0. CommVault Media Management - Overview

1. 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
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
Servers
Virtual Servers

2. 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

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

4. 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

5. 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.

6. 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

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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. Split index cache ScenariosDR
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 yr
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

12. 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)

13. 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

14. 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

15. Q&A