Dell EqualLogic Auto-Snapshot Manager/VMware® Edition

SAN-based data protection tools provide some relief. By offloading the snapshotting operations from the host servers, snapshots can be efficiently created and stored without using server resources. Unfortunately, SAN-based snapshots are not integrated, which may result in an inordinate amount of time dedicated to data management and a concern as to whether the copies are in fact recoverable. Current SAN-based solutions often lack scalability, centralized management and tight integration with the server virtualization platforms they serve, while adding significant cost and complexity.

As organizations consolidate more virtual machines (VM) on fewer servers and IT computing infrastructure is expected to support 7x24 operations, data protection and recovery becomes a greater challenge for IT managers. With nightly backup windows shrinking and more application data sets sharing fewer physical servers, both bandwidth and computing cycles require existing backup methods to be augmented with new technologies. Virtual server- and hypervisor-based snapshotting and replication tools are available today, but they can consume far too much of the physical servers' resources and less than optimal storage utilization. In both scenarios, data recovery is often slow and sometimes unreliable.

Auto-Snapshot Manager/VMware Edition (ASM/VE) is a unique and innovative data protection feature of the Dell EqualLogic™ PS Series iSCSI SAN that enables fast online backups and quick restores of VMware virtual machines and VMFS file systems. ASM/VE provides an easy-touse graphical interface that coordinates the creation, recovery and scheduling of PS Series snapshots with VirtualCenter and VMware's native snapshotting technology,helping to provide enhanced protection, storage utilization, and performance of VMware-based virtual infrastructures. The resulting Hypervisoraware snapshot (Smart Copy) can be now easily and rapidly recovered.