HP D2D - Manual

6 NAS best practices at a glance Configure multiple shares and separate data types into their own shares. Adhere to the suggested maximum number of concurrent operations per share/appliance. Choose disk backup file sizes in backup software to meet the maximum backup size. Disable software compressio...

7 HP StoreOnce Technology A basic understanding of the way that HP StoreOnce Technology works is necessary in order to understand factors that may impact performance of the overall system and to ensure optimal performance of your backup solution. HP StoreOnce Technology is an “inline” data deduplica...

8 Appended backups need to “clone” the cartridge on the target side, so performance of appended tape replication will not be significantly faster than replicating the whole cartridge. If a lot of similar data exists on remote office D2D libraries, replicating these into a single target library will ...

9 hold-off to prevent impacting the performance of other operations. It is, however, important to note that the hold-off is not binary, (i.e. on or off) so, even if backup jobs are in process, some low level of housekeeping will still take place which may have a slight impact on backup performance. ...

10 The following graph illustrates only the relationship between the number of active data streams and performance. It is not based on real data. Data compression and encryption backup application features Both software compression and encryption will randomize the source data and will, therefore, n...

11 Network configuration All D2D appliances have two 1GBit Ethernet ports, the D2D4312 and D2D4324 appliances also have two 10GBit Ethernet ports. The Ethernet ports are used for data transfer to iSCSI VTL devices and CIFS/NFS shares and also for management access to the Web Management Interface. In...

12 Single Port mode 1Gbit ports: use this mode only if no other ports are available on the switch network or if the appliance is being used to transfer data over fibre channel ports only. On an HP D2D4312 or D2D4324 with 10Gbit ports it is possible that a single 10Gbit port will deliver good perform...

13 Dual Port mode Use this mode if: Servers to be backed up are split across two physical networks which need independent access to the D2D appliance. In this case virtual libraries and shares will be available on both network ports; the host configuration defines which port is used. Separate data (...

14 High availability port mode (Port failover) In this mode, no special switch configuration is required other than to ensure that both Ethernet ports in the pair from the D2D appliance are connected to the same switch. This mode sets up “bonded” network ports, where both network ports are connected...

15 10Gbit Ethernet ports on the 4312/4324 appliances 10Gbit Ethernet is provided as a viable alternative to the Fibre Channel interface for providing maximum VTL performance and also comparable NAS performance. When using 10Gbit Ethernet it is common to configure a “Network SAN”, which is a dedicate...

16 Broadly there are two possible configurations which allow both: Access to the Active Directory server for AD authentication and Separation of Corporate LAN and Network SAN traffic Option 1: HP D2D Backup System on Corporate SAN and Network SAN In this option, the D2D device has a port in the Corp...

17 Option 2: HP D2D Backup System on Network SAN only with Gateway In this option the D2D has connections only to the Network SAN, but there is a network router or Gateway server providing access to the Active Directory domain controller on the Corporate LAN. In order to ensure two-way communication...

18 Backup server networking It is important to consider the whole network when considering backup performance, any server acting as a backup server should be configured where possible with multiple network ports that are teamed / bonded in order to provide a fast connection to the LAN. Client server...

19 Fibre Channel configuration Fibre Channel topologies The D2D appliances support both switched fabric and direct attach (private loop) topologies. Direct Attach (point to point) topology is not supported. Switched fabric using NPIV (N Port ID Virtualisation) offers a number of advantages and is th...

20 Direct Attach (Private Loop) A direct attach (private loop) topology is implemented by connecting the D2D appliance ports directly to a Host Bus Adapter (HBA). In this configuration the Fibre Channel private loop protocol must be used. Fibre Channel, direct attach (private loop) topology Virtual ...

21 Zoning may not always be required for configurations that are already small or simple. Typically the larger the SAN, the more zoning is needed. Use the following guidelines to determine how and when to use zoning. Small fabric (16 ports or less)—may not need zoning. Small to medium fabric (16 - 1...

22 Another page on the Configuration – Fibre Channel page of the Web Management interface shows the status for all the FC devices that are configured on the D2D appliance. It lists the connection state, port ID, Port type and number of logins for each virtual library and drive connection. This page ...

23 A mixture of iSCSI and FC port virtual libraries and NAS shares can be configured on the same D2D appliance to balance performance needs. Sizing solutions The following diagram provides a simple sizing guide for the HP D2D Generation 2 product family for backups and backups and replication. HP D2...

