Arcserve Unified Data Protection (UDP) is a next-generation backup solution that can be used by businesses to protect all manners of systems & data using frequent infinite incremental backups to a highly deduplicated datastore. The UDP Datastore can contain multiple system recovery points, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly etc all condensed into a relatively small footprint. It is not uncommon to see deduplication & compression offer in excess of 90% reduction in storage. So if the UDP Datastore contains so much valuable, long term data – how can it be protected itself?
Arcserve offer numerous ways to protect UDP Datastore data. The most obvious is to replicate data to a 2nd or 3rd UDP Datastore. You can deploy multiple UDP datastores that can replicate backup data to each other using a Global Deduplication protocol that dramatically reduces network transfer traffic. Alternatively, and particularly if very long term retention is required, it is desirable to backup data to Tape, or Virtual Tape (such as StarWind VTL). Arcserve Backup integrates directly with Arcserve UDP to provide multiple ways of using tape for long term, air gapped protection of UDP Data.
I have created 3 short videos demoing 3 approaches for backing up UDP data to tape. I actually use StarWind VTL which offers excellent compatibility along with the automated archive of Virtual Tapes to “Cloud” and lifecycle management (e.g. local storage to S3 to Glacier etc.).
Part 1 – Setup of StarWind VTL, Cloud Replication and a simple backup using Arcserve Backup
Part 2 – Full UDP Datastore Backup to StarWind VTL (this video) . Also shows the restoration process.
Part 3 – Incremental UDP Datastore Backup to StarWind VTL.
Understanding the UDP Datastore
The Arcserve UDP Datastore is where all backup recovery points are stored. It uses a block-level deduplication engine that identifies duplicate data blocks across all protected servers and stores each unique block only once. The result is dramatic storage savings — it is common to see 80–95% reduction in storage consumption compared to the raw source data.
A single UDP Datastore can hold recovery points for dozens or even hundreds of servers, spanning daily, weekly, and monthly retention points going back months or years. This concentration of data makes the datastore itself one of the most valuable assets in the entire IT environment. If the datastore is lost or corrupted, every recovery point for every protected server is gone.
Why Tape-Based Protection for the Datastore?
Arcserve provides several methods to protect the UDP Datastore, and each serves a different purpose:
- Datastore-to-datastore replication — Copies recovery points between two or more UDP Recovery Point Servers using global deduplication. This protects against hardware failure at the primary site and enables fast restores from the replica. However, both datastores are online and potentially reachable by ransomware.
- Tape or virtual tape backup — Copies datastore data to tape media (physical or virtual), which can be taken offline or archived to cloud storage. This creates a true air gap — the backup data on tape is unreachable by any network-based attack.
- Cloud replication — Replicates recovery points to a cloud-hosted UDP instance. Useful for offsite protection but, like datastore replication, the data remains online.
For organisations following the 3-2-1-1 backup strategy (three copies of data, on two different media types, with one offsite and one air-gapped), tape-based protection of the UDP Datastore satisfies the air-gap requirement.
The StarWind VTL Advantage
StarWind Virtual Tape Library replaces physical tape hardware with a software-defined solution that presents virtual tape drives and cartridges to Arcserve Backup via iSCSI. The backup software operates exactly as it would with physical tape — creating media pools, writing backup sets, ejecting completed tapes — but without the mechanical reliability concerns and manual handling that physical tape entails.
Where StarWind VTL adds particular value is in its automated cloud archival. When a virtual tape is ejected, StarWind can automatically upload it to cloud object storage such as Amazon S3, Wasabi, Backblaze B2, or Azure Blob Storage. This gives you two levels of protection:
- Local virtual tape — Fast restores from disk-based virtual tapes stored on the VTL server
- Cloud archive — Long-term retention in durable cloud storage with lifecycle policies (e.g., move from S3 Standard to Glacier after 90 days)
The Full Datastore Backup Process
In Part 2 of this video series, the full UDP Datastore backup process is demonstrated:
- Configure a NDMP backup job in Arcserve Backup — Arcserve Backup discovers the UDP Datastore as a file system backup source and creates a job that writes the entire datastore to virtual tape.
- Run the backup — Arcserve Backup reads the datastore blocks and writes them to the StarWind VTL. The backup job runs independently of any active UDP backup operations, so production backups are not interrupted.
- Tape management — Once the backup completes, the virtual tape is automatically ejected and queued for cloud archival by StarWind VTL.
- Restore demonstration — The video also walks through the restoration process, showing how to recover the datastore data from virtual tape back to a UDP Recovery Point Server.
Sizing and Performance Considerations
When planning tape-based datastore protection, keep these factors in mind:
- Backup window — A full datastore backup reads the entire datastore, which can be many terabytes. Ensure your backup window is long enough to complete the job, or consider incremental backups (covered in Part 3) for regular protection with periodic full backups.
- VTL server resources — The StarWind VTL server needs sufficient CPU and RAM to handle the iSCSI target operations and the cloud upload processes. A mid-range server with 16 GB RAM and a quad-core CPU is typically adequate for most deployments.
- Network bandwidth — If the UDP RPS and the VTL server are on separate physical hosts, ensure the network link between them can sustain the required throughput. A 10 Gbps link is recommended for large datastores.
Both Arcserve and StarWind are available through Cloud Ready Solutions for partners across Australia and the Pacific Islands, with pre-sales engineering support for architecture planning.