Setting up Dell™ vRanger™ on the Dell DR Series System Dell Engineering April 2015 A Dell Technical White Paper
Revisions Date Description April 2015 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. © 2015 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 Revisions ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 2 Executive summary ................................................................................................................................................................................... 4 3 1 Installing and configuring the DR Series system ............................
Executive summary This whitepaper provides information about how to set up the Dell DR Series system as a backup to disk target for Dell vRanger backup software. 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 Installing and configuring the DR Series system 1. Rack and cable the DR Series system appliance, and power it on. 2. Log onto iDRAC using the default address, 192.168.0.1, with the username: root and password: Calvin. 3. Launch the virtual console.
4. When the virtual console opens, log on to the system as: user: administrator, password: St0r@ge! NOTE: The “0” in the password is the numeral zero. 5. Set the user-defined networking preferences as needed. 6. View the summary of preferences and confirm that the settings are correct.
. Log on to the DR Series system administrator console, using the IP address you just provided for the DR Series system as: user: administrator, password St0r@ge! 8. Join the DR Series system to Active Directory as described below. NOTE: If you do not want to add the DR Series system to Active Directory, see the Dell DR SeriesOwner’s Manual for guest logon instructions. a. 7 Click System Configuration > Active Directory in the left navigation area of the DR Series system GUI.
b. Enter your Active Directory credentials and click Join Domain. 9. Select Containers on the left navigation area, and then click the Create link at the top of the page.
10. Enter a Container Name and click Next. 11. For the Storage Access Protocol, select NAS (NFS, CIFS) and click Next. 12. Select NFS and CIFS as appropriate. (vRanger supports both CIFS and NFS protocols.
13. For NFS, set the client access credentials and click Next. 14. For CIFS, set the client access credentials and click Next.
NOTE: For improved security, Dell recommends adding IP addresses for the following components (Not all environments will have all components): 11 • Backup console (vRanger Server) • ESXi hosts (as vRanger backs up these VMs) • Backup proxies (for vSphere environments) Setting up Dell™ vRanger™ on the Dell DR Series System | April 2015
15. Click Create a New Container, and then confirm that the container was added.
16. Select the container and then click Edit. Reconfigure client access permissions, if required, and click Next. Make a note of the container path, which you will use later to target the DR Series system. 17. Click Modify this container to save any changes you made, or click Cancel to exit.
2 Configuring an NFS share for backup using vRanger For NFS backup using vRanger, you need to create a target folder under the NFS share directory. This folder is a subdirectory of the NFS Export directory and is the location to which save points will be written. (This configuration is not required when adding a CIFS share.) 1. Mount the NFS share onto any of the NFS clients available in the environment. 2. Create a directory by using the mkdir command inside the mounted directory.
3 Configuring an RDA container for backup 3.1 Create an RDS container 1. Select Containers in the left side of the DR Series system GUI, and then click Create. 2. Enter a container name and then click Next. 3. For the Storage Access Protocol, select Dell Rapid Data Storage (RDS).
4. LSU capacity is set as Unlimited. Click Next. 5. Click Create New Container, and then confirm that the container was added.
3.2 Configure the Dell RDA device in vRanger Configure the Dell RDA device in vRanger as follows: 1. Navigate to My Repository > Dell Rapid Access (RDA). 2. Confirm that the RDA devices are added.
3. In the DR Series system GUI, navigate to Storage > Client and click the RDA tab to review the configured RDA device details.
4 Setting up vRanger NOTES: • To maximize DR Series system vRanger storage capacity savings, Dell recommends that you adhere exactly to the following setup settings. • The backup formats differ completely when setup settings are changed. Hence, all savings on vRanger installations that had settings changed in between are null and void. 1. Open the vRanger Backup and Replication Console. 2. Go to My Inventory > Virtual > Add and add either your vCenter or ESX host.
• Adding Virtual Center When adding the vCenter host you need to provide the IP/Hostname and the logon credentials of the Virtual Center. 3. To add the physical server, go to My Inventory > Physical > Add, and then select the option, Install physical client on machine?. By default, the physical client is installed on the physical machine at C:\Program Files\Quest Software\.
4. You need to map the CIFS/NFS share to vRanger. (vRanger supports both CIFS and NFS protocols). • Mapping a CIFS share To map a CIFS share, go to My repository > Add > Windows Share (CIFS), enter the required details, and then click OK. Note: Dell recommends that you do not enable encryption. • 21 Mapping an NFS share To map an NFS share, go to My repository > Add > NFS, enter the required credentials, and then click OK.
Note: Export Directory lists the export directory but not the complete share path (that is, it does not provide IP/hostname of the DR Series system). Target Directory lists the target directory name that was created under the share directory [Mentioned above in section 2 ]. • For RDA, select the RDA device configured in the previous section, “Configure the Dell RDA device in vRanger.” 5. Right-click and enable change tracking (Change Block Tracking) on the VM you want to back up. 6.
7. Select disks to back up, and then select the repository to which the VM is to be backed up. 8. Select the appropriate Transport type according to the setup. If you are unsure, click Automatic Transport Selection.
9. Select backup options for the VM. NOTES: 24 • Always Disable ‘Check destination for free space’ since the DR Series system supports deduplication and so the overall space that is occupied is less. • Always enable ABM (Active Block Mapping) for better overall results from both vRanger and DR. • vRanger recommends enabling ‘Guest quiescing’ in case of backing up a database (Example: Exchange server). • Disable ‘compress backed up files’ for better savings.
10. Select backup options for the physical machine. 11. For the Retention Policy, select the type of backup technology as either None (which completes a Full backup), Incremental, or Differential.
12. Schedule the backup and then provide the mail server details for sending mail. The following example shows a backup summary page that opens when the target is a CIFS repository. The following example shows a backup summary page that opens when the target is a RDA repository.
5 Viewing a history of optimized copies in the DR Series system GUI In the DR Series system GUI, go to the Container Statistics > Duplication tab to view a history of optimized VM copies, as shown in the following example.
6 Configuring replication at the source This configuration enables source-side deduplication to reduce the amount of data moved over the network to the appliance. 6.1 Create an RDS container in the Dell DR Series system for the replication target 1. Select Containers in the left navigation area of the DR Series system GUI, and then click the Create link at the top of the page. 2. Enter a Container Name, and then click Next. 3. For Storage Access Protocol, select Dell Rapid Data Storage (RDS).
6.2 Configure replication at the target container in vRanger 1. Select the RDA device, right-click Configure Replication, and then enter the DR Series server and target container details. 2. Confirm the replication configuration by right-clicking the RDA repository and clicking Properties.
7 Setting up the DR Series system cleaner Performing scheduled disk space reclamation operations are recommended as a method for recovering disk space from system containers in which files were deleted as a result of deduplication. The system cleaner runs during idle time. If your workflow does not have a sufficient amount of idle time on a daily basis, then you should consider scheduling the cleaner to force it to run during a scheduled time.
8 Monitoring deduplication, compression, and performance After backup jobs have run, the DR Series system tracks capacity, storage savings, and throughput on the DR Series system dashboard. This information is valuable in understanding the benefits of the DR Series system. Note: Deduplication ratios increase over time. It is not uncommon to see a 2-4x reduction (25-50% total savings) on the initial backup. As additional full backup jobs are completed, the ratios will increase.
