Dell AppAssure - SQL Server Data Protection
Backup, Replication and Recovery Software

Overview:

Dell AppAssure continuously protects and monitors the health of your SQL servers - including system and user databases, SQL binaries and the server - making it possible to restore both servers and databases in just minutes.

Protecting Your Microsoft SQL Server with Dell AppAssure 5

Microsoft SQL Servers are key pieces of your business infrastructure. Without them, your whole business can grind to a halt. Use Dell AppAssure 5 software for comprehensive system- and binaries-level protection. With it you can achieve peace of mind, knowing you’ll be able to recover both SQL servers and their databases in just minutes.

SQL Server protection is built into every one of AppAssure 5’s backup, replication and recovery licenses. It automatically tests your backups nightly to ensure that SQL application backups will be fully recoverable. If corrupted data is detected, AppAssure notifies you immediately to give you another opportunity to perform another backup before disaster strikes.

Dell AppAssure 5 delivers advanced four-way protection:

• No-impact backups. Dell AppAssure 5 hot backups don’t require taking a SQL Server offline, nor do they slow it down.
• Near-zero recovery point objective (RPO). With backups every five minutes, AppAssure delivers outstanding recovery point granularity – a maximum of 288 recovery points every 24 hours.
• Near-zero recovery time objectives (RTO). AppAssure Live Recovery allows users to begin using SQL Server files in 15 minutes or less after a failure regardless of how much data is involved. For even faster recoveries, AppAssure’s powerful replication function allows you to simply turn on a preconfigured, up-to-date spare VM machine if your SQL Server goes down.
• Certain Recovery. AppAssure ensures reliable and transactionally consistent backups of SQL Server databases (Microsoft SQL 2005, 2008, 2008 R2 SCC (Single Copy Cluster) a-p-p (only one node is active) and a-a-p (two or more nodes are active) clusters. If AppAssure says a backup is good, you can be certain it’s recoverable.

Reduces administrative costs
Deploying a Dell AppAssure 5 SQL Server Agent on a SQL Server takes only minutes. Its web-based Central Management Console allows administrators to back up and recover SQL Server databases and binary components without requiring knowledge of SQL Server internals or deep knowledge of backup and recovery schemes.

Enables cloud-based backups
Dell AppAssure 5 can back up your SQL Server directly to the cloud as well as locally, eliminating the need for dedicated and costly offsite hardware and freeing you from unwieldy tape media.

Scalable for SQL Server environments
Dell AppAssure 5 provides businesses with a simplified management tool for online backup that scales with your business and ensures important SQL Server databases are backed up safely and easily accessible. It supports Microsoft SQL 2005, 2008, 2008 R2 SCC (Single Copy Cluster) a-p-p (only one node is active) and a-a-p (two or more nodes are active) clusters.

Granular recovery of SQL Server databases
AppAssure 5 provides a granular level backup and recovery of individual files from a SQL database. The extracted SQL files are encrypted and then transferred to the backup server. Modifications made to the SQL Server database are automatically recorded on the incremental backup. The same single-pass backup also allows complete system-level recovery.

Encryption built in
AppAssure 5 incorporates secure backups with integrated AES 256-bit encryption.

Incorporates fast restore of SQL Tables
To perform a SQL table restore simply attach the databases and logs and use one of the INSERT INTO, DTS Import/Export Wizard or the BCP/Bulk Insert Method.

Silent install through console
AppAssure 5 incorporates a silent install for pushing agents via the console.

Features:

Dell AppAssure 5 software leverages integration with Microsoft SQL Server for complete disaster protection. Advantages of Dell AppAssure 5 data protection of MS SQL Servers includes:

Application Awareness for Mission-Critical Microsoft SQL Server Applications
Dell AppAssure 5 detects the presence of Microsoft SQL Server and its respective dependent files, and logs, and automatically groups the volumes with dependency for comprehensive protection and rapid recovery. This ensures that you never have corrupted backups which will slow recoveries.

When you back up MS SQL Server instances, Dell AppAssure 5 not only captures database files and logs, it also tests your backup to determine it is 100% recoverable. Dell AppAssure 5 can also notify you if the testing fails, giving you another opportunity to back up your critical application before disaster strikes.

