DR Series - Best Practice Guide Part 1: Setup, Replication and Networking Dell Data Protection Group
DR Series Best Practice Guide This document 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. © 2016 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Dell and its affiliates cannot be responsible for errors or omissions in typography or photography. Dell, the Dell logo, and PowerEdge are trademarks of Dell Inc. Intel and Xeon are registered trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S.
DR Series Best Practice Guide Contents Introduction .......................................................................................................................................................... 4 DR Series Manuals ............................................................................................................................................. 4 Other DR Series Documentation ..............................................................................................................
DR Series Best Practice Guide Introduction This document contains some of the best practices for deploying, configuring, and maintaining a Dell DR Series backup and deduplication appliance in a production environment. Following these best practices can help ensure the product is optimally configured for a given environment. This document applies to all DR series models including the DR Virtual appliance. Note, this guide is not a replacement for the administrator’s guide.
DR Series Best Practice Guide Case Studies Monrif Group Durham Region Police Service Nissan DCIG – Dell Encryption and VTL for DR Series ESG DR4X00 Lab Review Wholesale Electric Supply System Setup Hardware When the DR ships to a customer’s site and is powered on for the first time, the system still needs to complete a background initialization (init.) of the RAID. During this background init., the system may seem sluggish or write slower than expected. This will resolve itself within 24 hours.
DR Series Best Practice Guide Password Reset The DR appliance has the ability to allow the administrator to reset the administrator password. To ensure security, administrators should setup password reset immediately. This ensures that in the future if the admin password is forgotten it can be securely reset. Joining the domain If the DR is to be joined to an Active Directory domain it is recommend that this action is performed from the start.
DR Series Best Practice Guide 4. Markers are set at the container level 5. OST quotas are set on a container level and are applied at non-deduplicated capacities. 6. Container names cannot contain spaces Container limit There are several different strategies in which to approach container creation. In general, it is better to have as few containers as possible to maintain ease of management. This section is designed to assist in developing an optimal container strategy based on your organization’s needs.
DR Series Best Practice Guide Recommendation: Create a fifth container for vRanger data. This will allow the most flexibility in terms of locking down the NFS/CIFS share for vRanger, it also allows for the most flexibility in terms of replicating the data offsite in the future.
DR Series Best Practice Guide Access Protocols Access protocols are set on a per container basis when a container is created. In some cases these cannot be changed. The protocol options are options are as follows: CIFS or NFS only CIFS and NFS together (although cross protocol support is not supported) OST Only, RDS Only, NDMP Only, iSCSI Only It is possible to add or remove CIFS/NFS access. However, once the container has RDS/OST added it is not changeable.
DR Series Best Practice Guide Replication Setup and Planning The DR appliance provides robust replication capabilities to provide a complete backup solution for multi-site environments. With WAN optimized replication, only unique data is transferred to reduce network traffic and improve recovery times. Replication can also be scheduled to occur during nonpeak periods, and prioritizes ingest data over replication to ensure optimal backup windows.
DR Series Best Practice Guide fewer expansion shelves in order to provide the necessary resources for improved performance. Calculate Replication Interval Calculating the required bandwidth for replication will assist in properly sizing the infrastructure for maximum performance. In order to calculate the time required to replicate a given container the following two points of data are required: 1. Identify the amount of data that will be replicated.
DR Series Best Practice Guide Video Conferencing, limits can be applied to the DR traffic to allow that application the required bandwidth. Keep in mind, when setting bandwidth throttling policies on a container replicating between two physical DR appliances, the policy will be applied for all containers between the replicated devices. For example, containers 1 and 2 on a DR appliance are set to replicate to a secondary DR appliance.
DR Series Best Practice Guide 13
DR Series Best Practice Guide Reducing Bandwidth Concerns A successful replication configuration interacts with its environment positively. In situations where replication traffic is negatively impacting other services, fine tuning becomes necessary to limit the impact. The following suggestions will help make sure replication is not placing a burden on other services. 1. Make certain to schedule the replication process outside the hours where it could impact business.
DR Series Best Practice Guide Networking The DR appliance provides many networking capabilities, designed to further improve the ingest and recovery speeds in any environment. One such feature is secure separation, allowing network optimization by preventing unnecessary traffic on the production network via routing the backup, management, and replication traffic to separate network interfaces.
DR Series Best Practice Guide Network Interface Card Bonding Network interface card (NIC) bonding provides additional throughput and/or failover functionality in the event a link is lost. The DR4100 supports two bonding modes: dynamic link aggregation and adaptive load balancing (802.3ad and ALB). Each of these modes has their own advantages and disadvantages that should be considered before choosing a mode. Dynamic link aggregation (Mode 4 or 802.
