Today, we’re not going to talk about why you should protect your data. Because you know you should. In this article, we’ll discuss the different data backup options available, and the ideal software, skills and storage package for you.

In this article, we’ll discuss the different data backup options available, and the ideal software, skills and storage package for you.

Introduction

In the backup world, we can identify two major non-exclusive options for running backups:
Enterprise Backup Solutions and Specialised Backup.

Enterprise Backup Solutions are software capable of executing multiple backups from different sources to a wide choice of destinations. They usually have a very user-friendly User Interface/Command-Line Interface, powerful scheduling capabilities, a range of flexible features, and come with compliance and certifications. They provide extensive support, with large communities you can rely on in the long term.

On the other hand, some applications and/or databases have their own Specialised Backup mechanism. They’re optimised, efficient and extremely popular due to their high performance and, quite often, they don’t need additional licences. However, very often you need to rely on the application/database administrator to take care of the backups.

To summarise:

• Enterprise Backup Solutions are fairly universal, can easily support a company-wide backup strategy, are user-friendly and can meet detailed pre-requisites.
• Specialised Backups are high performance and low cost which is appealing, but they can be difficult to use within a global backup strategy and administrators require specific knowledge.

As well as the tool used to move data, we must consider that data has a source and a destination. Keeping in mind the 3-2-1 rule (3 copies of your data (your production data and 2 backup copies) on 2 different media (disk and tape for example) with 1 copy off-site for disaster recovery), and the amount of sources in a modern IT system, both the choice of software solution and hardware platform used to store the backups must meet both the Global Backup Strategy and… your budget. There is also 3-2-1-1-0 backup strategy, which is another option. After all, even if the technical possibilities are infinite, the budget isn’t.

Enterprise Backup Solutions

So, let’s look at the most practical choices you can make to protect your precious data, whilst not having to rob a bank or ten. And to be honest, we’re mainly going to be looking at cloud services. Not just because we’re a cloud services company, but because cloud storage makes a lot of sense. We’ll demonstrate why.

There are numerous Enterprise Backup Solutions on the market and some have been around for a while. You’ve probably used one, and you’re probably still using that same one today. Why? Because you developed expertise in it, and you built your backup strategy based on its features and recommendations. And that makes sense. Your staff’s experience and skills should never be discounted when investigating opportunities for expanding your backup strategy for new workloads or changing to a cloud service. But very often, this expertise translates very easily to new systems, thanks to the use of standard vocabulary and similar mechanisms. So changing to a new Enterprise Backup Solution shouldn’t be too frightening, as expertise is rarely lost; but usually expanded.

Today, all Enterprise Backup Software supports cloud backup. Whether it’s from the cloud or to the cloud. And it doesn’t come as a surprise, as a lot of workloads are in the cloud – and backups too.
Remember the 3-2-1 rule? The cloud is particularly good for storing your off-site copy given that there are hosting locations all over the world.

OVHcloud Enterprise Backup Solutions

At OVHcloud, our IaaS products are compatible with all major Enterprise Backup Software, and some, like Veeam and HYCU, are even certified to run on our Enterprise platforms. And we also provide the adequate licences so you don’t have to use yet another provider.

You can pair Veeam/HYCU solutions with nearly any Operating System/application and benefit from advanced integration with VMware and Nutanix hypervisors. They have certified compatibility with Network File System / Common Internet File System /Object Storage and you can even add features to improve security.

It’s slightly outside the scope of this article, but our Managed VMware platform even has a Zerto option, allowing you to add replication to the highly recommended backups.

Our Public Cloud instances can be protected using snapshots and backups. All our Bare Metal servers include an external storage of 500GB which can used for your backup. This storage can be extended by up to 10TB.

Other Enterprise Backup Solutions

If you want more control over your backup strategy, leveraging your expertise and fitting it to your specific requirements, it is possible to build your own backup infrastructure with OVHcloud.

 All the major players in the Enterprise Backup market are compatible and already used by OVHcloud’s customers. To mention but a few: Veeam, HYCU, Datamotive, Nakivo, Veritas Technologies, Scality, CommVault, Rubrik, Acronis and Cohesity.

