SonicWALL Delivers Automated Disaster Recovery Appliance

Security vendor SonicWALL is looking to take data protection to the next level by offering appliance-based backup solutions, in the form of the company’s CDP (Continuous Data Protection) platform. More than just a backup device, the CDP product line combines imaging, cloud storage and advanced backup and recovery capabilities into a single platform.

The SonicWALL CDP product line is available on a variety of appliances, sized for user count, performance and capacity. Currently, SonicWALL is offering four appliances, starting with the CDP 210, which is designed for as many as 30 PCs and five servers, up to the CDP 6080B, which can support as many as 250 PCs and 15 servers.

A Closer Look:

I recently took an in-depth look at SonicWALL’s CDP product line and had the opportunity to test the appliances at SonicWALL’s headquarters in San Jose. I focused my efforts on the CDP 6080B model, which offers the most capacity and supports the largest number of clients and servers. From a functional standpoint, all of the CDP appliances operate the same. However, there are some key differences between the various devices beyond capacity and user accounts.

The higher-end models offer additional data protection in the form of RAID arrays, field replaceable hard drives and redundant power supplies. Other differences include the number of software licenses bundled with the appliance. For example, the top of the line CDP 6080B includes three licenses for Microsoft server applications. The licenses can be applied to any of the following Microsoft Applications: Microsoft Exchange 2003, 2007 and 2010 (including individual mailbox backup support), Microsoft SQL 2005 and 2008, Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Microsoft Active Directory, and Microsoft Small Business Server. Additional licenses can be purchased if needed.

With a quick glance, it is pretty easy to discern that the CDP 6080 is a well-built device. The 2U appliance is mostly made of metal and features hot swappable drives, removable power supplies and so on. There is a limited amount of plastic on the device, which indicates that the unit is built to take the bumps and grinds associated with moving it around the data center.

Basic setup of the device is straightforward. The appliance uses a browser-based interface, which offers up a GUI that makes inputting the basic configuration information, such as IP addresses, DNS settings and other basic network settings a snap. Of course, there is a lot more to the device than basic networking configurations.

The next critical phase of deployment comes in the form of assigning licenses to the device. The licenses control device features such as bare metal recovery capabilities, site-to-site backup, number of agents, number of devices supported and so on. Inputting the license information was not difficult, but it did involve a number of steps such as registering the unit, creating an account at SonicWALL.com and retrieving the appropriate licenses to install on the unit. Licensing may seem a little complicated, but offers advantages for solution providers selling the unit and its licenses. As a result of the registration process, solution providers can participate in the license deployment, renewals and upgrade processes, all of which gives them control of the account.

Obviously, licenses are directly associated with features and support options, and it is those features that make SonicWALL’s appliances somewhat unique in the world of disaster recovery. For example, the company offers a “bare metal recovery” option, which allows administrators to restore a backup image to a server or workstation quickly and easily. Another critical feature for those looking to leverage offsite capabilities is the offsite data backup service, which provides cloud-based storage for disaster recovery purposes. When combined with bare metal recovery capabilities, the offsite option allows businesses to quickly recover IT services in the case of a loss of an entire facility, for example through a natural disaster.

Other interesting services include the site-to-site backup option, which allows the replication of data across multiple appliances located at different sites. This provides some regional separation, which can benefit a company that has one of its branch offices affected by a disaster.

All of the licensing is handled directly in the unit’s browser-based GUI, as are most of the other critical functions. For example, the dashboard offers the ability to configure and monitor the unit beyond the basic implementation scenarios. Administrators can use the dashboard to monitor RAID status, monitor activity, create alerts and most any other capability that an administrator may desire in a backup appliance.

I found that the dashboard was easy to navigate and provided excellent help screens. However, performance was somewhat balky, taking some time for certain screens to load, such as the RAID configuration screen and the device information screens. Dashboard performance was not really a problem, but it was an annoyance. One other issue that caught my eye is that the dashboard requires Adobe Flash to function properly, so users won’t be able to administer the CDP device with an iPad, iPhone or other device that doesn’t support Flash.

Like most any backup appliance, SonicWALL’s CDP Series is all about automating the protection of data, however SonicWALL goes several steps further than most. For example, the CDP Series incorporates automated policies that can be defined by administrators to capture backup data as frequently as desired. In other words, if an administrator wants a server to be backed up every 15 minutes, a policy can be quickly and easily created to make that happen.

Policies within SonicWALL’s CDP can go a lot further than just scheduling backups. For example, they can also be defined to control the types of files are backed up. Most backup solutions that rely on imaging technology have an all or nothing approach – here, SonicWALL differentiates itself clearly from the pack. Administrators can create policies that exclude files, directories and other elements from a backup – accelerating the backup process and reducing the total storage amounts needed. After all, do you really need to backup temp files, mp3 files and other non-business related objects?