VMware, Hyper-V, and XenServer support for MS SQL Server Machines
AppAssure 5 can export any MS SQL Server protected or replicated machine to VMware, Hyper-V. Exports can be ad hoc or continuous. With continuous exports, the virtual machine is incrementally updated after every snapshot. The incremental updates are very fast, so standby-clones are ready to power up with a click of a button. The formats for export are VMware Workstation/Server on a folder, direct export to Vsphere / VMware ESX/ESXi host, and Microsoft Server 2008/R2 Hyper-V.

Virtual Standby for MS Exchange Servers
Create and maintain an up-to-date virtual standby machine for fast disaster recovery for MS SQL Server. The bootable virtual machine is an exact clone of the production server as of the last snapshot.

Bare Metal Restore to similar or dissimilar hardware or virtual machines
Can provide bare-metal recoveries of MS SQL Servers to a similar or dissimilar hardware or virtual environments.

Easily Converts MS SQL Server snapshots to other virtual Snapshots
Convert snapshots to VMware ESX/ESXi, VMware server 2.0, VMware workstation 6.x, Hyper-V, and Virtual server 2005.

Live Recovery: Instant Recovery of Servers
Restore an entire MS SQL Server from your backup with an RTO of minutes rather than hours. Recover the use of an MS SQL server to any location from the backup file backup to production storage. Choose from as many as 288 recovery points a day to deliver an RPO of minutes.

Dell AppAssure 5 Has Comprehensive Disaster Recovery
No need to snapshot your environment twice like with competitive solutions. Simply run your backup job, and then replicate to a secondary source.

Benefits:

Advantages of AppAssure data protection

What makes Dell AppAssure software stand above legacy backup software and reduced-function virtual machine-only solutions?

• We roll proven image-level backup, replication and recovery technology into a unified solution.
• We protect seamlessly across Windows and Linux OSs and move easily among physical, virtual and cloud environments.
• And, we build in more functionality in every license.

Here’s how Dell AppAssure technology delivers better better Windows backup and Linux backup protection:

Highly scaleable, highly efficient backup.
AppAssure scales for speed by automatically ‘turning on’ as many AppAssure core CPUs as are needed to handle workload peaks. It also scales for data capacity with ultra-efficient block-level incremental-forever backups that are data-deduplicated across all the servers on your network. This results in:

• Line-speed user access to applications. Feel free to schedule as many simultaneous backups as you like even during peak work hours because backup jobs never get in the way of full-speed production environments, even if your network runs at 10 gbit/sec.
• More efficient disk storage. Dell AppAssure keeps your storage footprint small whether your storage environment is small or large. And, Exabyte-level scalability easily meets the needs of Big Data environments.

Rapid recovery from nearly any point in time.
Achieve near-zero application recovery time objectives (RTO). Choose to recover from any one of up to 288 recovery points a day for Windows to practically eliminate the potential for data loss.

Flexible recovery options from a single backup pass.

Comprehensive data off-siting, fail-over, fail-back.
Dell AppAssure builds in WAN-optimized, deduplication-aware replication for off-siting backup data to public or private clouds. Data seeding is available for sites with slow or highly latent links. A virtual standby function creates and maintains an up-to-date virtual standby clone of a production server as of the last snapshot. Fail-Over and Fail-Back allows your secondary site or a managed service provider site to recover instances from replicated machines and immediately commence protection on the failed-over machines, and then fail back when the problem is solved.

Unified user interface.
Protect a few or a few thousand machines from any Web browser. AppAssure 5 features a new web-based management console that is compatible with industry-standard browsers on laptops, tablets and notebooks. You can manage your data protection responsibilities and solve problems from any location with an Internet connection.

AppAssure - Beyond Backup:

Going beyond backup to advanced data protection

AppAssure first revolutionized data protection by unifying backup, replication and recovery in one software solution. Designed for virtual, physical and cloud environments, AppAssure’s continual data and application backups, daily data integrity, validation and flexible recovery options provide customers with unparalleled data protection. And now you can protect Linux servers too - all with the same AppAssure 5 product.

