Seeding from a Dell™ DR Series System to an External Device Using the Dell DR Series System CLI Dell Engineering August 2014 A Dell Technical White Paper
Revisions Date Description August 2014 Initial release THIS WHITE PAPER IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY, AND MAY CONTAIN TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS AND TECHNICAL INACCURACIES. THE CONTENT IS PROVIDED AS IS, WITHOUT EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND. © 2014 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this material in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of Dell Inc. is strictly forbidden. For more information, contact Dell.
Table of contents 1 Understanding the seeding process ............................................................................................................................................. 5 2 Seeding data from a DR Series system and copying it to a replication target................................................................... 6 3 4 3 2.1 Preparing for seeding ...............................................................................................................................
Executive summary This paper provides information about how to set up seeding from a Dell DR Series system to an external device through the Dell DR Series command line interface (CLI). This paper is a quick reference guide and does not include all DR Series system deployment best practices. For additional information, see the DR Series system documentation and other data management application best practices whitepapers for your specific DR Series system at: http://www.dell.
1 Understanding the seeding process Seeding is a process that copies de-duplicated data from a DR Series system to an external device (typically USB), which is exported as a CIFS share. The seeding process comprises the following steps: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. The device attached to a client machine is mounted using the CIFS protocol on the DR Series system; and, seeding is initiated, which copies the data (export) to the device.
2 Seeding data from a DR Series system and copying it to a replication target 2.1 Preparing for seeding Before the seeding process is started, you need to gather the following information. • • • • • 2.2 The names of the containers on the appliance that contain the data to be replicated (typically the containers for which the disaster recovery setup must be done). These container names are given as input to the seeding process.
3. To reference the device to which the seed data must be copied, enter the following command. (Note that only the shares exported by CIFS protocol are recognized.) seed --add_device --server --volume --username [--domain ] In this command, the parameters are as follows: • server name - the name of the client which exports the device as a CIFS share. • volume name - the name of the export share on the target server. The name is case-sensitive.
If the status is shown as ‘Paused (Device full),’ then the share has no more space to copy the data. The device must be removed (using the commands, “seed –stop” and “seed – remove_device”) and a new device with free space can be added (using the command, seed – add_device). This scenario occurs when more devices are available, and seeding has to be continued. Adding a new device without deleting the job would continue to copy the data from where it was left.
. If the data to be seeded is completely gathered and the seed job is complete, you can delete the job by entering the following command. seed –delete 2.3 9 Important notes about the seeding export process • If ‘seed –delete’ is executed, all of the information about the seeding job is removed from the DR Series system. If a new job is created for the same container, then it will copy all the data once again.
• 2.4 You are not required to seed the entire data. You can choose the amount of data that can be seeded, depending on factors like time, amount of external space available, and so on; and you can stop seeding accordingly. The residual data will reach the target during replication re-sync. Export CLI flow The following diagram demonstrates the flow of the data export using the DR Series system CLI commands.
3 Setting up a seeding import job on the target DR Series system The seed import process copies the de-duplicated data from the external device provided to the target DR Series system. The following steps describe the CLI commands you need to enter for the import job on the target DR Series system. 1. Create a seed import job using the following command. seed --create --op import This command requests a password, which is the same password defined at the time of data export.
4. To start the seeding process, enter the following command. seed –start The data copy begins and continues until all of the data from the device is completely read. 5. To monitor the seeding process, enter the following command. seed --stats The type of information in the output of the command, “seed –stats,” looks similar to the following example. If the seed status is ‘FINISHED,’ then the data has been completely read from the attached device attached.
7. To remove the device from the DR Series system to which the seed data has been written, enter the following command. (It is recommended that you enter the command, seed –stop, before removing the device.) seed –remove_device 8. If the data gathering from all the devices is complete, you can enter the following command to remove the seed job completely. seed --delete 9. Once the import is complete, replication re-sync must be performed between the source and target DR Series system containers.
• 3.2 Once the data on the device is imported, the seed import process will not delete the data on the seed location. You could use the same data, or the device, to import the data on a different DR Series system if needed (for example, to setup cascaded replication). However, it is recommended that you remove the data after replication setup is complete. Import CLI flow The following diagram demonstrates the flow of the data import using the DR Series system CLI commands.
4 Synchronizing the source and target containers Once seeding import is complete, two possible scenarios exist: • • 4.1 The target container already exists, or, The target container does not exist, and, therefore, a fresh replication pair must be created. If a target container exists If a target container exists, you should initiate replication re-sync between the source and target DR Series system containers.