25 VTL best practices Summary of best practices Tape drive emulation types have no effect on performance or functionality. Configuring multiple tape drives per library enables multi-streaming operation per library for good aggregate performance. Do not exceed the recommended maximum concurrent backu...

27 A similar limitation exists for Fibre Channel. Although there is a theoretical limit of 255 devices per FC port on a host or switch, the actual limit appears to be 128 for many switches and HBAs. You should either balance drives across FC ports or configure less than 128 drives per library . Some...

28 Some minor setting changes to upstream infrastructure might be required to allow backups with greater than 256 KB block size to be performed. For example, Microsoft’s iSCSI initiator implementation, by default, does not allow block sizes that are greater than 256 KB. To use a block size greater t...

30 D2D NAS best practices Introduction to D2D NAS backup targets The HP StorageWorks D2D Backup System now supports the ability to create a NAS (CIFS or NFS) share to be used as a target for backup applications. The NAS shares provide data deduplication in order to make efficient use of the physical...

31 Shares and deduplication stores Each NAS share created on the D2D system has its own deduplication “store”; any data backed up to a share will be deduplicated against all of the other data in that store, there is no option to create non-deduplicating NAS shares and there is no deduplication betwe...

32 The number of concurrently open files in the table above do not guarantee that the D2D will perform optimally with this number of concurrent backups, nor do they take into account the fact that host systems may report a file as having been closed before the actual close takes place, this means th...

36 If backing up using application agents (e.g. Exchange, SQL, Oracle) it is recommended that only one backup per share is run concurrently because these application agents frequently open more concurrent files than standard file type backups. D2D2502 G1 D2D2503 G1 D2D2504 G1 D2D400X G1 D2D4112 G1 S...

37 Verify By default most backup applications will perform a verify pass on each back job, in which they read the backup data from the D2D and check against the original data. Due to the nature of deduplication the process of reading data is slower than writing as data needs to be re-hydrated. Thus ...

38 operations. Housekeeping remains an important part of the data deduplication solution and enough time must be allowed for it to complete in order to make best use of available storage capacity. See Housekeeping monitoring and control on page 71 for more information on best practices for applying ...

39 A local user with the same username and password must be created on the media server that will be using the D2D CIFS share. The backup application services must be configured to run as the local user (how this is configured varies by backup application). The best practice when using User authenti...

40 1. Create a new Host(A) record in the forward lookup zone for the domain to which the D2D belongs with the hostname and IP address of the D2D. Click Add Host . 2. Also create a Pointer(PTR) in the reverse lookup zone for the domain for the D2D appliance by providing hostname and IP address. Click...

41 Now that the D2D is a member of the domain its shares can be managed from any computer on the domain by configuring a customized Microsoft Management Console (MMC) with the Shared Folders snap-in. Once you have created shares you can manage them as follows. 1. Open a new MMC window by typing mmc ...

43 6. Double click a share name in the right-hand pane and select the Permissions tab. Add a user or group of users from the domain. Specify the level of permission that the users will receive and click Apply . Leaving an AD domain The user may wish to leave an AD domain in order to: Temporarily lea...

44 VTL and NAS – Data source performance bottleneck identification In a lot of cases backup and restore performance using the HP D2D Backup System is limited by factors outside of the appliance itself. For example the speed at which data can be transferred to and from the source disk system (the sys...

46 The activity graph below shows the end of a Virtual Tape Read. How to use the D2D storage and deduplication ratio reporting metrics D2D appliances with software at version 1.0.0 and 2.0.0 and later provide more detailed storage reporting and deduplication ratio metrics on the Web Management Inter...

48 D2D Replication The HP StorageWorks D2D products provide deduplication-enabled, low bandwidth replication for both VTL and NAS devices. Replication enables data on a “replication source” D2D to be replicated to a “replication target” D2D system. Replication provides a point-in-time “mirror” of th...

49 Replication usage models There are four main usage models for replication using D2D devices. Active/Passive – A D2D system at an alternate site is dedicated solely as a target for replication from a D2D at a primary location. Active/Active – Both D2D systems are backing up local data as well as r...

52 Replication overview What to replicate D2D VTL replication allows for a subset of the cartridges within a library to be mapped for replication rather than the entire library (NAS replication does not allow this). Some retention policies may not require that all backups are replicated, for example...