Open-Source Backup Solutions

And of course, if you’d rather use open-source software, Bacula is a perfectly viable option, or the simple but robust rsync. After all, if you just need to keep a reasonably updated copy of your data somewhere else, the simplest tool can often do the job. There’s many open-source options…

Specialised Backup Solutions

Kubernetes workloads

In the Cloud Native / Public Cloud / PaaS environment, you have access to and compatibility with the main players too:

• Velero
• CloudCasa
• TrilioVault
• Veeam Kasten
• and many others.

Application/Database workloads

But what if you use specific application/database mechanisms?
Given that our promise is to be open, agnostic and reversible, we do not block third party software from interacting with your data. So as long as you have the expertise to install and manage them, you can use them and make the most of our large storage portfolio.

Many solutions integrate a mechanism from, for example, pre-backup and post-backup to launch backup of your databases. Of course, if you use your databases with our VMware by Broadcom and/or Nutanix offer, you can rely on Veeam Enterprise and HYCU.

As specified earlier, all major players in the Enterprise backup Software have modules for database protection: Nakivo, Veritas Technologies, Scality, CommVault, Rubrik, Acronis and Cohesity

OVHcloud PaaS Backup

Our Public Cloud instances can be protected using snapshots and backups and our Managed Kubernetes are compatible with several industry leading backup software such as Velero, Triliovault and CloudCasa.

Here is the recap’ of how our Public Cloud Managed products are protected and your options:

SaaS Backup and Solutions

When we’re talking about cloud and Specialised Backup, we can’t forget to mention the SaaS offers. As much as they’re convenient, affordable and widely available, making sure that your data is safe is not always included in the contract. It’s always worth researching this before committing, or you might discover unsuspected charges for your backup.

At OVHcloud, we have a large portfolio of partners who can help. You can find our complete partners directory here.

For Microsoft Office 365 backup, RG system provides a solution hosted on OVHcloud datacentre.

For Cybercriminality incidences, SI Vital solution maintains access to your vital, uninterrupted data and applications, as well as a secure, professional communications platform. A business continuity solution co-constructed with OVHcloud.

Different Types of Storage For Your Backup

Whether you are using an Enterprise Backup Solution or a Specialised Backup mechanism, you can store the backups on dedicated servers (Bare Metal storage), dedicated storage (NAS/HA, Enterprise File Storage), or the current global preferred choice for backup: Object Storage.

All OVHcloud storage solutions : https://www.ovhcloud.com/en/storage-solutions/

And because a picture is worth a thousand words (and that’s about how many words you’ve read so far in this article):

Object Storage & Cold Archive

Object Storage is particularly well-adapted to backup because:

• data growth is not limited by the underlying hardware
• it’s cost-effective
• it’s pseudo disconnected or fully disconnected in some cases
• it’s application/Operating System agnostic
• it’s friendly to static data
• it works with tapes.

Our Object Storage options are:

• Standard Object Storage: ideal for general backups.
• Performance Object Storage: ideal for critical and large backups as its high performance reduces backup and restore time.
• Cold Archive: ideal for meeting the legal requirement for data conservation and disconnected backup for safety.

Block Storage

Block Storage is still a very attractive option for storing backups because of its predictable performance and safety inherent to direct access to storage and RAID. It is the favoured media for on-premises infrastructure as storage arrays are widely available and distributed across datacentres. This distribution and the potential replication options provided by the storage arrays allow you to keep your data safe without causing you headaches. One caveat to mention is that Block Storage it is mostly reserved for server backup since end users don’t have easy access to centralised Block Storage.

File Storage

If you want to protect your users’ shares/export, File Storage is very convenient and access to the data is not bound to physical connections as is often the case for Block Storage. As long as you have access rights and network connection, using File Storage for backup is easy. Most File Storage also provides snapshots, and even though it can’t be considered a backup solution, it does provide a fast recovery mechanism. Advanced File Storage solutions provide replication and High Availability mechanisms.

Expert & Partner Ecosystem

And if you feel intimidated, our Professional Services, Solution Architect and partners can help you make an educated choice and a solid migration. But what if your data is already in the cloud? How is it protected and how can it be?

Well, the devil is in the detail, and very often, protecting your data is your responsibility, not your provider’s. So never ever assume that because your data is in the cloud, it’s automagically protected in the case of an incident.
What we do at OVHcloud is provide access to snapshots for some of our services. But there’s no Service-Level Agreement associated with these snapshots and they may not respect the 3-2-1 rule, hence are not backups.

