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Any HYCU Users Here?

  • 30 August 2019
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Apoapsis
We are currently evaluating Nutanix and also HYCU for backup. So far HYCU looks really good running on my CE lab server but there is one issue that they cannot answer to. For file restores on older recovery points (past the "Fast Restore" point), HYCU must copy the entire VM from the storage target and mount it to even start the search for a file. While for small VM's this my not be a big deal, larger VM's would cause a wait time based on your network connection to the storage target. For anyone using HYCU is this a concern to you? I'm very interested in hearing real world feed back here. Thanks!
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Best answer by MMSW_DE 3 September 2019, 10:00

Hi,



we ran into the exact same issue in our production environment: Restoring a multi-Terabyte Exchange VM took many hours while cluster overall performance (we use entry-level 1000-NX series hardware) was clearly affected by sustained bulk writes.



We simply decided to keep more Fast Restore points (i.e. cluster based snapshots), reaching further into the past. Storagewise this workaround should not be a big deal, although there is no way to see how large those snaphots actually are.



I'm very confident the folks at Hycu will eventually establish a solution for this.
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M
Userlevel 2
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Hi,

we ran into the exact same issue in our production environment: Restoring a multi-Terabyte Exchange VM took many hours while cluster overall performance (we use entry-level 1000-NX series hardware) was clearly affected by sustained bulk writes.

We simply decided to keep more Fast Restore points (i.e. cluster based snapshots), reaching further into the past. Storagewise this workaround should not be a big deal, although there is no way to see how large those snaphots actually are.

I'm very confident the folks at Hycu will eventually establish a solution for this.
Apoapsis
I'm very confident the folks at Hycu will eventually establish a solution for this.

Thanks for the response @MMSW_DE. The HYCU folks have indicated that they are moving towards attaching to the storage directly in a future update. Hopefully that comes to pass. Like you said, they recommend keeping more Fast Restore points but my initial indication there is it is somewhat limited on how many you can keep. I'm meeting with them today to look at the "Shares" option to see if that would help alleviate the problem like for larger file servers.

As for exchange, I have not tested this yet but I'm assuming like SQL, you can restore the database without re-hydration. Is that your experience?

Also, are you using Nutanix Files? If so, are there any gotcha's with HYCU here?
M
Userlevel 2
Badge +5
I'm sorry, I didn't do the Exchange restore tests myself and I frankly don't know how far my colleague got. We are not yet using Nutanix files, so I'm afraid no experience there either.

Generally speaking, Hycu's integration is very good and they are highly motivated to make things work.
S

We have transcended this limitation with HYCU 4.1. You no longer have to restore an entire VM from a remote backup target (Onprem or Cloud) in order to just recover a couple of files. With HYCU 4.2, this applies to application level recovery. For example, you don’t have restore an entire MSSQL VM just to recover an individual MSSQL database at specific point in time.

jonas.hogman
Userlevel 1
Badge +2

When i was at A3 we where running HYCU for about 3 years with @msundling as the pioneer, we where more than satisfied with both the solution as a whole, and with the team behind HYCU and the support they’re giving.

 

Warm recommendation from me :)

//Jonas Hogman - NTC 2021