AppAssure 5 extends its core protection capabilities to address the challenges of today’s larger and more complex data environments. Specifically:

• AppAssure’s new scalable architecture for data protection backs up and manages growing data quickly and efficiently to deliver RTOs (recovery time objectives) and RPOs (Recovery point objectives) of mere minutes.
• Global deduplication and compression technology reduces backup time and minimizes storage footprint.
• New AppAssure agent for Linux along with several enhancements designed to simplify management, speed deployments and increase the feature set

Protect continuously, move anywhere and recover everything

AppAssure 5 offers a better way to protect your complex data environment. IT data centers, whether they're a few servers in a storefront office or thousands of virtual and physical machines, are harder to protect, especially as they are spread across local, offsite and–increasingly–cloud resources. With all this complexity, it's no wonder that traditional backup approaches cause serious problems. For instance, they:

• Require more administrative intervention than you may have time for
• No longer fit into short backup windows
• Can't assure that you will be able to recover in a reasonable timeframe.

A better way to protect Windows and Linux environments
AppAssure 5 answers these concerns with fast, backup and even faster replication and recovery. As a key data protection element of Dell's Fluid Data Architecture, AppAssure 5 controls cost, optimizes performance and enhances protection by unifying backup, replication and recovery within a single solution. All this capability comes complete with a truly easy-to-use management interface that automates daily backup activities, freeing you to tackle other projects.

AppAssure 5 ensures that you'll return to productivity in a hurry. It goes beyond backup by establishing a new, highly automated standard for data protection. AppAssure 5 includes our premium software support, Dell ProSupport™, providing you with 24x7 and global access to technical experts ready to assist you if the need arises. With AppAssure 5 you can protect continuously, move anywhere and recover everything.

How is AppAssure Different?

AppAssure 5 delivers innovative AppAssure Core technologies to create fast and reliable backups and recoveries across virtual, physical, and cloud environments:

1. TrueScaleTM Architecture for Data Protection:
AppAssure's TrueScale Architecture for Data Protection leverages a dynamic, multi-core pipeline storage system that scales linearly to store and manage data efficiently and deliver RTOs and RPOs of minutes.

Management Services
Recovery Service	Line Recovery	Universal Recovery	Recovery Assure	Retention	WAN optimzed Replication	Archiving
TrueScale Layer	Global Deduplication		Encryption		Compression
Volume Manager
Physical Storage	Scalable Object Store		Scalable Object Store		Scalable Object Store	Scalable Object Store
	Storage Area Network		Direct Attached Storage		Network Attached Storage	Cloud Storage

2. Global Deduplication and Compression:
Save storage costs through integrated, inline deduplication and compression while optimizing backups for WAN replication. It eliminates redundant data from your backups not just locally, but across your entire network.

Figure 1: Global Data Deduplication uses far less data storage

3. Universal Recovery™:
To any VM or Server AppAssure was built from the ground up for virtual and physical environments, enabling one of the fastest and most fl exible recovery procedures possible–in minutes, not hours or days, with a near-zero RPO. AppAssure provides full bare-metal recovery to dissimilar hardware and VM servers in seconds as well as granular recovery of individual objects, applications, files or messages, in just minutes.

Combined, these technologies deliver fast, reliable and secure local recoveries and cloud-enabled disaster recovery. With its scalable object store, AppAssure 5 is uniquely capable of handling exabytes of data or more very rapidly with built-in global deduplication, compression, encryption, and replication to any private or public cloud infrastructure. Flexible enterprise data retention policies are supported for recovery and compliance purposes.

One interface for virtual and physical machines
AppAssure combines technologically innovative software with ease of use to substantially reduce IT management and storage costs across every Windows and Linux machine in your IT environment. In addition to backing up and recovering physical machines, AppAssure 5 supports multiple hypervisor environments in private and public clouds. AppAssure 5 adds the ability to directly create Hyper-V machines from your backups, a feature AppAssure 4 first off ered for VMware ESX/ESXi machines. And it supports larger virtual environments with features like support for SQL Clusters.

Attractive Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
AppAssure 5 comes with an ownership cost that is very attractive to organizations that currently pay for and manage two or more unrelated software programs and costly add-on modules. All the data protection you need is delivered in one product, controlled with one interface. Administrators no longer have to learn and master multiple backup and recovery schemes; instead they interact with a single pane of management glass that includes all the tools needed to protect their machines, regardless of their location. With AppAssure 5 you save time and money.