53 Appliance, library and share replication fan in/out Each D2D model has a different level of support for the number of other D2D appliances that can be involved in replication mappings with it, and also the number of libraries that may replicate into a single library on the device as follows: Max ...

54 Concurrent replication jobs Each D2D model has a different maximum number of concurrently running replication jobs when it is acting as a source or target for replication. The table below shows these values. When many items are available for replication, this is the number of jobs that will be ru...

55 Amount of data in each backup Data change per backup (deduplication ratio) Number of D2D systems replicating Number of concurrent replication jobs from each source Number of concurrent replication jobs to each target As a general rule of thumb, however, a minimum bandwidth of 2 Mb/s per replicati...

57 Seeding methods in more detail Seeding over a WAN link With this seeding method the final replication set-up (mappings) can be established immediately. Active/Passive Active/Active WAN seeding over the first backup is, in fact, the first wholesale replication. WAN seeding after the first backup a...

58 Many to One WAN seeding over the first backup is, in fact, the first wholesale replication from the many remote sites to the Target site. Care must be taken not to run too many replications simultaneously or the Target site may become overloaded. Stagger the seeding process from each remote site.

60 Many to One Co-location seeding at Source (remote) sites; transport target D2D between remote sites. 1. Initial backup at each remote site 2. Replication to Target D2D over GbE at each remote site. 3. Move Target D2D between remote sites and repeat replication. 4. Finally take Target D2D to Data ...

61 Floating D2D method of seeding Many to Once Seeding with Floating D2D target – for large fan-in scenarios Co-location seeding at Source (remote) sites. Transport floating target D2D between remote sites then perform replication at the Data Center site. Repeat as necessary. 1. Initial backup at ea...

63 Seeding using physical tape or portable disk drive and ISV copy utilities Many-to-one seeding using Physical Tape or portable disk drives Physical tape-based or portable disk drive seeding 1. Initial backup to D2D. 2. Copy to tape(s) or a disk using backup application software on Media Server for...

65 Replication and other D2D operations In order to either optimize the performance of replication or minimize the impact of replication on other D2D operations it is important to consider the complete workload being placed on the D2D. By default replication will start quickly after a backup complet...

66 A bandwidth limit calculator is supplied to assist with defining suitable limits. Source Appliance Permissions It is a good practice to use the Source Appliance Permissions functionality provided on the Replication - Partner Appliances tab to prevent malicious or accidental configuration of repli...

67 Replication Monitoring It It The aim of replication is to ensure that data is “moved” offsite as quickly as possible after a backup job completes. The “maximum time to offsite” varies depending on business requirements. The D2D Backup System provides tools to help monitor replication performance ...

68 Replication Throughput totals Whilst replication jobs are running the Status - Source/Target Active Jobs pages show some detailed performance information averaged over several minutes. The following information is provided: Source / Target jobs running: The number of replication jobs that this ap...

70 This is very useful to identify: Differences in bandwidth saving and therefore deduplication ratio for an individual cartridge or file. These can be directly correlated to backup jobs and allow the backup administrator to see the deduplication efficiency of specific data backups. Individual files...

71 Housekeeping monitoring and control Terminology Housekeeping: If data is deleted from the D2D system (e.g. a virtual cartridge is overwritten or erased), any unused chunks will be marked for removal, so space can be freed up (space reclamation). The process of removing chunks of data is not an in...

72 By setting a housekeeping blackout window appropriately from 12:00 to 00:00 we can ensure the backups and replication run at maximum speed as can be seen below. The housekeeping is scheduled to run when the device is idle. However some tuning is required to determine how long to set the housekeep...

73 Overall section This section shows the combined information from both the Libraries and Shares sections. The key features within this section are: Housekeeping Statistics: Status has three options: OK if housekeeping has been idle within the last 24 hours, Warning if housekeeping has been process...

75 Tape Offload Terminology Direct Tape Offload This is when a physical tape library device is connected directly to the rear of the D2D Generation 1 products (D2D2503, 4004, 4009, 2502A, 2504A, 4112A - which are now obsolete) using a SAS host bus adapter. The D2D device itself manages the transfer ...

76 Tape Offload/Copy from D2D versus Mirrored Backup from Data Source A summary of the supported methods is shown below. For easiest integration For optimum performance Backup application copy to tape Separate physical tape mirrored backup The backup application controls the copy from the D2D applia...

