NetBackup and Beyond with Delphix

If you’ve used the Delphix Data Platform, then you understand what it means to get real value out of your data. Our customers can create copies, refresh on demand and share critical application data, freely and securely, throughout their enterprise - all made possible now with Veritas NetBackup as the data ingestion source. Delphix enables application development teams to release higher quality software faster and with greater confidence.

Why NetBackup as the First Non-Production Data Source

Veritas NetBackup is a leading solution that many data operators use to manage and maintain backups of their SQL Server databases. Delphix users can now ingest this type of backup as a data source and create copies of them on the Delphix Data Platform, allowing customers to consume any data they may have, wherever it may be. With only a few NetBackup-related parameters, our platform can identify these backups and connect to them just as we currently do for SQL Server native backups.

Nearly all enterprises depend on backup software to maintain copies of business-critical data. When our team first investigated this feature, we quickly realized that this data is similar to production data based on replication and sync config parameters - without the administrative burden to get that data. We set out to link to these existing backups and use them as the foundation of the technology we use to provision virtual data copies.

Here’s an overview of how we implemented this feature in the diagram below.

This is an architectural diagram of our NetBackup implementation. Delphix connects to customer NetBackup servers and provisions virtual data copies from the NetBackup data sources.

An Intuitive User Experience

We’ve made it incredibly easy to connect your NetBackup instances with Delphix through a simple set of NetBackup-related input parameters that discovers and links the data source to your backups. In the advanced configuration pane, enable the NetBackup ingestion checkbox and provide the host name or IP address of both your master server and client servers.

User interface module for the new NetBackup functionality, a simple set of parameters to link a NetBackup data source

Once you’ve provided your NetBackup configuration details, the data source will appear just like your normal SQL Server data sources are connected with Delphix, you can provision virtual copies and refresh to specific points in time and more. There are no new or complex workflows that you have to learn. If you ever need to modify these configuration parameters, you can, of course, modify them in the configuration of that data source as well.

Try using the NetBackup feature today by simply linking a data source for SQL Server. We have plans to introduce this type of backup support with more vendors in the near future as have our sight set on Commvault for now. Stay tuned for more on that in an upcoming release.