• Premium Software Support.
  AppAssure 5 includes Dell ProSupport™ with access to expert back-up and recovery technicians around the clock and around the globe. Customers receive 24x7 phone support* around the world from more than 30,000 technicians supporting over 100 countries in 55 languages.
• Remote Installation Services.
  AppAssure software is easy to install but if you're feeling like you could use some extra hands, our expert technicians can help. We'll get you up and running quickly with minimal effort with our remote installation package options: Basic Remote Installation Service or Advanced Remote Installation Service.
• Remote Advisory Services.
  Consultation with a highly qualified certified expert regarding upgrades or system updates is also available via our Remote Advisory Services.

Data off-siting and disaster recovery

WAN Optimized Replication
AppAssure 5 off ers new WAN-optimized, deduplicationaware replication for off-siting data to public or private clouds.

SmartAgent with incremental-forever approach for VMs and physical servers
AppAsssure's Smart Agent is automatically installed on all the machines that will be protected by the AppAssure 5 Core. Smart Agents are designed by AppAssure to off er a number of advantages over both legacy agent-based and agentless technologies found on other backup products.

SmartAgents use an incremental-forever, changed-blocktracking approach that tracks, captures and transmits the changed blocks from the protected disk volume to the AppAssure core at pre-confi gured intervals. They are fully application-aware and they lie dormant when not in use.2 Even when they're hard at work, the ultra-light SmartAgents tread lightly.

An RMW algorithm is tightly coupled with deduplication; the two cores match keys before transferring data, and then replicate only the unique blocks that are compressed-encrypted-deduplicated across the WAN. This can result in up to a 10X reduction in bandwidth requirements. All data-in-flight is replicated over SSL connections.

Data Seeding
Getting data offsite is a critical first step to prepare your company for disaster recovery. AppAssure 5 allows you to seed your baseline data to an off site target core if the cores are separated by a slow or highly latent links. The data in the seeding archive is compressed, encrypted and deduplicated. If the total size of the archive is larger than the space available on the removable media, the archive can span across multiple removable media devices based on the available space on the media. During the seeding process, incremental recovery points are replicated to the target site. Once the seeding archive is consumed into the target core, the newly replicated incremental recovery points are automatically synchronized.

Virtual Standby
Create and maintain an up-to-date virtual standby machine for fast disaster recovery for all of your Windows workloads including Exchange, SharePoint and SQL. The bootable virtual machine is an exact clone of the production server as of the last snapshot

Fail-Over and Fail-Back
If the worst occurs and you do suff er a data disaster, AppAssure 5 supports fail-over and fail-back in replicated environments. In case of a comprehensive outage, the target core in the secondary site can recover instances from replicated machines and immediately commence protection on the failed-over machines. Once the primary site is restored, the core can "fail-back" protection to the machines at the primary site.

Built in Replication Workflows
Outbound replication can be confi gured to a selfmanaged core or a managed service provider offering off-site backup and/or a disaster recovery service. Customers who wish to replicate to managed service providers can use built-in workflows that allow them to request connections and receive automatic feedback notifications.

Figure 2: Replication process includes government-grade encryption

Encrypted Communications
AppAssure 5 provides built-in encryption using 256-Bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) with cipher block chaining (CBC) algorithm compliant with SHA-3 to protect the backups from unauthorized access or use, and ensure data privacy. The technology performs inline encryption on incoming snapshot data at line speed without impacting performance and scalability.

AppAssure 5 uses SSL 3.0 to secure the connections between the two cores in a replication topology to prevent eavesdropping and tampering.

Long term data retention

Archiving
AppAssure 5 SmartArchive feature enables long-term data retention for SLA and regulatory compliance. The backup archives can be created on less expensive storage. An archive can be created on the source or a target replica core on to removable media. It is internally optimized and all data in the archive is deduplicated, compressed and encrypted. The archive can span across multiple devices based on the available space on the media and it can be locked with a passphrase. Recovery from an archive does not require a new core–any core can ingest the archive and recover data as long as the administrator has the passphrase and the encryption keys.

Retention Policies
AppAssure 5 offers highly flexible and granular backup retention policies that can be easily customized for different business and compliance requirements without compromising availability or the integrity of the backups. Customers with Big Data can now rely on AppAssure 5 to retain very large amounts of data with complex retention policies by using metadata operations to perform rollup operations for aging.

