storage requirements for the data repository by up to 90% when there are more than 1,000 users on aserver.

• To free up disk space over the life of the solution use data migration to migrate older or infrequently used data fromthe disk repository to tape.

• The client calculates the backup set and compresses the data, freeing server resources to manage more concurrentbackups.

• A “throttle” feature lets IT staff limit the number of concurrent backups to maximize network efficiency.

• If one adds many new clients to the system at once, the client software can write the initial backup offline and sendthe information to the administrator, reducing network load startup.

• Support for multiple NIC cards and additional processors enable organizations to scale as organizations grow.

Centralized management

An easy to use, Windows NT-based graphical interface or web-based console facilitates centralized backup management,from distributing client software to creating recovery CDs and centralized reporting.

From a single machine on the network, you may deploy the client software to the desired amount of Windows 95, Windows98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows ME or Windows XP clients. Client profiles allow the administrator to group usersinto logical categories, protect specific types of data, and assign specific schedules and priorities. Any number of users canbe grouped or assigned to a profile to simplify configuration and deployment. Profiling establishes client protection policiesthat deliver uniform and automated protection without additional administrator or user action. Administrators have profile-level control over user rights regarding user-initiated backups and restores and the ability to exclude certain files or file typesfrom the backup process. Easy to use wizards provide step-by-step instructions for administrators.

The management console provides a centralized view of multiple servers, management of client profiles, and the status andoperation of each NetBackup Professional Server (or backup data repository), including load balancing and scheduling of thebackup window. The console gives administrators control over all client machines and NT repositories and serves as themonitor and reporting station for the statistics on the amount and type of user data being protected on each client, clientgroup or entire installation.

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Administration and Reporting

Armed with effective tools for monitoring and reporting the protection status of the enterprise, the IT staff can make timelydecisions about protection-related parameters such as storage capacity requirements, backup scheduling, user or groupprofiles, protection status of individual or group, and much more.

Trending features provide a visual gauge for administrators to view the rate at which their server repository is growing, sothey may proactively monitor and plan their storage requirements. Integration with the most popular report generator,Crystal Reportsª simplifies the analysis and reporting of client data on the server.

Integration within the enterprise

NetBackup Professional integrates well into almost any information architecture:

• NetBackup Professional clients can be easily deployed across a variety of desktop and notebook systems.

• NetBackup Professional supports Windows 2000, Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Windows NT 4 (Service Pack 4,5,6),Solaris 2.7, 2.8 and industry-standard hardware platforms, so it can integrate easily into an existing IT infrastructure.

Compared with alternatives that manage backups manually or use other vendors’ distributed backup products, VERITASNetBackup Professional is the most cost-effective solution available. This is in part because of its tremendous scalability. Sinceit supports more clients with a smaller repository, NetBackup Professional is both easier and less expensive to implement thanalternatives.

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SummaryAn Integrated Solution from Leader in the Data Availability Business

VERITAS NetBackup Professional™ will easily integrate as part of a corporate data protection and disaster recovery strategywith the other leading solutions from its product family, VERITAS NetBackup™ and VERITAS Backup Exec™. Unlike partialapproaches to solving the client data protection dilemma, such as ad hoc manual procedures or OS-based backup appletswith file mirroring, VERITAS NetBackup Professional offers significant advantages including:

• Centralized administration

• Intelligent data elimination resulting in reduced storage requirements

• Policy-based operation

• Superior automation and flexibility

• Advanced planning, analysis and reporting

• High performance and scalability

• Complementation of any enterprise data protection strategy

• Cost-effectiveness

• Inhouse management and security compliant with corporate policies

VERITAS NetBackup Professional is the latest addition to the industry’s most comprehensive and widely used suite of storagemanagement products. From the desktop to the enterprise, VERITAS delivers superior storage, network and informationmanagement products that benefit business, IT operations and corporate users, backed up by one of the most effectiveservice infrastructures in existence.

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VERITAS Software CorporationCorporate Headquarters350 Ellis StreetMountain View, CA 94043650-527-8000 or 800-327-2232

For additional information about VERITASSoftware, its products, or the location of anoffice near you, please call our corporateheadquarters or visit our Web site atwww.veritas.com

Copyright © 2001 VERITAS Software Corporation. All Rights Reserved. VERITAS, VERITAS Software, the VERITAS logo, and all other VERITAS product names and slogans aretrademarks or registered trademarks of VERITAS Software Corporation in the US and/or other countries. Other product names and/or slogans mentioned herein may betrademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Specifications and product offerings subject to change without notice. Printed in USA. November 2001.

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