Some people say that virtual tape library technology occupies half of the storage market, and even the "top ten largest storage inventions in IT history" is also on the list. Even in recent years, more and more enterprises have begun to deploy virtual tape libraries (VTLs) as their primary backup target and recovery source.
Abandon the shortcomings of traditional storage media, and have many advantages
In fact, compared to traditional tape, virtual tape library products using disk array technology have superior storage performance and high cost performance. On the whole, virtual tape library technology has the following major advantages:
1. Security
The most important task of backing up data is to ensure the security of the data. The file system of the disk is easy to be attacked. The VTL file system is similar to the access tape. The tapeless file system format determines its natural immunity. Users cannot directly access the tape, and files infected by the virus will not infect the tape. Maximize the security of your backed up data.
2. Maintain complete consistency of data
When the backup server performs a data backup, the data is quickly transferred to the system's disk storage. In the case of data recovery, the backup server restores the data to the application system through the VTL system. These backup data formats are identical to traditional backups to tape. And the EXPORT (archive) command can be used to archive the VTL data to the tape library, and the IMPORT command is used to restore the data on the tape library to the VTL.
3. Support remote data replication function
Through the IP network, local backup data can be remotely copied to an off-site virtual tape library system. Moreover, the copy job between the two virtual tape libraries is done in the background by the virtual tape library.
4. Can simulate most of the existing mainstream tape libraries in the industry.
Standard FC, SCSI or iSCSI interface devices are compatible with most host devices and operating systems on the market. Moreover, since the VTL system can virtualize multiple tape libraries without increasing the cost, the user only needs to change the original working mode, and virtualize a dedicated tape library for each server. Each tape library has its own tape. This will further improve management and backup performance.
5. Maintenance and expansion is convenient
Because VTL's disk storage management is very similar to the general disk array, it is easy to insert new disks for capacity expansion. Therefore, in the first phase of procurement, you don't have to adopt a very high configuration like a tape library, but you can gradually add new disks as the amount of data grows. In the post-maintenance, the maintenance cost is lower because of the many mechanical failures of the tape library.
6. Backup reliability is greatly improved
Virtual tape libraries use RAID-protected disk arrays to increase backup reliability by several orders of magnitude over conventional tape backups. Recovery is extremely easy, and if the required data is in the VTL, no mechanical work is involved, and recovery is as fast as disk backup.
In addition, the VTL system has many obvious advantages: since there is no mechanical failure of the tape library and the tape drive, and there is no problem of tape failure, the success rate of the backup is obviously improved; the performance advantage of the disk array device is obvious compared to the tape device. The performance of backup and recovery has been greatly improved.
In summary, the virtual tape library avoids the disadvantages of high maintenance burden, high backup failure rate, and poor backup recovery capability of the traditional backup media, while retaining the advantages of both the tape library and the disk array, and achieving a true backup system. Innovations have also changed the disadvantages of disk backups being easily deleted or infected by viruses and inconvenient to manage and optimize their use in a SAN environment.
How should companies choose excellent virtual tape libraries?
Before purchasing a virtual tape library, enterprises must first consider the current backup window, recovery point object and recovery time object. In addition, it is very important to consider the compatibility of the purchased virtual tape library with existing backup software.
When planning to purchase a virtual tape library, you should also first estimate the required virtual tape library capacity. This is a far-sighted performance considering storage long-term scalability. At the same time, good virtual tape libraries also need data compression technology to expand disk capacity to store more data in less disk space.
Taken together, the deployment of an archival storage system, the D2D2T (disk-disk-to-tape) backup architecture, is the best solution.