77 Note: Target Offload can vary from one backup application to another in terms of import functionality. Please check with your vendor. Backup application tape offload at D2D source site 1. Copy D2D to physical tape; this uses the backup Copy job to copy data from D2D to physical tape and is easy t...

78 Key performance factors in Tape Offload performance Note in the diagram below how the read performance from a D2D4312 (red line) increases with the number of read streams – just like with backup. If the D2D4312 reads with a single stream (to physical tape) the copy rate is about 370 GB/hour. Howe...

79 2. For “Media Copies” it is always best to try and match the D2D VTL cartridge size with the physical media cartridge size to avoid wastage. For example: if using physical LTO4 drives (800 GB tapes) then when configuring D2D Virtual Tape Libraries the D2D cartridge size should also be configured ...

83 Appendix B – Fully Worked Example In this section we will work through a complete multi-site, multi-region D2D design, configuration and deployment tuning. The following steps will be undertaken: Hardware and site configuration definition Backup requirements specification Using HP StorageWorks Ba...

84 Backup requirements specification Remote Sites A/D NAS emulations required Server 1 – Filesystem 1, 100 GB, spread across 3 mount points Server 2 – SQL data, 100GB Server 3 – Filesystem 2, 100GB, spread across 2 mount points Server 4 –- Special App Data , 100GB Rotation Scheme – Weekly Fulls, 10%...

85 Using the HP StorageWorks Backup sizing tool Configure replication environment Click on Backup calculators and then Design D2D/VLS replication over WAN to get started. 1. Configure the replication environment for 4 source appliances to 1 target appliance, commonly known as Many to One replication...

87 In the case of sites A and D, when we enter all the backup jobs, we will have seven backup jobs running in parallel which will give us best throughput and backup performance. 3. For each Job you can view the rotation scheme and predicted deduplication ratios by displaying the Output from within t...

88 4. As you specify each job in turn click Add job and the job will be loaded to the summary table (see below).

89 5. Add all backup jobs for Sites A and D Please note in line with customer request, at sites A and D the D2D emulation has been selected as NAS Emulation with CIFS shares.

94 Sizer output The Sizer creates two outputs. It creates an excel spreadsheet with all the parts required for the solution including Service and Support, and any licenses required together with the List Pricing. It creates a solution overview (see below) which indicates the types of devices to be u...

96 Refining the configuration In this worked example it is crucial that we have as many jobs replicating to the target simultaneously as possible. 1. Use a feature in the Sizer to force the target device to be the next model upwards – an HP D2D4106 which has an increased replication concurrency when...

98 Note how because the replication is now more efficient we only need just over 2 Mbit/sec WAN links on each of the sources. Configure D2D source devices and replication target configuration Sites A and D The customer has already told us he wants NAS emulation at sites A and D. Server 1 – Filesyste...

101 Overlapping backups to minimize housekeeping interference Source 1 – Bad scheduling Source 2 – Good scheduling As backup DIR 1 finishes it triggers Housekeeping, which then impactsthe performance of the backup on DIR 2 If backup jobs can be scheduled to cpmplete at the same time, the impact of H...

103 Worked example – backup, replication and housekeeping overlaps Because we have sized D2D2502 for the sources - there is a limit of 4 concurrent source replication jobs at any one time. This simulation is valid for Code Versions 2.1 and above which use container matching technology and improved h...

104 Initial configuration with replication blackout window set There is improvement in some backup job performance e.g. Share 1 DIR2 & Share 2 SQL data, but replication jobs can only run 4 at a time (2502 concurrent source replication limit). Using V2.1 code and higher Housekeeping can now be sc...

106 Offload to Tape requirement In this example the customer wants to know: “What is the best practice to make monthly copies to physical tape from Site E?” One fundamental issue associated with the deduplication process used on D2D is that the data is “chunked” into nominal 4K pieces before it is s...

107 Avoiding bad practices The worked example describes the best practices. Typical bad practices are:- Bad Practice Results Not using the Sizing tool Incorrect models chosen because of wrong throughput calculations. Replication Link sizing incorrect Insufficient backup streams configured to run in ...

108 Appendix C HP Data Protector Tape Offload – Worked Examples HP Data Protector has an extensive range of Copy processes. Here we will look at how to offload both D2D Virtual Tape Libraries and D2D NAS shares to physical tape. Similar processes to this exist for all the major backup applications. ...

