Subclients - SAN iDataAgents

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Overview

Configurable Properties

Things to Consider when Creating and Configuring SAN Subclients

• Image Level and Image Level ProxyHost iDataAgents
• ProxyHost iDataAgent

Overview

The following table shows subclient creation and configuration details specific to SAN iDataAgents.

Configurable Properties

Once installed, the agent is configured and is therefore able to manage the data or volumes on the client computer. However, you can change certain aspects of the subclient configuration to manage the data in the manner that best suits your needs.

You can view or change the subclient configuration from the Subclient Properties dialog box. The following information can be configured.

Activity Control

You can enable or disable all operations for this CommCell object and all objects below it. For more information, see Activity Control.

Content/Databases

You can define the content of the subclient. Most agents include a configure button that displays a dialog where you can add or modify the data included as subclient content. For step-by-step instructions, see Configure Subclient Content.

Data Transfer Options

Several configurable options to efficiently use available resources for transferring data secured by data protection operations are provided in the subclient. This includes the following:

• Enable or disable Data Compression either on the client or the MediaAgent.
• Configure the transfer of data in the network using the options for Network Bandwidth Throttling and Network Agents.

Data Encryption

You can enable or disable the encryption of data for transmission over unsecure networks and for storage on media. For more information, see Data Encryption.

Data Paths

You can view the data paths associated with the primary storage policy copy of the selected storage policy or incremental storage policy. You can also modify the data paths for the subclient including their priority. For additional information, see Configuring Alternate Data Paths for Subclients.

Data Protection Filters

You can perform the following functions:

• Define data protection filters to exclude specified subclient data from being backed up or archived. For more information, see Filters.
• Use regular expressions (or wildcards) in subclient data protection exclusion filters. See Inclusions, Exclusions, and Exceptions to Exclusions for more information.
• Perform in-place editing of subclient data protection filter exclusions and exceptions. See Editing Filters for more information.

The Filters tab is only available for the ProxyHost iDataAgent.

Pre/Post Processes

You can add, modify or view Pre/Post processes for the subclient. These are batch files or shell scripts that you can run before or after certain job phases. For more information, see Pre/Post Processes.

QSnap

If installed on the client, QSnap can be enabled to back up locked files, or to provide volume-level snapshot functionality and utilize the integrated block-filter driver. Agents that support this feature include Windows File System and Unix File System. If QSnap is enabled, the CommCell Configuration Report displays a superscript Q in the subclient column. For step-by-step instructions, see Enable QSnap on a Subclient.

Storage Policies

You can associate the subclient to a storage policy. For more information, see Storage Policies.

Subclient Name

You can rename a subclient. For step-by-step instructions, see Rename a Subclient.

User Accounts

The following pertains to the ProxyHost, Image Level on Windows, Image Level ProxyHost iDataAgents:

• You can define an account with permissions to execute Pre/Post commands for the agent's archive, backup, or volume creation jobs.

See the section for your agent in User Accounts and Passwords for more information.

User Security

You can perform the following functions:

• Identify the user groups to which this CommCell object is associated.
• Associate this object with a user group.
• Disassociate this object from a user group.

For more information, see User Administration and Security.

Volume Shadow Service (VSS) Backups

When using the Image Level iDataAgent in conjunction with a Windows iDataAgent that supports VSS, you can specify whether Volume Shadow Service (VSS) will be used to back up data for this subclient. If VSS is enabled, the CommCell Summary Report displays a superscript Q in the subclient column. For more information, see VSS for the Image Level iDataAgent.

Things to Consider when Creating and Configuring SAN Subclients

When creating and configuring subclients for SAN iDataAgents, keep in mind the following considerations:

Image Level and Image Level ProxyHost iDataAgents

• Subclient content can only be either a volume or a mount point.
• The Windows 2000 and higher operating systems allow you to add new volumes to the existing file system name space without using new drive letters. For each volume that you add in this manner, Windows establishes a mount point, a pointer from the directory to the target data. Mount points are supported subclient content.

• For the Image Level iDataAgent, you can add volumes to existing subclient content or remove them. However, whenever volumes are added or removed, this will cause the next backup job to be converted to a full backup.

• For Oracle BLI backups using the Image Level iDataAgent, each subclient is expected to quiesce one instance at a time. Do not configure an Image Level subclient's content with more than one Oracle instance; create separate subclients for each Oracle instance.
• For Solaris, if the slice 0 partition is empty and the disk is allocated space from slice 1 onwards, then slice 1 will be considered as slice 0 by the agent. So, from whatever slice partition you start to allocate space on the disk, that particular slice will be considered as slice 0.
• Do not specify the same volume as subclient content for both an Image Level and Image Level ProxyHost subclient.
• The size of a volume defined as subclient content will not be displayed until after the first backup and a refresh the CommCell Browser view.

ProxyHost iDataAgent

• For the ProxyHost iDataAgent, subclients are used to back up different portions of the file system on a client computer. Each subclient is a designated subset of a production server to back up host data path mappings. You can create multiple subclients with each subclient containing a unique set of the production server data paths.
• There are certain situations in ProxyHost where running multiple simultaneous backups is not advisable. The snapshot utility can only be used by one subclient at a time, and any other subclient trying to access that utility while it is already in use will fail. Therefore, we advise that you stagger your multiple subclient backups so that the PreScan phase of each backup will not overlap.
• When you back up Exchange 2000 data with the ProxyHost iDataAgent, one storage group should not span multiple subclients.

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