Disk-Assisted Backup Whitepaper

Figure 2.

Object consolidation

The incremental forever paradigm means that except for the first backup, where a full backup is

performed, only incremental backups are executed. This concept presents the most efficient way of

backups—only few changed data is backed up.

However, without object consolidation, the restore process would last far too long, since all

incremental backup sessions would have to be restored. Due to this behavior, regular full backups are

required and all backups would need to be kept protected.

Object consolidation removes this drawback of performing regular full backups. Object consolidation

functionality enables you to merge a restore chain of a backup object, consisting of a full backup or

synthetic full and at least one incremental backup, into a new, consolidated version of this object,

either a synthetic full backup or a virtual full backup. During an object consolidation session, HP Data

Protector software reads the backed up data from the source media, merges the data, and writes the

consolidated version to the target media.

Several advantages of object consolidation backups include:

• Space efficient—One initial full backup only; no file stored multiple times; potential to reduce

required disk space and consequently tape media

• Faster backup—Only changed files need to be backed up; fast backup of file servers hosting

millions of files since only incremental backup is required; allowing more frequent backup sessions

• Less time to manage—Due backup to disk no tedious tape management

• Faster restore of individual files—Single file restore from disk; tape goes off-site

• Synthetic full provides fast data restore in case of disaster recovery

Synthetic backup is an advanced backup solution that creates a synthetic full backup, which is an

equivalent to a conventional full backup in terms of data, without putting stress on the production

servers or the network.

In terms of restore speed, a synthetic full backup is equivalent to a conventional full backup. The

restore chain consists of only one media set, thus allowing a quick and simple restore.