Direct from Development

Data Protection for PowerStore with PowerProtect

DD Series Appliances
Author: Vinod Kumar Kumaresan

Summary
Dell PowerStore is a revolutionary storage appliance that is designed for the data era. PowerStore is a data-centric,
intelligent, and adaptable infrastructure solution that provides various ways to protect your data, locally and remotely. With
PowerStore Manager, you can protect your data locally by creating snapshots (point-in-time copies) of volumes, volume
groups, virtual machines, or file systems. You can also apply remote protection by replicating your data to a remote
system or by mirroring the data using metro volumes for redundancy in the event of a disaster.

Native integration of Dell PowerProtect DD series appliances with PowerStore

Starting with PowerStoreOS (Operating System) version 3.5, a new remote backup solution is introduced which provides
an additional method to protect your data in a PowerStore cluster. Dell PowerProtect DD series appliances can be added
as a remote system to protect the resources (volumes and volume groups) on PowerStore. PowerStore can send backups
directly to DD series appliances with no backup application required.

Figure 1. Remote backup – PowerStore to DD series appliances

DD series appliances enable organizations to protect, manage, and recover data at scale across their diverse
environments. PowerStore supports backing up to a physical PowerProtect appliance or to PowerProtect DD Virtual
Edition (DDVE). DDVE is supported either on-premise or within AWS. A single DD series appliance can be added to the
same PowerStore cluster multiple times, provided that a different Storage Unit ID is used. This ability allows you to back
up different resources to different locations within a single DD series appliance.

The key features are:

• Self-service remote backup with DD series appliances as the target remote system

• Backup and retrieve PowerStore block volumes and volume groups data with DD series

Tech Note 1
 • Ability to Instantly access the remote snapshot residing on a DD series appliance

• Supports both physical and software-defined DD series appliances. Supports PowerProtect DD Virtual Edition
with AWS cloud provider.

• PowerStore leverages DD Boost protocol to send data to DD series

• End to end data protection orchestration using PowerStore Manager

• Direct encrypted transfer from PowerStore to DD series

The key benefits are:

• Zero impact on hosts because backups run directly on PowerStore

• Incremental forever data protection strategy for PowerStore block volumes and volume groups

• Backup different resources to different locations within a single DD series appliance

• Ability to configure local and remote protection within a single protection policy with independent schedule and
retention

• Replication between DD series appliances and to the cloud

Steps to protect resources on PowerStore with DD series

Figure 2 below explains the steps to protect resources (volumes and volume groups) on PowerStore with DD series
appliances.

Figure 2. Steps to protect resources on PowerStore with DD series

Remote session operations

With PowerStore integration with DD series appliances, you can protect PowerStore volumes and volume groups directly
to DD series appliances. With this ability you can perform remote session operations, such as backup, retrieve, and
instant access. A remote session tracks each of these operations. Remote backup, retrieve, and instant access sessions
go through various states that indicate the session’s progress and any possible issues.

Backup session
PowerStore utilizes backup sessions to create remote backups (snapshots) on the DD series appliances. When a
protection policy containing a remote backup rule is assigned to a supported resource, a backup session is created. There
is no manual way to configure a backup session without a protection policy. Only one backup rule can be added per
protection policy.

A protection policy can be created to provide local and remote protection for PowerStore resources. Each protection
policy for the same volume or volume group can include replication rule, remote backup rule, and snapshot rules, which
are independent with schedule and retention.

Tech Note 2
When a backup is run, a snapshot of a volume or a volume group is created on the PowerProtect system. The created
snapshots are crash-consistent and there is no application integration. A backup can be started manually by a user or
automatically according to the schedule defined in the remote backup rule. Remote snapshots are created with an
expiration time based on the remote backup rule associated with the resource.

The snapshots that are created manually by a user inherit the remote backup rule’s retention policy. Only the initial
backup is full; subsequent backups are incremental. Backup session states when running a backup include ‘idle’,
‘prepare’, ‘in-progress’, ‘paused’, ‘cancelling’, and ‘failed’. Figure 3 depicts the high-level backup workflow.

Figure 3. Backup session – High-level workflow

When performing incremental backups, only the unique data is traversed through the network to create a remote snapshot
on the DD series appliances. The PowerStore snapshot differential feature, and DD series virtual synthetic operations,
enable the implementation of an incremental forever data protection strategy. Only the changed blocks are sent to DD
series and aggregated into the full consistent remote snapshot. The snapshot can be retrieved either incrementally or fully
to the same PowerStore cluster or different cluster. When the backup is complete, users can view the list of all resources
that have been backed up from the Resources page in the PowerStore Manager UI.

Retrieve session
When remote snapshots are created on the DD series appliances, backups can be retrieved to an existing or new
PowerStore cluster. The retrieve option is used to copy a remote snapshot for a volume or volume group and save it as a
local snapshot in the PowerStore cluster. This local snapshot will be set to no automatic deletion, where the user can
update the expiration time or change it to a secure snapshot. Based on the use case, a differential or a full data copy is
required. Figure 4 shows the high-level retrieve workflow.

Figure 4. Retrieve session - High-level workflow

You may want to retrieve a remote snapshot for restoring the source resource or for creating a thin clone.

Tech Note 3
Retrieve a remote snapshot to the same PowerStore cluster:

• If the source volume or volume group of the retrieved backup still exists in the system, a local snapshot is created
on the PowerStore cluster under the source resource. If possible, the retrieval is incremental - only the changes
from the source volume are retrieved, which makes the retrieval process efficient.

• If the source volume or volume group of the retrieved backup no longer exists in the system, both a new resource
and a local snapshot are created, and the new resource is restored with the snapshot data.

Retrieve a remote snapshot to a different PowerStore cluster:

• Because the source volume or volume group never existed on that cluster, both a new resource and a local
snapshot are created. The new resource is restored with the snapshot data, returning the resource to the same
state as the original.

Instant Access session

An instant access session allows a host to access a volume or volume group remote snapshot residing on a DD series
appliance. From PowerStore Manager, you can create an instant access session to view the remote snapshot contents
without having to retrieve them on the PowerStore cluster. Instant Access enables users to instantly access deleted,
corrupted, or modified data within the remote snapshot. Only one instant access session is allowed per remote snapshot.
When an instant access session is running, the PowerStore appliance does not perform backup and retrieve operations,
and local resources are not protected until the instant access sessions are ended. Figure 5 shows the high-level instant
access session workflow.

Figure 5. Instant Access session - High-level workflow

When enabling Instant Access for a volume snapshot, you can configure host access before enabling the session. For an
instant access session on a volume group snapshot, the user must add the host access to the remote snapshot volumes
after the session is created.

Note: Instant Access is supported for all block resources except VMware VMFS datastores. If access to data within a remote
snapshot of a VMFS datastore is required, customers can still perform a retrieve operation on the remote snapshot and create and
mount a thin clone.

Data protection is a mission-critical priority for any modernized technology, as organizations increasingly rely on
innovative storage technology appliances such as PowerStore. This unique data protection solution, which integrates
PowerStore with DD series appliances, ensures continuous availability of data in PowerStore to help organizations meet
their SLAs.

Tech Note 4
References
Dell PowerStore:

• Dell PowerStore – Product website

• Dell PowerStore: Snapshots and Thin Clones

• Dell PowerStore: Info Hub

Dell PowerProtect DD series appliances:

• PowerProtect DD Series Appliances – Product website

• PowerProtect DD Series Appliances - Data Sheet

• PowerProtect DD Series Appliances - Spec Sheet

• Dell PowerProtect DD Series Appliances - Info Hub

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