Figure 3: Retention policies are easy to set

Smart Agents for efficiency

SmartAgent with incremental-forever approach for VMs and physical servers
AppAsssure's Smart Agent is automatically installed on all the machines that will be protected by the AppAssure 5 Core. They consume less than 20MB for memory effi ciency. And, their impact on CPU utilization of backed up machines is a mere 1% – 3%. This means backups won't slow user applications.

Protecting Windows environments

Complete Windows application protection
AppAssure 5 delivers two innovative application-aware technologies that do much more than simply back up machines and their data.

Recovery Assure™ detects the presence of Microsoft Exchange and SQL and its respective databases and log files and automatically groups the volumes with dependency for comprehensive protection and rapid recovery. This ensures that you never have incomplete backups to work from when you are performing recoveries.

When you back up MS Exchange or MS SQL instances, AppAssure 5 not only captures the entire application stack including files and logs, it also tests your backup to determine if it is 100% recoverable. AppAssure 5 can also notify you if the testing fails, giving you another opportunity to back up before disaster strikes.

Live Recovery™:
Instant Recovery Restore an entire server from your backup with an RTO of minutes rather than hours. Recover the use of a server to any location from the backup file directly onto any virtual or physical machine without having to wait to extract the full backup to production storage. Choose from as many as 288 recovery points a day to deliver an RPO of minutes.

Linux system protection
AppAssure Agent for Linux is an innovative Linux backup and recovery product that can be managed centrally from a single user interface. After completing an initial full backup, take advantage of incremental forever block-level snapshot backups with change block tracking. This feature allows each Linux machine to be 'snapped' and backed up much more frequently than traditional backup architectures allow and it yields outstanding disk storage efficiency.

Cuts backup windows and speeds restores
AppAssure cuts Linux backup windows from hours to just minutes for better recovery point objectives (RTOs) and it restores in minutes to deliver superior recovery time objectives (RPOs).

• Continually protects multiple servers per AppAssure core
• Linux server bare-metal restores and disaster recovery
• Web-based interface that is easy to use

Here are the key functions found in AppAssure agent for Linux:

Continual snapshots for outstanding recovery point objective (RPO) granularity
AppAssure agent for Linux snapshot technology essentially eliminates backup windows with disk-to-disk backups comprised of an initial full backup, followed by incremental forever backups. This allows administrators to back up a server as frequently as every 15 minutes. This creates many more RPOs than traditional backup technologies are capable of and reduces potential data loss from as much as a day to just minutes.

Centralized backup
AppAssure manages your Linux servers from a Web-based central management console that runs on a Web browserenabled device.

Fast recoveries
AppAssure is the fast path to recoveries with bare metal restores that take minutes, rather than hours. It eliminates the need for time-consuming manual system rebuilds followed by file restores. A recovery that once took hours can now be accomplished in just minutes.

AppAssure's archiving feature enables long-term data retention for SLA and regulatory compliance. The backup archives can be stored on low-cost storage. Archive data is deduplicated, compressed and encrypted, and spans across multiple devices.

Management

Web-based User interface
AppAssure 5 features a new Web-based user interface that is compatible with all industry-standard browsers. It is highly intuitive to increase user efficiency.

API
AppAssure 5 comes natively bundled with a service management API that provides programmatic access to all of the functionality available through the Management Console. The management REST API can be used for managing your services and deployments.

PowerShell Scripting
Windows PowerShell is a Microsoft .NET Frameworkconnected environment designed for administrative automation. AppAssure 5 includes a comprehensive client SDK for PowerShell scripting that helps administrators automate administration and management of AppAssure 5 resources to execute commands either directly or through scripts.

License Portal
The AppAssure 5 license portal provides easy-to-use tools for managing license entitlements. You can download, activate, view, and manage license keys and create a company profile to track your license assets. Additionally, the portal makes it easier for service providers and resellers to track and manage customer licenses.

Event log monitoring and management
AppAssure 5 provides an eff ective way to log and alert administrators about the state of completion for ongoing tasks. Event alerts are generated at a very granular level and they can be logged in the windows event log, delivered to administrators using mail, or even sent to a syslog server. Administrators can create groups for notifications based on servers, tasks or events.

