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SQL Server Magazine

Lab Reports - Enterprise Backup Software

7 products vie to give your enterprise that nice, cozy feeling of protection

Enterprise-level backup programs can provide peace of mind that the data on your servers is safe and secure. If your backup software doesn't give that protected feeling, you might want to invest in a solid insurance policy for your data. I found seven products that offer the comprehensive client support and advanced features necessary to enable centralized backup in an enterprise.

The products that I considered for this comparative review needed to offer backup and restoration capabilities on Windows 2000, Windows NT, Novell NetWare 5.1, and Sun Microsystems' Solaris 8 platforms. The products also needed to be able to perform online backups and restores of SQL Server 7.0's databases and Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5's Directory Store, Information Store (IS), and individual mailboxes. As I tested these base capabilities, I also considered performance, media-control features, manageability, and advanced subsets of the required features.

The nature of enterprise backup solutions demands that they offer features such as command-line control, pre-job and post-job scripting, and an array of add-ons. I chose not to dwell on those ubiquitous features. Except where noted, I obtained the performance numbers that Graph 1 and Graph 2 show without modifying the products' basic installation. As the traditional backup window meets its demise in the 24x7 e-world, backup concerns are beginning to shift away from hardware speeds and feeds. Because so much of your data is available online, the ability to perform highly reliable online backups is more vital than ever. Reliability and data integrity reign supreme over screaming backup speeds.

To test these backup products' important features and functions, I configured a scaled-down model of an enterprise environment. At the heart of my backup test system was an ADIC Scalar 100 tape library that contained four IBM 3580 Ultrium Linear Tape-Open (LTO) drives. The backup server-a Dell PowerEdge 4400 with dual 800MHz Intel Xeon processors and 2GB of RAM-connected to the library through two Adaptec Ultra160 SCSI adapters. One adapter connected two LTO drives and the robot (i.e., the mechanical device that moves tapes within the library), and the second adapter connected the remaining two LTO drives.

Running either Win2K Server or NT Server, I used a mixture of hardware that provided small, medium, and large data files and SQL Server databases to back up and restore. To test each product's parallel-streaming abilities, I conducted Windows file-system backups concurrently, then performed the database backup tests individually. I used an Extreme Networks Summit48 switch to ensure adequate network throughput during backups and restores. For full-duplex 1000Mbps operation, I used optical fiber-by way of a Gigabit-SX port-to connect the backup server to the switch. All other systems attached to 100Base-T ports on the switch and operated in full-duplex mode at 100Mbps.

How They Fared
Each product's features, characteristics, and price structure determine whether the product is a good fit for your environment. CommVault Systems' CommVault Galaxy 3.1, VERITAS Software's VERITAS NetBackup DataCenter 3.4.1, Legato Systems' Legato NetWorker 6.0, and Hewlett-Packard's HP OpenView OmniBack II 3.5 all boast features that enable them to scale for performance and administration in large environments. Surprisingly, three of the lower-priced products-OmniBack II, Syncsort's Backup Express 2.1.4, and UltraBac 6.3 Enterprise Edition-demonstrated impressive nontuned performance numbers, but Computer Associates' (CA's) ARCserve 2000 Advanced Edition 7.0 fared best for overall throughput. NetBackup DataCenter and NetWorker showed middle-of-the-road performance, but both products offer an array of tunable parameters with which you can optimize performance. (For a cost comparison that considers several different hardware configurations, see Table 1.)

All the products contain idiosyncrasies in setup, configuration, and operation. However, for overall ease of use and operation, I give my highest recommendation to ARCserve 2000. NetBackup DataCenter and OmniBack II follow close behind. UltraBac is also easy to use, mostly because of a less complex option set.

All the products support online backups and restores of SQL Server 2000, 7.0, and 6.5-except Galaxy, which doesn't support SQL Server 6.5. NetWorker supports SQL Server 6.5 through NetWorker's previous-version SQL Server agent (i.e., Legato NetWorker Module 2.0.1 for Microsoft SQL Server). None of the products automatically recognize and coordinate backups of distributed partitioned views; you must manually coordinate backups across member servers. All the products except UltraBac perform Win2K System State backups on both local and remote computers. UltraBac performs System State backups only on computers with locally attached tape drives.

