Best Practices for Setting up NetVault SmartDisk on a DR Disk Backup Appliance A Dell Technical White Paper
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Table of contents Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 4 Executive Summary .......................................................................................................................................................................... 5 1 Technical Setup/configuration Best Practices ........................................................
Introduction The Dell™ DR4X00 is a high-performance, disk-based backup and recovery appliance that delivers innovative features such as inline deduplication and compression, advanced data protection, and replication. Additionally, the management features, ease of deployment, and an architecture that enables core backup data to remain on disk and online longer can help organizations reduce the complexity associated with backup.
Executive Summary ™ This paper provides detailed information about how to set up a Dell DR Series Disk Backup Appliance as a ® target for NetVault SmartDisk software. In this configuration, NetVault SmartDisk is configured for target object store use for data protection operations. This enables the user to have a simple factoring method for using the storage footprint made available by containers hosted on the DR4X00 backup appliance.
1 Technical Setup/configuration Best Practices This section highlights key configuration and setup best practices to successfully add the DR backup Disk appliance for the use with NetVault Backup and NetVault SmartDisk. Please review this section carefully before embarking on the DR4X00 and NetVault install/configuration sequences outlined in chapters 2 through 4 of this guide NOTE: For NetVault SmartDisk, native DR4X00 replication support is not available at this time. 1.
After the basic installation of NetVault SmartDisk there are various attributes and settings that need to be made in order to tune the software for use within the DR4X00 Backup Appliance domain. These will include the following attributes post installation and prior to adding the instance to a NetVault Backup domain: o Create and configure a Chunk Index and Disk Index directory within the DR4X00 container defined for use.
Smartdisk Home >> foundation >> bin >> smartdisk(.sh/.bat) config --add --gc-window Anytime Smartdisk Home >> foundation >> bin >> smartdisk(.sh/.bat) config --add --dedupe-window Never Finally if you are configuring SmartDisk on a CIFS / UNC path hosted on the DR4X00 it is recommended that a block size of 512000 be set before data protection operations are conducted from the target configuration.
2 Install and Configure the DR4X00 1. Rack and cable the DR4X00 appliance, and power it on. 2. Log into iDRAC using the default address 192.168.0.1, user name root, and the password calvin. 3. Launch the virtual console. 4. Once the virtual console is open, log in to the system as user administrator and the password St0r@ge! (The “0” in the password is the numeral zero.).
5. Set the user-defined networking preferences. 6. View the summary of preferences and confirm that it is correct.
7. Log into the DR4X00 administrator console, using the IP address you just provided for the DR4X00, user administrator and the password St0r@ge! (The “0” in the password is the numeral zero.). 8. Join the DR4X00 to Active Directory. NOTE: if you do not want to add DR4X00 to Active Directory, see the Owner’s Manual for guest login instructions. a. 11 Select Active Directory in the tree on the left hand side of the dashboard.
b. Enter your Active Directory credentials. 9. Create and mount the container. c. 12 Select Containers in the tree on the left side of the dashboard, and then click the Create link at the top of the page.
d. Enter a Container Name and select the Enable CIFS check box. e. Select the client access credentials preferred.
Backup console (NetVault Server) Hyper-V hosts (on-host proxy for Hyper-V environments)s Off-host proxies (for Hyper-V environments) Backup proxies (for vSphere environments) f. Click Create a New Container. g. Confirm that the container was added.
h. Click Edit, and write down the container path, which you will use later to target the DR4X00. i. 15 Click Cancel to exit.
3 Configure the Backup Server and Install NetVault SmartDisk 1. Log into the media server and click on StartMy Computer. 2. Click Map network drive. 3. For Folder, enter the path to the container on the DR4X00. 4. Select the Reconnect at logon check box.
