With the growing importance of disaster recovery, enterprises are relying more heavily on WAN-based backup and data replication to secure important files and data. Backup and replication over the WAN ensures that data can be safely protected at a distance to the primary site, but also introduces new performance challenges that require enterprises to seek out methods that accelerate WAN backup applications.

Riverbed's wide-area data services (WDS) solutions transparently accelerate all backup and replication applications that utilize TCP. Riverbed's Disaster Recovery Acceleration, powered by the Riverbed Optimization System (RiOS), can cut backup windows by typically 3x or more, and dramatically reduce WAN bandwidth utilization - typically by 60 to 95%. These types of performance gains enable organizations to reliably and regularly complete network-based backup without interfering with other applications that require the WAN. Most importantly, in the event of a failure, the recovery of data is accelerated so that business operations can resume as soon as possible.

Utilizing a powerful set of tools that include special optimizations for high bandwidth-delay products (also known as Long Fat Networks), Riverbed can even enable accelerated network backup and faster replication across connections where there are no bandwidth constraints. This enables organizations to provide better data protection for primary data centers, where regular replication could not be completed as frequently as possible.

Riverbed's approach allows enterprises to continue using the WAN backup application of their choice. Riverbed's appliances will work with products from all of the following vendors:

• EMC
• Network Appliance
• Legato
• Veritas
• Tivoli
• Microsoft
• CommVault
• DoubleTake
• CA
• And many more

With these performance optimizations in place for faster data protection, organizations can dramatically change the way backup and replication tools are deployed throughout the organization. Servers can be backed up over the WAN continuously or near continuously; a secondary data center can use network backup to ensure that it has the most recent data possible in the event of a failover; and tape backup devices can be altogether eliminated from remote offices. These changes allow businesses to more reliably protect data, effectively respond in the face of disaster, dramatically cut costs associated with backup and replication, and streamline IT so that technical staff can spend their time doing things other than managing backup processes.

Typical Backup Deployment with Riverbed

With no changes required to either host-based or array-based backup and replication tools, Riverbed's solutions can accelerate backup and replication in some of the most complicated environments anywhere. These solutions have been used to accelerate WAN backup from small, 5-person offices with fractional T1/E1 lines to large data centers with virtually unlimited bandwidth. Riverbed's solutions are in use over international and satellite connections around the globe. These solutions are even in use in vehicles on the move, such as ships connected via satellite.

Download the Commvault Performance Brief to learn more.