110 HP Data Protector has a context window for controlling Object operations as can be seen below. To perform a simple media copy 1. Right click on the media in the D2D Library in slot 1 and in the right-hand navigation pane select the target for the copy to be the physical library slot 1. Full medi...

111 2. Select the default parameters for the copy. It is important for base media copies that both the primary copy and the secondary copy media are of the same format in terms of block size, etc, as many backup applications cannot reformat “on the fly”. 3. The media copy is shown as successful. To ...

112 2. Click Next and, depending on what backup objects have been selected, HP Data Protector will check that all the necessary source devices (that wrote the backups) are available. Click Next . 3. Select the target (copy to) device and the drive to be used and click Next. Here we have chosen LTO5 ...

113 5. Select one or more media depending on the objects that are to be copied. Select Next to display the Summary screen and click Finish to start the object copy. 6. These screens show the Object copy in progress from the D2D Backup System to the physical LTO-5 media. 7. This Object copy can also ...

114 To perform an interactive object copy, D2D NAS share 1. Select Objects in the left-hand navigation pane and locate the D1D NAS share. 2. Click Next . Note below the Source device is now a D2D NAS share or in Data Protector terminology a File Library. 3. Select an LTO5 drive in the HP MSL G3 Libr...

116 Appendix D Making use of improved D2D performance in 2.1.01 and 1.1.01 software Overview HP StoreOnce D2D software released in February 2011 includes significant performance stabilization updates that reduce the disk access overhead of the deduplication process and therefore improve overall syst...

117 Replication for Virtual Device Migration This method involves using two D2D Backup Systems and has the benefit that it does not require additional disk space to be available on the existing D2D Backup System to work. HP ProLiantDL320s UID 12 Original File Share Original VTL D2D A New VTL New Fil...

118 Step 3 – Recover Data to new VTL /Share 1. Run the replication recovery wizard on the original D2D appliance, this will reverse replicate the data from the replication target device back to the new source device. 2. Wait for replication to synchronize the devices. 3. Remove the replication mappi...

119 Self Replication for Virtual Device Migration Self replication is the process of replicating data between two devices on the same D2D Backup System. This model requires that there is sufficient disk space on the D2D Backup System to hold two copies of the data being migrated but, with 2.1.00 and...

120 Step 1 – Self replicate data for migration 1. Create a new VTL or Share on the D2D Backup System; this will be the new location for the migrated data. It is not possible to use the same Share or Library names as the original or use the same WWN/Serial numbers for VTL devices. 2. Add a new replic...

121 Replication device self replication migration HP ProLiantDL320s UID 12 Original File Share Original VTL D2D A New VTL New File Share HP ProLiantDL320s UID 12 Replicated File Share Replicated VTL D2D B 1 2 3 Existing Replication Mapping Self Replication 1 Step 1 – Break Existing Replication Mappi...

122 5. Remove the replication mappings on both D2D Backup Systems. 6. Remove the appliance addresses from the list of replication target appliances on both D2D Backup Systems. 7. “Connect” the backup media server to the new source device. For example: – Mount the NFS share – Discover the iSCSI VTL d...

124 2. The new share has now been created and after a few seconds is online. At this point there is no user data stored in that share. 3. The next step is to begin configuring replication to migrate the data. Select Add Target Appliance from the Replication–Partner Appliances–Target Appliances page ...

125 5. Upon successful completion the local appliance will be added to the Target Appliances list. 6. Go to the Replication – NAS Mappings page, select the share to be replicated (i.e. the original share with backup data in it) and click Start Replication Wizard .

127 9. After completing the wizard, replication will begin synchronizing the data between the two shares. Synchronization will take some time to complete because all data must be replicated to the new device. Once complete, the status will change to Synchronized which means that the same data is pre...

128 11. Now reconfigure the backup application to use the new D2D share as a backup target device. For example the backup application will need to retarget backups to the new share. This should be done prior to deleting the original share to ensure the migration has been successful and that the back...

129 Index 10Gbit Ethernet, 15 A Active Directory, 15 active-to-active replication, 50 active-to-passive replication, 50 activity graph, 44 AD authentication, 39 AD domain joining, 39 leaving, 43 problems joining, 39 authentication, 38 B backup application and NAS, 32 backup application consideration...