Adding policies proves to be quite simple; from the dashboard all I needed to do was list the current policies and then hit a plus button to define a new policy. From there, I was able to name the policy and then define what files and folders the new policy should affect. For example, I was able to create a policy that backed up all files in the Documents directory, so that during every backup, all of those files would be captured. I could have also created a policy that only backed up files based upon type, such as .doc or .xls files.

Creating policies from the web dashboard can be a little complicated, simply because the browser-based dashboard runs from the CDP device and has no local knowledge of the subject machine. That means you may have to generalize your backup settings to accommodate the various PCs on the network. On the other hand, you could just back up everything on a PC and create an exclusion policy to eliminate the things you don’t want backed up.

Ultimately, policies are controlled by schedules – here, SonicWALL has made that pretty simple to do with a scheduling module which offers simple controls to build comprehensive schedules. In other words, creating a schedule is very easy and you can assign multiple policies to each schedule, or even create multiple schedules.

Backup policies and the associated schedules are further controlled by backup tasks, which allow you to add further details to refine the backup parameters. Defining a backup task tells the device what type of backup to do, whether or not it is a standard backup or continuous data protection event (more on that later), and how many versions of the data/file to keep.

Continuous data protection proves to be an interesting concept under SonicWALL’s CDP product line. It is a capability that keeps files in a backed-up state, while automatically creating “versioning” of the file. For example, when defining a backup task, you could tell the unit to store 10 or more versions of a particular file and then auto-delete older versions, based on the number of versions or the age of the oldest version. That helps reduce required and wasted storage, while still giving administrators the ability to roll back a file to a past version. A very handy capability when dealing with malware infections or unauthorized changes to files.

Traditional backups and Continuous Data Protection schemes differ in their applicability. For most businesses, CDP will be used for disaster recovery (DR) purposes, while traditional backups are used for archiving data. SonicWALL’s unit does both, making it a one-stop solution for backup, as well as disaster recovery. Of course, when using the device for archiving, backups and disaster recovery, space usage may be a concern. To address this issue, SonicWALL introduced several capabilities into the unit, including file trimming (which automatically discards old file revisions), compression and policy based storage constraints, which may be of interest to MSPs who can limit the amount of storage available to a customer based upon contracted amounts.

SonicWALL's CDP appliances use agent-based technology – in other words, a small piece of software, referred to as an agent, is installed on each server and workstation on the network. The agent enables the CDP appliance to communicate with each workstation (or server) and execute backups. In SonicWALL's case, the agent also brings extra functionality to the CDP appliance, allowing administrators to directly apply policies to the subject device (workstation or server), manually execute commands (immediate backups), and browse files on the subject machines. Currently, it seems that one policy at a time can be associated with a particular agent, so defining the policy to accommodate the particular devices can be a critical step. SonicWALL CDP allows an administrator to create and execute multiple backup tasks within a single policy to achieve the same as having multiple policies assigned to an individual machine. In fact, it is by design so the management of different backup tasks are controlled centrally in one policy versus having to manage multiple policies for a single machine.

With policy management, backup and other appliance centric elements explored, the next element to look at is the actual backup and restore process, which is the most important element of any backup solution. In SonicWALL's case, the backup portion (or CDP events) are automated, but that certainly does not leave the end-user in the dark. The locally installed agent provides a plethora of information and capabilities, all of which benefit the end-user by allowing the easy restoration of files, validating backups and ultimately delivering enough power to the user to limit the need for help desk intervention.

The desktop agent, which is named the SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Agent Tool, offers users the ability to check the status of their system, browse backup history and check policies. In most cases, an administrator would be using the agent remotely to make things happen. That said, the agent still empowers the end user or a help desk technician to create, execute and monitor backups, as well as create policies, backup sets and verify the status of backups or CDP events. I manually executed several backups, found it to be straightforward and I actually prefer the desktop agent to the unit's web-based dashboard. However, the agent only controls the machine you are using it on, while the unit's dashboard allows you to manage all devices in the network.

The agent is also used to restore files from backups and CDP storage areas. Here, the agent proves to be very simple to use, especially when rolling back individual files. Simple restorations are accomplished by using the "My Backups" tab and then browsing to the folder (or file) that needs to be restored. All it takes is a few simple mouse clicks and the file is restored. You can restore files to alternative locations or have them returned to their original location – either way, the process is equally simple.

Conclusions:

SonicWALL gets many things right with the CDP product line, such as the ability to store file revisions, empower the end user and create granular policies. Having said this, the product is still a little rough around the edges and could benefit from wizards, shortcuts and other technologies that make it faster and easier to set up policies, schedules and file sets. The company is working on several enhancements and with the next version due out in September, there will be notable interface and usability improvements. That aside, the device proves to be an excellent way to automate backup and DR chores, while protecting critical data, both on and offsite. What's more, it offers excellent reporting capabilities to keep administrators in the know, at least when it comes to how well servers and desktops are protected from disaster.

Tags: private cloud, Cloud Computing, compliance, High Performance Analytics Appliance, Backup, Disater Recovery