• OVHcloud Professional Services
• OVHcloud Partner directory
• OVHcloud ISV directory
• OVHcloud Marketplace

Conclusion

Let’s finish by talking about the ideal global backup service approach for you, encompassing software and storage. The main differentiator is going to be: how much control do you want over your backup? Once you have an inventory of the data you need to backup, the first step is to check compatibility with existing or future Enterprise Backup Solutions. Most of the time, you’ll find several solutions that are able to support your needs and protect a vast majority of your data, even if they’re both on-premise and in the cloud. Having all your data in the same place is of course easier, but it rarely happens.

Then you need to verify which of the Software Solutions you’re considering are suitable for your backup strategy. And this is the perfect time to step back and evaluate. Have you missed anything? Does everything follow industry standards? And finally, who can help you find the best compromise between safety and cost. Ideally, we’ve answered all these questions above, so let’s have a look at what we can offer here:

Ainsi, soit en offre packagée avec des licences de la Nutanix Cloud Platform (NCP), soit avec la portabilité des propres licences du client (offre BYOL), nous avons lancé la solution Nutanix on OVHcloud, une nouvelle plateforme de cloud privé évolutive et prête à l’emploi à la fois pour les nouveaux utilisateurs ou les utilisateurs existants de Nutanix.

Grâce à de multiples localisations dans le monde, une livraison rapide, une infrastructure robuste, durable et qualifiée Nutanix, entièrement produite par OVHcloud, ces services ont apporté une bouffée d’air frais sur le marché du multicloud hybride.

Pour maintenir notre rythme d’innovation après la version initiale, nous vous avons mis à disposition plus de 30 guides pour découvrir, mettre en œuvre, sécuriser et sauvegarder votre plateforme, en partenariat avec des intégrateurs systèmes reconnus et certifiés Nutanix. Nous avons également introduit l’évolutivité avec l’ajout de serveurs via API et davantage de localisations pour déployer la plateforme hyperconvergée Nutanix on OVHcloud.

Nous avons le plaisir d’annoncer que Nutanix on OVHcloud va prochainement élargir sa gamme de serveurs dédiés et qualifiés Nutanix avec le lancement de la nouvelle gamme de serveurs Scale. De plus, un nouveau service de sauvegarde en partenariat avec HYCU et la certification Nutanix Ready de notre OVHcloud Key Management Service (KMS) seront également disponibles.

Découvrons la nouvelle gamme de serveurs Scale, dédiés et qualifiés Nutanix, disponible sur la solution Nutanix on OVHcloud.

Ces serveurs monosocket utilisent des processeurs Intel Xeon Scalable de 5^ème génération, dont le nombre de cœurs est plus restreint (16 cœurs pour Scale-i1, 24 cœurs pour Scale-i2 ou 36 cœurs pour Scale-i3) ou 32/48/72 threads si vous préférez). Ils intègrent également de 128 Go à 1 To de mémoire et 4 ou 6 disques SSD NVMe PCIe 4.0 chacun (capacité de 1,92/3,84/7,68 To par disque).

Plus important encore, cette gamme de serveurs monosocket est proposée à un prix inférieur aux serveurs HGR-HCI.

Cela porte à un total de 72 configurations possibles au meilleur rapport prix-performance pour répondre aux besoins des  petites entreprises aux budgets limités !

Vous bénéficiez ainsi d’une infrastructure hautement résiliente basée sur une architecture avec une redondance complète du système de refroidissement, du réseau et de l’alimentation électrique qui offre un engagement de niveau de service (SLA) de 99,95 %. Cela en fait la solution idéale pour les opérations de reprise d’activité, de continuité d’activité ou de migration vers le cloud, facilitées, rapides et rentables en réduisant la facture OPEX (et toujours sans frais d’utilisation de bande passante entrante et sortante).

Vous obtiendrez également plus de nœuds dans votre cluster avec le même budget qu’en utilisant les serveurs HGR-HCI, ce qui conduit à :

• Une répartition de charge et une redondance améliorées,
• moins d’impact lors du redémarrage d’un nœud lors d’une mise à niveau,
• une meilleure isolation de chaque occupant/une isolation facilitée si vous souhaitez mutualiser la plateforme.

