HyperBac for SAP BRBackup

HyperBac for SAP BRBackup is an enterprise backup and archival solution, for your SAP on Oracle environment. Working with your existing BRBackup and BRArchive techniques as well as RMAN, EXP, EXPDP and all other Oracle backup methods, HyperBac uses high performance lossless compression to reduce the size of your backup data sets by up to 90% and the time taken to perform your backups by up to 50%.

In contrast, other methods which can be used to produce compressed backup sets typically incorporate aggressive compression routines which yield a compression rates somewhat equivalent to HyperBac, but introduce a CPU bottleneck, hence slowing system performance during operation.

The HyperBac benefit (and hence its capacity to scale to enterprise use) is that it provides the appropriate balance between maximizing compression, ensuring transaction throughput and minimizing operation times.

HyperBac works with the resultant BRBackup output data stream and thus it seamlessly integrates with SAP and Oracle's native backup technologies. To that extent, the SAP basis administrator or Oracle DBA does not need to change their existing scripts or deal with another application layer to use HyperBac.

As a consequence, HyperBac allows you to take advantage of all of SAP and Oracle's native capabilities for backups, restores and ETL operations including hot, cold, offline, online, physical, logical, physi-logical and all others. As importantly, HyperBac does not directly read or write data from or to your SAP database, therefore you can be assured of information integrity at all times.

In addition archive files created by HyperBac can be converted to native SAP Oracle backup files (physical or logical) at any time on any system, offering peace of mind for customers as well as a viable alternative recovery path should the restore or import occur on a system which does not have HyperBac installed.

Last but certainly not least, HyperBac has integrated AES (128/192/256 bit) encryption to protect your backup sets, particularly relevant due to the corporate significance and sensitivity around your SAP ERP data.

HyperBac for SAP delivers a number of technical advantages. Solution performance means that there is less contention for resources on the system(s) during backup operations. The advantage here is that you can avoid or avert the need to re-schedule or partition your backup operations to cater for end user requirements.

As your data storage grows, so to will your backup times. HyperBac for SAP gives you immediate relief from these growing pains. As well as prolonging the value of your existing infrastructure, HyperBac also allows you to maintain existing procedures and scripts for as long as possible. The advantage there is reduced change management risk and need for support.

Consider the following simple example. Your SAP BRBackup window can no longer accommodate your nightly full backup operations. The issue is serious as other batch transactions such as general ledger consolidations and invoice runs cannot be re-scheduled or changed. One unpalatable response to this situation is to split the backups and target different database objects for different nights. This means risk and greater loss of data in the event of disaster.

A far more appropriate option in this circumstance is to deploy HyperBac for SAP to reduce your backup times to cater for the existing window. The additional benefit is that your backup will be significantly compressed, freeing physical storage resources as well.

Not at all.

HyperBac for SAP is designed to work with your existing SAP BRBackup jobs and processes. Integration is as simple as follows.

Let's take the above example and say that you write your SAP BRBackups to the following path /mydatabase/SAP920/sapbackup

You simply configure HyperBac to register the path /mydatabase/SAP920/sapbackup. That means that all files written to that path (irrespective of their name or extension) by SAP BRBackup, BRArchive or Oracle will either be compressed and/or encrypted, depending upon what you choose.

No.

But it will give you options that you previously didn't have. By reducing your backup size you can keep more SAP database backups online. That gives your flexibility and options during recovery. As importantly, it saves you time during recovery, because you won't have to rely on fetching tapes from off site locations.

You'll reduce risk. Why? Because you'll have more backup sets online and on your site, which can be validated at greater frequency. This is not always possible or feasible with off site archives. As importantly you can almost eliminate the inherent risk associated with failed tape media.

Not at all.

HyperBac for SAP works with the existing native SAP BRBackup, BRArchive, BRRestore and Oracle interfaces to read and write data to and from your database. For example, if you are working with BRBackup, then it will perform the read and write operations to the database. HyperBac simply works with the information stream as it is being written to or read from disk.

Therefore HyperBac for SAP does not interfere with normal database operation in any way. As importantly, HyperBac will operate independently of the Oracle database release or SAP version you have deployed.

HyperBac for SAP is a server side solution, deployed on the same machine as your actual SAP Oracle database instance.

Yes. HyperBac for SAP is a disk based backup solution and it will seamlessly work with any local or remote DASD, SAN or NAS devices where your SAP database backups are written.

Yes, and it is absolutely free.

HyperBac is shipped with a graphical and command line driven extraction utility. In short, the extraction utility allows you to take an existing HyperBac backup file and transform it into the native database format. There are many benefits to this facility.

1. You can transport compressed and/or encrypted backups (securely and without unnecessary bandwidth demand) to remote sites and then simply use the extraction utility to transform the backup set to native format. This has application to those who replicate testing or development environments.

