CommVault Media Management - Overview

CommVault Architecture CommServe Management Server and OEM SQL DB Windows Only Single Management Console Media Agents The “Data Mover” that connects to the storage. Also known as “Backup Servers” Windows, Linux, UNIX CommCell To summarize CommVault Simpana uses a three tier architecture composed of the CommServe, the MediaAgents and the client or application agents. All of the components are included in the base DL Appliance product bundle. For more details on these components and how they work together, please review the CommVault Architecture module found on www.commvault.com/dell/support. The DL Appliance will install a new CommServe Console on the DL Appliance when installed for the first time, or can be merged into an existing Dell OEM CommVault CommCell. LONG-TERM ARCHIVE Client/Application Agents (iDA) Intelligent agents on each protected machine Windows, Linux, UNIX, VMware, Hyper-V Applications Databases File Systems e-mail Servers Virtual Servers

Key Commvault Terms - 1 Disk Library – A local or network disk storage attached and used by CommVault Media Agent (MA) Tape Library – Tape Library attached to an MA or shared among multiple MAs Index Cache – Disk Area on MA to catalog all the details of the backup/archived data for browsing during restore selection. Requires some space

Standalone Tape Library Tape Libraries Shared Tape Library Tape Drives Clients Tapes Full or Incremental Backups Media Agent(s) Standalone Tape Library

Disk and Data Deduplication Archive or Backups (with compression) DDB Deduplication backups or Archive Clients Dedupe Replication – DASH Copy Disk Library Media Agent SAN, NAS or iSCSI Remote DR Site Media Agent

What is a Deduplication Database (ddb)? Is the Repository for Signatures associated with all blocks that are protected. It holds reference counts to copies of blocks protected. Maintained via Storage Policy copies. Can have multiple MA membership. Only applicable for Disk and Cloud Libraries.

Closer look at the disks Disk Library is generic Any storage type (FC/iSCSI/NAS) Can accept dedupe or non-dedupe data I/O requirements will depend on total throughput DDB VERY IMPORTANT to be on fast high I/O disk (>1000 IOPS) Recommended SSD or many fast disks RAID together Will directly impact deduplication performance DDB Media Agent Disk Library

Standalone Tape Library Tape Libraries Shared Tape Library Tape Drives Clients Tapes Full or Incremental Backups Media Agent(s) Standalone Tape Library

Tape Management Drive Pool Media Group Default MasterPool Create individual drive pools for different policy to use Drive Allocation Policy will affect how many tape drives are used concurrently Media Group Create extra group if need to have different groups of tapes used by different Storage Policies Different types of barcodes or manually move tapes over Media Agent

Disk staging with Tape integration Backups to Disk Media Agent Backups Direct to Tape Remote DR Site Media Agent Clients Dedupe Replication – DASH Copy Disk Library Copy to Tape Copy to Tape Tape Library or VTL Tape Library or VTL

Split index cache Index Cache (IC) – Detailed record of all files, objects that has been ingested into CommVault, a.k.a Catalog. Main use is in data browsing and restoration Unlike many other backup SW, CommVault operates on a semi-distributed model. Index Cache Job 1 Job 3 SQL DB Record Job 1 Job 2 Job 3 Records of all files / objects in each Job CommServe Index Cache Job 2 Single DB Entry

Split index cache Scenarios DR Site A/P Cluster I CommServe I DR/CS I 3GB X SQL 2008 Fail Over and Fail Back Log Ship / Dump Meta Info, Media Management, Policies, Reporting, GUI Services, RBAC-Active Directory, Licensing SQL DB is aware of modular Index location for Client A regardless of storage tier. 3GB Only META data gets passed back to the CommServe MediaAgent I Disk Disk MediaAgent1 I MediaAgent2 I Disk X Split Index Catalog Recovery 100% 1%-2% I-A I-A Automatic Index Protection added to end of job. [tape001] or disk target. Mount [tape001] or read from disk or Cloud and re-cache Index 1d 7yr Remote Datacenter Client iDataAgent (Backup, CDR, Archiving, etc) Legacy CVLT Key Points: One of the underlying reasons for CVLT resiliency and flexibility is out Split-Index Architecture Commserve houses a “light” database, containing the metadata and common policies in an environment- will talk about why this is important in a moment. Media Agents house a Flat File Index Cache database where job specifics (i.e. this client protected on this day at this time with data written to tape ABC at this offset.) Dedupe database also housed at MA level When a job is conducted, append phase writes the same detail to whatever target media is being written to This method of distributing our indexes across the tiers of our Commcell provides scalability, performance, and resiliency benfits Mount tapes/disk/cloud and re-cache Indexes for Backups necessary to restore in Disaster Recovery Scenario.. A Client iDataAgent (Backup, CDR, Archiving, etc) Client iDataAgent (Backup, CDR, Archiving, etc) Ship tapes and restore at other Data Center without recovering large catalogs

Advantage of split index-cache SQL database in CommServe is always very small in size Easy to backup and restore in DR No need to have the Index Cache in order to restore data on disk or tape Can be dynamically cached back from disk or tape Can be a shared component across multiple Media Agents using NAS (Shared Index Cache)

Be careful of the Index cache retention Index Cache is NOT retained for the same period as the actual backup/archive data Default is 15 days on Media Agent Can be changed per Media Agent to any desired value Will change the Index Cache storage sizing Index Cache Job 1 Job 3 SQL DB Record Job 1 Job 2 Job 3 Retained for 15 days (default) CommServe Index Cache Job 2 Retained for 90 days (manually set) Retained for as long as Job has valid data

Redundancy - Gridstor Built-in logic and algorithms for managing data paths Load Balancing or Failover Clients Failover Load Balanced Load Balanced DDB DDB Media Agents Disk Library Disk Library

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