Le choix de la configuration de 6 disques SSD NVMe PCIe 4.0 offre un ratio cœur/stockage optimal, car les nouveaux disques peuvent être deux fois plus capacitifs que les disques des serveurs HGR-HCI et bénéficient d’une meilleure connectivité grâce au NVMe !

N’oubliez pas que nous disposons également de nombreuses options de stockage si vous en voulez davantage :  NAS/HA, Enterprise File Storage, Object Storage et serveurs Bare Metal.

De plus, si tout cela ne suffit pas à vous convaincre, ces serveurs consomment beaucoup moins d’énergie !

Par exemple, le nouveau serveur Scale-i3 dispose du même nombre de cœurs/threads que le serveur HGR-HCI-1, mais ne consomme que les 2/3 de l’électricité.

Ainsi, vous améliorez vos engagements et vos rapports en matière de durabilité, ainsi que vos résultats financiers.

La nouvelle gamme de serveurs Scale sera disponible dans le monde entier (prochainement aux États-Unis). D’autres localisations seront envisagées en fonction de l’intérêt.

Ils sont également certifiés ISO 27701, SOC I et II type 1 et HDS (protection des données de santé en France).

Points clés à retenir :

• Prix avantageux = migration facilitée vers le cloud pour les besoins plus modestes, jusqu’à 50 % moins cher par rapport à la gamme actuelle de serveurs HGR-HCI (selon la configuration sélectionnée),
• Davantage de bande passante (intra-cluster),
• Meilleure segmentation des charges de travail,
• Plus de granularité pour l’évolutivité (pas d’écarts importants en termes de performances et de prix) et le coût des licences,
• Plus facile de mettre en place des règles anti-affinité et de répartir/isoler les charges de travail,
• Plus résilient, basé sur une architecture avec des circuits électriques, un système de refroidissement et un réseau redondants,
• Conçu pour la reprise après sinistre à moindre coût (via nos partenaires) pour les charges de travail critiques.

Découvrez les configurations et les tarifs de nos serveurs Nutanix on OVHcloud.

Découvrons notre tout nouveau service de sauvegarde HYCU for OVHcloud :

OVHcloud et HYCU (nommé Visionary dans le rapport 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Enterprise Backup and Recovery Software Solutions), se sont associés pour vous fournir les licences HYCU R-Cloud Hybrid Cloud Edition directement depuis OVHcloud.

HYCU a une histoire d’intégration complète et de haute fiabilité avec Nutanix, il était donc logique de développer ce partenariat au-delà de la simple « compatibilité ».

Nutanix on OVHcloud a toujours été compatible avec HYCU (vous pouvez voir les étapes de configuration dans ce guide 2022) et l’installation est facile.

Désormais, HYCU for OVHcloud vous permet d’obtenir vos licences HYCU R-Cloud Hybrid Cloud Edition directement auprès d’OVHcloud pour protéger vos charges de travail Nutanix et réduire le temps d’approvisionnement de votre infrastructure en matière de sauvegarde, de reprise après sinistre et de temps d’activité de migration. Et comme on ne sait jamais quand une catastrophe peut survenir, tout gain de temps s’avère précieux.

Notre service est basé sur le nombre de machines virtuelles (VM) que vous souhaitez sauvegarder (packs de 25 à 500 VMs), à partir de moins de 160 € (HT) par mois pour un pack de 25 VMs.
Ajoutez à cela la solution OVHcloud Object Storage (Standard, High Performance ou Cold Archive), prochainement certifiée HYCU, pour accélérer et simplifier vos processus de sauvegarde et de récupération de données, et vous serez prêt à démarrer.

En plus de son coût compétitif, notre service Object Storage offre des options d’immuabilité et de réplication pour mieux protéger vos données et respecter vos règles de sauvegarde 3-2-1.

Notre écosystème de partenaires est également prêt à vous accompagner avec une solution Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS), combinant Nutanix on OVHcloud et HYCU.

Cliquez ici pour plus d’information sur HYCU for OVHcloud.

