Datrium Experience (pt4)

Part 4 - Magic

The Datrium concept was one of simplicity and function. They created a system that is easy to start and just as easy to run. This system seamlessly integrates with vSphere and houses all your data in one place.

The Wizards

Datrium has C level and engineering staff from both VMware and DataDomain. This is a match made in bowels Middle Earth. And the technology they created would stand up against anything the dwarves of Moria could produce.

Top level storage and deduplication designers from DataDomain, who wrote the book on deduplication are now applying what they know to production storage instead of just backup. Software strategies from the minds of former VMware executives guiding an administrative experience so simple an entry level help desk tech could do it.

These Wizards created a magical storage system that allows for, not just ease of use, but the ability to put a bag of holding inside another bag of holding without destroying the universe.

Bag of Holding

I have previously mentioned some of the features of the system, but the one that had most of my attention all throughout my experience with Datrium, is snapshots. The DVX system allows for a lot of snapshots. At the storage level they are integrated with the storage efficiencies and are virtually instant.

They sell it as being able to support millions of snapshots. They don't show a lot of detail in their UI, but I think they are really only taking a volume snapshot and showing it as if its an individual snap at the VM level. This level of trickery allows for the statement of millions of snaps when they are really only doing a few hundred.

Some kind of magic.

The integration with vSphere is simple and effective, for the most part. If you want to recover a vm simply navigate to it, shut it down, go to the monitoring tab and select the DVX console. Select the point in time you want to recover to and go.

This process is only missing the part that turns the VM back on. Very easy and stupid fast. We once recovered a VM that weighed in at over 90TB in 30 seconds. The system takes a snap just before it brings the old data forward so you can recover to just before you restored. It's a nice little safety net. Don't think we ever needed it, but nice to have it all the same.

There is also the ability to dive into an individual VMDK and recover a limited amount of data. You can navigate any point in time and select files and folders that can be exported to an ISO and mounted to other VMs for recovery or distribution. It is limited though, their method starts to break down at about 10GB of data.

Mirror, mirror on the wall

One more part of the snapshots is the replication of the snaps to become a backup. Now there are a few parts to this. First is the replication groups that must be setup ahead of time. The there I the schedule and finally the selection of the replication site... withing the schedule.

It's not complicated! But it's results are excellent. I mentioned that I have 3 datacenters. My backup cycle with this system.is as follows. Primary DC replicates to secondary and tertiary, Secondary DC replicates to primary and tertiary. And tertiary just sits there and accepts all the incoming data.

Due to bandwidth limitations there are some tricks we play with scheduling but in the end all of our data is in all 3 places with a few days of each other. And in the cataclysmic event that we need to recover from the tertiary site, what little is missing will be, mostly, irrelevant.

The Mages

There was a point a little while ago where you thought I was going to start bashing on the tech support guys, never going to happen. They are some of the best I've worked with.

The Wizards gave them some very powerful magic, and they have learned to use it well. The system has a support mode that opens a tunnel to their system. Backdoor you say?!? Kind of, but you have to open it for them. Once unlocked this spell gives the makes the ability to disenchant anything that ailes the system, from bad firmware or stuck processes to pin pointing a dying dragon, I mean controller.

They are as professional as clergy and just as mystical. They have a level of knowledge about the DVX and ESX that rivals most of the so-called vSphere experts.

If I have a single complaint about the Datrium technical support team is that I have had to call upon their sorcery so much.