How can server performance degradation be avoided during backup in a large virtualized environment with HP Data Protector?

VMware ESX Server Snapshots create and manage snapshot delta files on the same ESX host storage stack, introducing I/O overhead and potential performance degradation on production VMs during backup.

HP StoreOnce D2DBS generic library emulation optimizes deduplication efficiency on the backup target but does not offload read I/O from the production ESX servers during the backup window.

Target side deduplication reduces the volume of data written to the backup repository and saves network bandwidth, but the source ESX servers still bear the full backup read I/O workload.

HP Data Protector ZDB uses storage array hardware - such as HP StorageWorks Business Copy or Continuous Access - to instantly split a mirror or create a hardware clone of the production volume without involving the ESX host. The cloned volume is then mounted on a separate backup host (media server), which streams data to the backup target independently of the production servers. Because production VMs perform no read I/O during the actual backup stream, server performance degradation is completely avoided even in large virtualized environments.