DR Series Best Practice Guide 1. Disable Spanning Tree 2. Connect to a single switch using ALB 3. Enable 802.3ad Note: Always ensure that data source system (i.e. systems that send data to the DR4100) are located on the same subnet. Failure to do so will result in all traffic being sent to the first interface in the bond. This is because adaptive load balancing cannot properly load balance when data sources are located on a remote subnet.
DR Series Best Practice Guide System --reboot Example administrator@DR1 > network -- factory_reset --auto_bonding_speed 1G Warning: This will stop all system operation and will reset the network configuration to factory settings and will require a system robbon. Existing configuration will be lost. Password required to proceed. Please enter the administrator password : administrator@DR1 > System --reboot Note: When creating a bond ensure that the interfaces to bond have active links.
DR Series Best Practice Guide Scenario 1: Leverage separate interfaces for management, replication and backup traffic Sarah, a network administrator, has an office located in Boston and another located in New York (See Figure 3). At each office she has a DR appliance and wishes to configure separate interfaces for management, backup and replication traffic. Her desired configuration is as follows: Use bond0 for management.
DR Series Best Practice Guide Hardware configuration DR1– 2x 1GB interfaces and bond0 as 2x 10GB interfaces DR2 – 2x 1GB interfaces and 2x 10GB interfaces Configure DR1 1. Display the original configuration of DR1 using the following command: network --show Example administrator@DR1 > network --show Automatic bonding speed: 10G Device : bond0 Enabled : yes Link : yes Boot protocol : dhcp IP Addr : 10.250.243.132 Netmask : 255.255.252.0 Gateway : 10.250.240.
DR Series Best Practice Guide Example administrator@DR1 > network --factory_reset --auto_bonding_speed 1G WARNING: This will stop all system operation and will reset the network configuration to factory settings and will require a system reboot. Existing configuration will be lost. Password required to proceed. Please enter the administrator password: Resetting network configuration, please wait....
DR Series Best Practice Guide 3. Break bond0 to create the following configuration: Bond0 with single 1GB interface to be used for management. A single 1GB interface to be used for replication traffic. A bonded 2x 10GB interface to be used for backup traffic. a) Delete eth1 from bond0 using the following command: network -- delete --member Example administrator@DR1 > network -- delete -- member eth1 Interface delete successful. Please restart networking for the changes to take effect.
DR Series Best Practice Guide Example administrator@DR1 > network --create_eth --nwif eth1 --static --ip 10.250.243.222 -netmask 255.255.252.0 -- name DR1-replication --restart WARNING: During network restart a loss of connection may occur and a relogin may be necessary. Password required to proceed. Please enter the administrator password: Interface operation successful. Network restart will now be done. Restarting network...
DR Series Best Practice Guide Example administrator@DR1 > system --backup_traffic --add --type CIFS --interface bond1 WARNING: This operation requires Windows access server restart. Do you want to continue (yes/no) [n]? y Successfully added application CIFS. Restarting Windows Access Server... Done. administrator@DR1 > system --backup_traffic --add --type NFS --interface bond1 Do you want to continue (yes/no) [n]? y Successfully added application NFS. Restarting file system ... done.
DR Series Best Practice Guide Example administrator@DR2 > replication --add --name backup --role source --peer DR2replication --peer_name backup-from-DR1 Enter password for administrator@DR2-replication: Replication entry created successfully. Replication Container : backup Replication Role : Source Replication Target : DR2-replication.ocarina.local Replication Target IP : 10.250.243.220 Replication Target Mgmt Name Replication Target Mgmt IP : 10.250.243.
DR Series Best Practice Guide Scenario 2: Leverage one bonded interface for management, replication and OST traffic and another for backup traffic Robert has a DR4100 with firmware 2.1, 2x 10GB interfaces and 2x 1GB interfaces. He wishes to use the 1GB interfaces for replication, management and OST traffic. He wants to use the 10GB interfaces for backup traffic only. Robert will need to do the following to accomplish his goals: Verify that all interfaces are detected by the DR appliance.
DR Series Best Practice Guide 1. Set bond0 to 1GB using the following command: network --factory_reset [--auto_bonding_speed <1G|10G>] Example administrator@DR1 > network -- factory_reset –auto_bonding_speed 1G Warning: This will stop all system operation and will reset the network configuration to factory settings and will require a system robbon. Existing configuration will be lost. One or more of these interfaces 'eth0,eth1' are in use by an application.