Enfin, la solution OVHcloud Key Management Service (KMS)  a obtenu la certification Nutanix Ready, ce qui vous permet de l’intégrer de manière transparente à vos environnements Nutanix (en particulier sur Nutanix on OVHcloud) et de renforcer la sécurité de votre plateforme en veillant à ce que les pratiques de chiffrement ne perturbent pas les opérations existantes et soient entièrement conformes aux normes du secteur.

Cela permet une protection de premier ordre de vos données tout en rationalisant les opérations de sécurité lors de votre transition vers le cloud hybride ou le multicloud et répond à des cas d’utilisation tels que le chiffrement des données au repos (Data-At-Rest-Encryption) pour le chiffrement logiciel et la protection SED.

Notre KMS, disponible à partir de notre portefeuille de produits Public Cloud, vous permet de gérer des clés de chiffrement robustes dans toutes vos applications, qu’elles soient hébergées dans le cloud ou sur site, à partir d’une localisation centrale, sans vous soucier de la redondance et de l’accessibilité.

Situé dans le datacenter de votre choix, conforme aux normes ISO27001 et FIPS 140-3 (certification en cours) et offrant de larges capacités d’intégration et une interopérabilité accrue avec les normes KMIP (Key Management Interoperability Protocol), le OVHcloud KMS vous apporte une solution hautement accessible, sans les contraintes des infrastructures sur site.

Sans frais de requête, avec un faible coût par clé et une gestion complète des accès, vous bénéficiez de la commodité et de la fiabilité d’un KMS hébergé dans le cloud, accessible de partout et utilisable par toutes les applications.

Vous pourrez aussi prochainement importer vos propres clés pour éviter le casse-tête de la reconfiguration de vos plateformes existantes.

Notre solution Nutanix on OVHcloud ainsi que nos services HYCU for OVHcloud et OVHcloud KMS vous offrent tout ce dont vous avez besoin pour démarrer ou vous développer dans le cloud sans compromettre le prix, la performance ou la sécurité.

Pourquoi pas vous ?

 Découvrez notre solution Nutanix on OVHcloud.

As a result, either packaged with Nutanix Cloud Platform (NCP) licences or with the customer’s own licences (BYOL), we have released the Nutanix on OVHcloud solution, a new scalable and ready-to-use private cloud platform for new or existing Nutanix users.
With multiple global locations, fast delivery, robust, sustainable and Nutanix-qualified hardware built in-house by OVHcloud, these services bring a breath of fresh air to the hybrid multi-cloud market.
To maintain the initial release innovation pace, we’re offering over 30 guides to discover, implement, secure and backup your platform, in partnership with well-known and Nutanix-certified System Integrators. We’ve also introduced scalability and more locations to deploy the Nutanix on OVHcloud hyperconverged platform.
As the next step, we’re pleased to announce that Nutanix on OVHcloud will enlarge its servers range with a new, dedicated and Nutanix-qualified SCALE servers range launch. a new backup service in partnership with HYCU and the OVHcloud’s Key Management Service (KMS) Nutanix Ready certification.

Let’s look at the new dedicated and Nutanix-qualified SCALE servers’ range available on Nutanix on OVHcloud solution.

These mono-socket servers use Intel Xeon Scalable 5th gen processors including limited core numbers (16 cores for Scale-i1, 24 cores for Scale-i2 or 36 cores for Scale-i3 or 32/48/72 threads if you prefer). They also include from 128 GB to 1 TB of memory and either 4 or 6 SSD NVMe PCIe 4.0 drives each (1.92/3.84/7.68 TB capacity).
Most importantly, this range of single socket servers comes at a lower price point.
That’s 72 possible configurations at best price/performance ratio to match limited budgets and smaller company’s needs!

This means you benefit from a highly resilient infrastructure based on an architecture with complete redundancy of electrical circuits, cooling system, network and power supply which offers 99.95% SLA. Discover the perfect solution for easy, fast and cost-effective Disaster Recovery, Business Continuity or Move to Cloud operations by reducing the OPEX bill (and still no egress/ingress fee).
You’ll also get more nodes in your cluster with the same budget as before, which leads to:
• improved load-balancing and redundancy,
• less impact when you need to restart a node during an upgrade,
• better/easier tenant isolation if you wish to share them.