UltraBac 6.3 Enterprise Edition
UltraBac arrived in a folder that contained one CD-ROM and a printed User's Manual. I used the Full Install option to install the software on my backup server. Per an UltraBac support technician's request, I updated the driver for the autochanger in Win2K with an UltraBac-supplied driver. Then, to ensure that the application properly enumerated all the tape library's slots and drives, I opened the UltraBac program and selected Media Changer from the Tools menu.

UltraBac doesn't offer any client-side software for Windows computers. To transport backup data, the product uses standard Windows network connections. UltraBac also offers no client-side software components for SQL Server, although you must install the SQL Client Network Utility on the backup server to enable appropriate access.

A Very Simple Interface
UltraBac's interface, which Figure 7 shows, isn't as slick as some of the other products' interfaces, but it's straightforward and effective. The first time you open the interface, Backup mode appears. From the Mode menu, you can select Restore, Verify, and Archive modes, and you can set any of these options as the default mode. The interface doesn't change as you select different modes, but available menu options do.

Tape Library and Media Control
Before UltraBac can be a serious contender in the enterprise backup and recovery arena, the company needs to improve its tape-library and media control. Although the product successfully recognized the ADIC tape library and let me easily perform manual media functions, the lack of media-allocation and drive-allocation automation is a drawback. Also, the product somewhat oversimplifies media management for large environments and lacks automated features for implementing a comprehensive media-management scheme. However, UltraBac does contain a facility for manually creating copies of tapes for archiving or redundancy.

Backup
Because I didn't need to install any agents on most of my environment's clients, I was able to start backing up systems 30 minutes after I installed the software. The processes of creating and running backup jobs are simple. You first create sets, which contain the set of files you want to back up. Then, you create a group, which contains one or more sets. You perform backups by groups. To create backup sets for the various machines in my environment, I selected New from the Backup menu. A wizard helped me define the set that I wanted to back up. Next, the software wrote a text-file definition for the set to the UltraBac directory. To create additional backup sets, I modified several of these intuitively formatted text files and saved them under different names.

To create a group, you choose Schedule Backups from the Scheduler menu. You use the Scheduler dialog box for both scheduling and configuring backup groups. A large array of settings are available at the group level-including device targeting, verification, and media handling. After you configure a schedule and add one or more sets to the group, you click Run Now to immediately execute the specified backups. I configured multiple groups (logically organized by computer type), then tried scheduling some jobs and manually running the remaining jobs. All the backup jobs executed as expected.

Data Recovery
To enable the restore-associated menus in UltraBac's interface, I selected Restore from the Mode menu. To initiate a restore, I could choose to load the index from either the storage media or from disk. For my restore activities, I used the indexes stored on disk. After I chose which index to use, the software displayed a list of available backups to restore. I then selected the objects I wanted to restore from a Windows Explorer-like interface and clicked Perform Restore. UltraBac supports individual table restores for SQL Server 6.5 and filegroup-level restores for SQL Server 2000 and 7.0. The product doesn't offer a point-in-time restore option. Restore operations in my environment worked as expected and performed nicely.

Performance
Backup and restore performance was impressive; however, the inability to automate the use of multiple drives and multiple data streams will be a drawback in busy backup environments. To use multiple drives simultaneously, I needed to schedule multiple groups to execute at the same time-allowing some buffer time so that robot activities from one job could finish before another job started.

A Scrappy Competitor
Given UltraBac's simple and compact design, I didn't expect it to perform as well as it did. Although the product requires some server-side software (i.e., a SQL Server client) to enable special backups, the functionality that the product provides without requiring client-side agents is impressive. Automated media and device management, however, isn't UltraBac's strong suit. The product doesn't intelligently load-balance between drives to exploit the power of multidrive tape libraries. UltraBac's low price and operational simplicity make it an attractive option for organizations that don't require highly automated performance management for their backup operations. However, if Win2K System State backups are important to you, the current version's inability to perform them on remote clients could be a serious detriment.

UltraBac 6.3 Enterprise Edition
Contact: UltraBac Software * 425-644-6000
Web: http://www.ultrabac.com
Price: $2885 as tested
Decision Summary: Pros: Simple and compact; no client-side software required; good value Cons: Insufficient automation for media and device management; necessity to manually manage parallelism

Ed Roth is a network manager for a government institution and contributing editor and product reviewer for Windows IT Pro. E-mail address: eroth@windowsitpro.com.