Central Management Console
A Web-based Central Management Console simplifi es the process of managing and reporting on AppAssure 5 Cores that are distributed across an environment. The console also provides role-based access for central management, allowing you to control the objects that users can access in an AppAssure 5 environment.

Reporting
AppAssure 5 features comprehensive reporting for all ongoing activities. Reports are created dynamically and they can report on all protected machines—virtual or physical—across all your sites. A report can be generated by connecting to a core or from the central management console. The generated reports are available in different formats such as PDF, CSV, HTML and Excel.

How AppAssure Works:

Data Protection

1. AppAssure software is loaded on any Windows-based server to create the AppAssure Core server

2. AppAssure protects not only the data but the entire application stack for all protected servers.

Deduplication and Compression

3. Integrated global deduplication and compression reduces the size of incremental snapshots as they are ingested, greatly reducing backup storage requirements.

Disaster Recovery

4. Backup images of both the protected data and the application stack are stored on the Core. Deduped and compressed backup images can then be efficiently replicated to a disaster recovery location – virtual, physical or the cloud.

Scalable Architecture

5. AppAssure 5 is designed to scale to Exabytes - easily expanding its backend repository to accommodate the increased workload as additional servers require protection.

Recovery Assure

6. AppAssure Recovery Assure™ technology virtually mounts application and data nightly, ensuring both data and application can be recovered in the event of a disaster.

Live Recovery

7. In the event of a server or application loss, AppAssure Live Recovery™ enables near-instantaneous access to critical business data, while the full rebuild occurs in the background.

Universal Recovery

8. AppAssure Universal Recovery™ allows users to recover from a virtual, physical or cloud image to any environment needed or available – including bare metal restore. The ultimate flexibility for disaster recovery.

System Requirements:

AppAssure 5 Agent
Platforms	Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007) Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS 3.0) – free license and SharePoint 2007 and 2010.
Microsoft SQL Support	SQL Server 2005 or higher Support for SQL Clusters
Architecture	32-bit or 64-bit
Memory	4 GB or Higher
AppAssure Core
Windows Operating System	Microsoft Windows 7 Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2
Architecture	64-Bit Only
Memory	8 GB or Higher. AppAssure highly recommends using ECC Memory, to ensure optimum performance of AppAssure Core Servers
Processor	Quad-Core or higher recommended for better performance
Storage	Direct Attached, Storage Area Network or Network Attached Storage

Services:

Dell ProSupport

Your Dell AppAssure software includes Dell ProSupport,Dell’s premium software support which provides access to back-up and recovery experts available around the clock and around the globe. 

ProSupport provides a breadth of capabilities and resources intended to maximize the benefits of your Dell AppAssure software to ensure your satisfaction. Our comprehensive support structure, means your time is spent less on issue resolution — resulting in greater productivity for your organization. 

From live phone support to email and online ticket submission, Dell provides support that fits your needs and schedule so you can operate more efficiently. With ProSupport you:

• Keep software up-to-date — access to critical patches, updates, and new product upgrades
• Beyond troubleshooting — assistance with how-to information, configuration issues and best practice recommendations
• Resolve issues fast — minimize downtime with the global scale and expertise of Dell ProSupport technicians available 24x7

AppAssure customers formerly on legacy support contracts will be transitioned to Dell ProSupport. Please contact your sales representative for more information on how to transition support contracts.

Remote Installation Services

Today’s IT organizations are often stretched too thin — consumed with administrative tasks that take time away from more business critical initiatives. We can help. Let us install your AppAssure software and get you up and running quickly with minimal effort with our remote installation package options.

• Basic Remote Installation Service includes:
• Installation and configuration of a single core server and up to 4 agents
• Day-to-day backup and recovery management tasks
• Overview of AppAssure technology and support infrastructure
• All of the above, plus ONE of the following:
  • Export to VM implementation
  • Replication implementation
  • Bare metal restore set up
• Advanced Remote Installation Service includes all services in the Basic package above PLUS:
  • Configuration of your retention policy and AppAssure reports
  • Disaster recovery testing and validation

Consultation with a highly qualified certified expert regarding upgrades or system updates is also available via our Remote Advisory Services.

Documentation:

AppAssure 5 Beyond Backup Datasheet (.PDF)