We have created a standard installation for creating a high performance, fault tolerant, active-active setup with two CommVault mediaagents.
We use partitioned deduplication and GridStor. the following diagram is an overview of the environment.
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We noticed that the Books online is not all that complete in all the steps, so I decided to make a blog with all the steps.
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Pre-requisites:
- CommVault 10 SP8
With a capacity license or SKU with GridStor, Shared disk library and advanced disk - Two high performance MediaAgents.
We mostly use HP DL380p with one or two Intel Xeon V2/V3
32 or 64 GB of memory in ideal CPU lane configuration (4 Dimm’s per CPU)
2x 600 GB disks in Raid-1 for the operating system and pagefile, etc
2x 800 GB SSD disks in Raid-1 for the DeDup DB – 4k blocksize format
IndexCache: I mostly use SATA or NL-Sas disks, but if you can afford it, use 10 or 15k rpm disks.
More info: http://documentation.commvault.com/commvault/v10/article?p=features/index/overview.htm
2x 4 TB in Raid-1 for IndexCache - Nas backup storage
Enterprise:
NetApp Fas 2500
HP StoreEasy with HP D3600 or D6000
Midrange:
Synology RackStation RS3614xs+
Step 1 – Create a shared library based on Nas storage
Create 4 or 8 TB luns/volumes on your Nas storage and share them with the mediaAgents using a dedicated account.
If possible format the luns/volumes with a blocksize of 64k.
Do not use drive letters, but mountpaths instead, this creates a more scalable solution.
Using the Library and Drive option from the toolbar, create a new disklibrary on the first MediaAgent.
You will have to add each share manually. When all shares are added to the library, add the second MediaAgent through the start button from Library and drive.
Go to the Shared Disk Device tab and for each mountpath, right click and select “Configure for all selected MediaAgents”.
In the CommVault console, richt click a few mountpaths of the new library to make sure they have two paths under the sharing tab.
Change the properties of the library mountpaths to spill and fill (aka use all mountpaths).
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Step 2 – Create a global deduplication policy
Now that we have a shared nas library connected to two MediaAgents, we can start configuring the Global deduplication policy.
Right click on Storage policies and select “New global deduplication policy”
Give the policy a name, I usually use something like: SP_GD_<location>
Select the disklibrary created in step 1.
Select the primary MediaAgent.
Deduplication is enabled by default, but we also want to enable partitioned deduplication
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In the next screen create a dedup database folder on each MediaAgent on the mirrored SSD disks.
Create a folder named DDB or something else which makes sense to you.
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Click Finish.
Step 3 – Add an extra data path
Now, open the new Global dedup policy and right click on the primary copy and select properties.
Click data Paths and then “Add” and add the second MediaAgents to the primary copy.
We have a gridstor enabled global deduplication policy.
Step 4 – Create a storage policy attached to the Global deduplication policy
Create a new storage policy attached to the global deduplication policy.
Right click on Storage Policies and select New Storage Policy.
Select data Protection and archiving
Give the Storage policy a logical name
Use existing global deduplication: Yes and enable client side deduplication.
You can also decide if you want to use client-side dedup later, but enable it in the policy.
Now, select the GDP created in step 2 and click Finish.
Step 5 – Use both paths when backing up.
Right click on the storage policy copy and select properties.
On the “data paths” tab you can see the two paths inherited from the GDP.
Click on the Data path configuration tab and enable round-robin.
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All done!!!
Off course we only have one copy. I would always create an extra copy to tape, cloud or to another location with the same setup.
And we will use DASH copy for this!