Choosing the 6 SSD NVMe PCIe 4.0 drive configuration gives an optimal core/storage ratio as the new drives can be twice the size of the HGR drives and benefit from better connectivity!
Don’t forget that we also have plenty of storage options if you want more: NAS/HA, Enterprise File Storage, Object Storage and Bare Metal storage servers.
Plus, if all that’s not enough to convince you, these servers use a lot less power!
For example, the new Scale-i3 server has the same number of cores/threads than the HGR-HCI-1 but uses only 2/3 of the power.
So, your sustainability commitments and reports will look even better than before and you’ll improve your bottom line.

This new SCALE servers’ range will be available worldwide (coming soon to the US). Additional locations are being considered based on interest.
They’re also ISO 27701, SOC I and II type 1 and HDS (French healthcare data protection) certified.

Key points to remember:
• Lower price point = easier to migrate to the cloud for smaller needs, up to 50% cheaper vs current HGR-HCI server range (depending on the selected configuration).
• More bandwidth (intra-cluster)
• Better segmentation of workloads
• More granularity for scalability (no big steps in terms of performance and price)
• Easier to set up anti-affinity rules and to spread/isolate workloads
• More resilient, based on an architecture with redundant electrical circuits, cooling system, network and power supply
• Designed for cost-competitive DRaaS (via our Partners) for critical workloads

Discover our Nutanix on OVHcloud servers configuration and prices.

Let’s look at our brand new HYCU for OVHcloud backup service:

OVHcloud and HYCU (named as Visionary in the 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Enterprise Backup and Recovery Software Solutions), have partnered to bring you the HYCU R-Cloud Hybrid Cloud Edition licences directly from OVHcloud.
HYCU has a history of smooth integration and high reliability with Nutanix, so it was logical to develop this partnership beyond “compatibility”.
Nutanix on OVHcloud has always been compatible with HYCU (you can see the configuration steps in this 2022 guide) and installation is easy.
Now HYCU for OVHcloud enables you to get your HYCU R-Cloud Hybrid Cloud Edition licences directly from OVHcloud to protect your Nutanix workloads and reduce your infrastructure’s procurement to backup, disaster recovery, and migration activity time. And since you never know when a disaster may happen, any time saved is precious.

Our service is based on the number of Virtual Machines (VMs) you want to backup (from 25 to 500 VMs packs), starting from under €160 (ex VAT) per month for a 25 VMs pack.
Add some budget-friendly, soon-to-be HYCU-certified OVHcloud Object Storage (Standard/High performance /Cold Archive) to accelerate and simplify your data backup and recovery, and you’re ready to go.
In addition to its competitive cost, our Object Storage service offers immutability and replication options to further protect your data and enforce your 3-2-1 backup rules.

Our partners’ ecosystem is also ready to assist you with Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) which combines Nutanix on OVHcloud and HYCU.
Click here for more information about HYCU for OVHcloud.

Finally, OVHcloud’s Key Management Service (KMS) has obtained the Nutanix Ready certification, allowing you to integrate it seamlessly with your Nutanix environments (especially on Nutanix on OVHcloud) and reinforce your platform security by ensuring that encryption practices do not disrupt existing operations and are fully compliant with industry standards.

This allows top-tier protection for your data while streamlining security operations on your journey to hybrid cloud or multi-cloud and addresses use cases such as Data-At-Rest-Encryption for software encryption and SED protection.

Our KMS, available from our Public Cloud product portfolio, empowers you to manage robust encryption keys across all your applications whether hosted in the cloud or on-premises, from one central place, without worrying about redundancy and accessibility.
Located in the datacentre of your choice, compliant with ISO27001 and FIPS 140-3 standards (certification in progress) and offering broad integration capabilities and increased interoperability with Key Management Interoperability Protocol (KMIP) standards, OVHcloud KMS brings you a highly accessible KMS without the on-premises hurdles.
With no query fee, a low per-key charge and complete key access management, you get the convenience and reliability of a cloud-hosted KMS that’s accessible from anywhere, and can be used by any application.
Soon you’ll be able to use your own keys to save the headache of reconfiguration of your existing platforms.

Our Nutanix on OVHcloud solution, HYCU for OVHcloud service and OVHcloud KMS offer you everything you need to start or expand in the cloud without sacrificing price, performance or security.

What are you waiting for?

Discover our Nutanix on OVHcloud solution.