5. When prompted, enter the DR4X00 login credentials. 6. The DR4X00 container is now mounted to your backup server. 7. In the DR container, create two folders — Stage and Store. 8. Install NetVault SmartDIsk. 17 j. k. Download or copy the NetVault install application to the backup server. Click install. l. Click Next to start the installation, and select to accept the license agreement.
m. Create a Non- Privileged User. Enter the User account name and Password of a local user that will be used as a non-privileged account for NetVault SmartDisk. n. When a warning message states the application will create a new user, select Yes and click Next. o. Select the installation folder for SmartDisk. p. When prompted, select Remote and click Next. q.
r. Enter the full path to the Store folder that you created in the DR4X00 container, along with the user name and password required to access the folder. s. When prompted to enable SmartDisk WebDAV, select Yes. t. Enter the non-privileged user information that was created in step D. u.
v.
4 Configure NetVault SmartDisk NOTE: This Chapter assumes that the user has already created the needed CIFS, NFS, CIFS/NFS container and assigned the desired permission(s) as detailed in the Install and Configure the DR4X00 chapter. 4.1 Windows The steps in this section will require access to the NetVault SmartDisk server and the NetVault NetBackup Server. 1. From a command prompt on the SmartDisk server, cd to the \NetVault SmartDisk\Foundation\bin folder. 2. Run the command smartdisk.
5. Run the following command to add the license key for SmartDisk: smartdisk.bat license –t 6. Add the SmartDisk to the NetVault Backup Server as a library 7. 22 Select Device Management and under the Add Section, Select Add NetVault SmartDisk. Type the name of the SmartDisk server within the Host Field.
8. Click on the Save icon in the top left corner of the Pop up window above. Once the device is added successfully, then click OK to exit.
9. Authorize the NDAV (WebDAV) from the NetVault Backup Server by using the command: “nvdav.exe –server [NetVault Server Name]” 10. Verify SmartDisk (Foundation) Services has started.
Setting up NetVault SmartDisk on the Dell™ DR4X00 Disk Backup Appliance
11. Assign the SmartDisk Library as the target device for NetVault Backup Job. Select Backup and on the Target Tab, Select the SmartDisk device as the target.
12. Finish configuring the rest of the Backup job parameters and then run it.
4.2 Linux/Unix 1. 28 Mount the container via the NFS path to the Linux/Unix SmartDisk client/server. The local mount point will be used for the SmartDisk path.
2. Create non-privilege user account. (Excerpt from the SmartDisk Installation Guide). 3. Install the SmartDisk application. Under the directory that contains the SmartDisk application, launch the installation with the following command: “./install” 4. Select the correct lanaguage when prompted.
5. The Install script will step you through the installation. The non-privilege user that was created in Step 2 above will be added. The CLI will prompt the user for the user account details: SmartDisk supports Post-process deduplication. If you would like to store the staged data (awaiting dedupe) at a separate location to the SmartDisk application, please enter a path below.
“./smartdisk.sh config --dedupe-enable FALSE “ 8. Add the SmartDisk to the NetVault Backup Server as a library 9. Select Device Management and under the Add Section, Select Add NetVault SmartDisk. Type the name of the SmartDisk server within the Host Field.
10. Click on the Save icon in the top left corner of the Pop up window above. Once the device is added successfully, then click OK to exit.
11. Authorize the NDAV (WebDAV) from the NetVault Backup Server by running the command: “./nvdav –server ” from “/usr/netvault/util”.
Setting up NetVault SmartDisk on the Dell™ DR4X00 Disk Backup Appliance
5 Set up the DR4X00 Cleaner Once all the backup jobs are setup the DR4X00 cleaner must be scheduled. The DR4X00 cleaner should run at least 6 hours per week when backups are not taking place, generally after a backup job has completed. 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.
6 Monitoring Dedupe, Compression & Performance After backup jobs have run the DR4X00 will track Capacity, Storage Savings and Throughput on the DR4X00 dashboard. This information is valuable in understanding the benefits the DR4X00. 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 complete the ratios will increase.
Appendix A Additional Resources Dell online support resources: Dell technical support site: http://support.dell.com Dell TechCenter is an online IT community where IT professionals connect with Dell customers and employees to share knowledge, best practices, and other information about Dell products and installations: http://DellTechCenter.com Dell DR4X00 -NetVault resources: Dell DR4X00 manuals/guides: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/SYSTEMS/DR4X00/en/index.