2. The extraction utility can expedite and lower the cost of server migrations or consolidations.

3. The extraction utility also serves to give you peace of mind. You can continue to work with HyperBac backup sets irrespective of whether or not the product is deployed. In short, we recognize the importance of vendor independence as much as you.

These are just three examples; however there are many more that simply depend upon your imagination and business circumstance.

HyperBac for SAP results in an improvement in transaction throughput by up to 10 times during the backup process in contrast to comparable conventional backup operations. This is due to the substantial reduction in write disk I/O during the HyperBac backup process.

Other methods used to produce compressed backup sets typically use more aggressive compression routines, while reducing disk write I/O, these routines generally result in excessive CPU utilization introducing a different system bottleneck. As a result, these methods may adversely impact transaction throughput and system usability and responsiveness.

Yes.

Because HyperBac uses native backup and ETL technologies, such as RMAN, EXP and EXPDP (Oracle Data Pump), all physical, logical and physi-logical backup operations are supported including database, archive log, datafile and tablespace backups using RMAN and table/schema exports using EXP or EXPDP.

Moreover, all backup options including parallelism, incremental, differential, image copies and all other options. All recovery operations are supported including point-in-time and flashback are fully supported.

Not at present. Disk based backups provide SAP basis administrators and Oracle DBA's with fast, reliable recovery online points. HyperBac's compression is superior to the hardware compression which is common on many tape devices, so a disk to tape backup strategy will generally yield a 50% reduction in tape storage costs as well as a 75-90% reduction in DASD, NAS or SAN requirements.

Other methods used to produce compressed backup sets in Oracle 10g or SAP BRTools use more aggressive compression routines, while reducing disk write I/O, these routines typically result in excessive CPU utilization introducing a different system bottleneck. As a result, these methods may adversely impact transaction throughput and system usability and responsiveness.

HyperBac's high performance compression technology reduces disk I/O and provides a high level of data compression and storage reduction without creating a CPU bottleneck. Transaction throughput is markedly increased and disk I/O wait states are reduced.

Bottom line, HyperBac for SAP will deliver the equivalent compression to Oracle 10g or SAP BRTools, but in far less time taken as compared to using these methods. Moreover, system usability, responsiveness and transaction throughput will be greatly improved during the SAP backup process.

Yes. Using HyperBac does not limit the type of backup you perform nor does it force you to write to a HyperBac destination type. You can choose to work as you wish.

HyperBac supports all versions of SAP and all versions of Oracle database instances.

Yes.

In an Oracle RAC environment, HyperBac for SAP should be installed on each physical node in the RAC configuration. This will allow for all types of physical, logical, hot and cold backup operations on any node and would provide complete flexibility for disaster recovery, duplication or ETL operations. However if you wish to perform all backup operations from one node, you would license and install HyperBac on this particular node only.

In an Oracle Data Guard configuration, HyperBac for SAP can be installed on the primary or standby node or both depending upon which system is used to perform the backups or exports.

HyperBac for SAP is licensed per physical server. That is, the machine(s) on which you are running your SAP Oracle database instance. HyperBac is essentially priced and licensed to give you exceptional value for money and pay back it's investment in months. HyperBac is designed to save you money and time. The licensing model is also designed to reflect this.

No need to.

Just as HyperBac works with the native SAP BRTools utilities such as BRBackup and BRArchive and Oracle utilities such as RMAN, it will equally work with other agent based products such as Backup Exec. If your present backup solution writes to disk, then HyperBac for SAP will simply integrate with it without you having to change the application or underlying infrastructure.

HyperBac for SAP is not designed to displace existing backup techniques rather it is designed to enhance them.

HyperBac for SAP contributes to a better operational environment for your business. For you, this means lowering the cost of managing your SAP database environment. That could include reduced tape usage; smaller infrastructure requirements, lower support costs and/or deferred infrastructure spend.

Further to this, HyperBac gives you greater surety. By reducing your SAP backup size and window, you can eliminate contention with processes that compete for scarce system resources. Such tasks may include nightly financial batch operations or end user access for transaction processing. With HyperBac you will not have to shuffle resources to meet your SAP database backup objectives. More online recovery points also give you surety with regard to the restore process and for disaster recovery planning.

With regard to your customers (whether they are internal or external) HyperBac for SAP helps ensure that your existing infrastructure will continue to meet stated service levels for performance and access. That ultimately means greater customer satisfaction and retention.

From a commercial viewpoint, HyperBac for SAP is designed to provide you with significant savings on your SAP backup operations. These savings may include, but aren't limited to; lower tape usage, reduced support or personnel costs or even deferred investment in infrastructure spend to accommodate data growth.

HyperBac for SAP is priced such that it delivers a payback within months just on the savings you redeem on tape usage alone.