DR Series Best Practice Guide 3. Create a bond for the 2x 10GB interfaces using the following command: network --create_bond --bondif --dhcp --nwif -- mode
DR Series Best Practice Guide Scenario 3: Replication between sites with dedicated interfaces Daniel has two sites, each with a DR appliance that he wishes to configure as a replication pair over dedicated links.
DR Series Best Practice Guide Note: The above is an example of a default route. The command above is not accessible to customers. In order for the two DRs to replicate over the dedicated links, static routes should be provisioned in such a way that the replication flows over those paths. This is done in the steps below. 1.
DR Series Best Practice Guide network --create_eth --nwif --static --ip --netmask network --show Example administrator@DR2> network --create_eth --nwif eth2 --static --ip 172.20.21.2 -netmask 255.255.255.0 administrator@DR2 > network --create_eth --nwif eth3 --static --ip 172.20.23.2 --netmask 255.255.255.0 –-restart administrator@DR2 > network --show 6.
DR Series Best Practice Guide Example administrator@DR1 > network --route --add --network 172.20.21.2 --netmask 255.255.255.0 --gateway 172.20.21.1 --interface eth2 administrator@DR1 > network --route --add --network 172.20.23.2 --netmask 255.255.255.0 --gateway 172.20.23.1 --interface eth3 administrator@DR1 > network --show --routes Destination Gateway Mask Interface 172.20.21.0 172.20.20.1 255.255.255.0 eth2 172.20.23.0 172.20.22.1 255.255.255.0 eth3 9.
DR Series Best Practice Guide Scenario 4: Multiple appliance replication Jose has one DR4100 appliance located at his Seattle site and two DR4100s located at his Lansing site. He wants to replicate data from his Seattle site (Seattle1) to his Lansing site (Lansing1). He would also like to replicate data backed up at Lansing1 to another site, Lansing2. Jose will need to do the following to accomplish his goals: Create bonds on the appropriate interfaces on all three appliances.
DR Series Best Practice Guide 1. On Lansing1 create a bond on the 1GB ports using the following command: network --create_bond --bondif --static --nwif --mode --mtu <512-9000> --ip --netmask --restart Example administrator@Lansing1 > network --create bond --bondif bond1 --static --nwif eth2,eth3 -mode ALB --mtu <512-9000> --ip --netmask --restart 2.
DR Series Best Practice Guide 6. Establish replication from Seattle1 to Lansing1 using the following command: replication --add --name < container-name> --role --peer -replication_traffic --encryption Example administrator@Seattle1 > replication --add --name backup --role source --peer --replication_traffic --encryption aes256 7.
DR Series Best Practice Guide Scenario 5: Backup to different IP’s on a single DR appliance Michelle is in Los Angeles and has a Netbackup media server that she wishes to have backed up to her DR appliance via different IP addresses. Her appliance is running an older firmware and needs to be upgrade to the 3.2. Michelle will need to do the following to accomplish her goals: Upgrade the DR to firmware to 3.2. Set the media server to use the two interfaces of the DR appliance.
DR Series Best Practice Guide 1. Upgrade the DR appliance to the latest 3.2 firmware. 2. After the upgrade, two additional 1 GB interfaces will appear. The 10GB interfaces will be bonded as bond0. Use the following command to view the available network interfaces: network --show 3. Break bond0 and release eth0 from bond0 using the following command: network -- delete --member network -- restart Example administrator@DR> network --delete -- member eth0 network --restart 4.
DR Series Best Practice Guide On the Netbackup Media server: 1. Check connectivity between the Media server and the newly created configured interface on the DR using the interface’s DNS name (dr-cifs.local). Note: If complete Netbackup setup and configurations steps are needed, refer to the following document: NetBackup Setup Guide. 2. Create a storage unit on the Media server with the UNC path to the DR’s CIFS (or NFS if using an NFS Media server) container.
DR Series Best Practice Guide Troubleshooting Follow the steps bellow to troubleshoot connectivity problems between source and target DRs. a) Issue the following command to the target command to troubleshoot connectivity: replication -- troubleshoot --peer Example administrator@DR1 > replication --troubleshoot --peer 10.250.243.222 Testing connection to port 9904... Connected! Testing connection to port 9911... Connected! Testing connection to port 9915...
DR Series Best Practice Guide Other Resources Dell Support http://support.dell.com Dell TecCenter http://en.community.dell.
