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Configuring Alternate Data Paths for Subclients - Examples
Configuring Alternate Data Paths for Secondary Copies - Examples
Configuring Alternate Data Paths using Windows MediaAgents connected to SAN Volumes
The following examples illustrate how to use the subclient data paths to effectively reduce media utilization.
| In this example, a set of clients point to Storage Policy 1 while another set of clients points to Storage Policy 2. Each of these storage policies are configured with the default and alternate data paths using two MediaAgents to ensure that data protection operations succeed when a component in the default path is not available. However, media consumption will be high as by default, each storage policy writes to a media. (Storage Policies cannot be configured to share the same media.) In the sample diagram shown in the right, all client data routed through Storage Policy 1 will utilize a media and all data routed through Storage Policy 2 will utilize another media. Further, when a failover occurs additional media will be utilized by the new data path. This can be overcome by defining subclient data paths, as described below. |
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| To ensure that all data protection operations utilize the same media, you can create one storage policy with both the data paths configured. This storage policy is in turn used by all the clients. But within their subclients MediaAgent 1 is set as the default data path and MediaAgent 2 as the alternate data path for the first set of clients and vice-versa in the second set of clients. Note that in this case it is not necessary to share the index, as the MediaAgents and libraries are connected in the SAN. |
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In this example, client group 1 has a set of clients which utilize MediaAgent 1
and MediaAgent 2, while client group 2 has another set of clients that utilize
MediaAgent 3 and MediaAgent 4. Both these clients groups with their appropriate
MediaAgents are separated by a firewall. As with example 1, media utilization
will be more if 2 storage policies are defined to accommodate this setup. As illustrated in the sample diagram shown in the right, the solution is to define one storage policy with four data paths that utilize each all the available MediaAgents. Further, all the clients in client group 1 can be configured with subclient data paths pointing to MediaAgent 1 and MediaAgent 2 and all the clients in client group 2 can be configured with subclient data paths pointing to MediaAgent 3 and MediaAgent 4. This will ensure both failover protection as well as minimal media utilization. |
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The following examples illustrate how to use the secondary copies with data paths to perform Auxiliary Copies.
Example 1 |
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In this example the MediaAgents perform LAN-free operations using a disk
library for the primary copy and a tape/optical library for creating the
secondary copies. The primary copy is created by backing up data to a local disk using the following data paths in the primary copy:
The MediaAgents are connected to a library (Library 1) in the SAN environment and Auxiliary copies to tape are made using the following data paths in the secondary copies:
Make sure that the Use Preferred Datapath option is enabled to ensure that the system automatically perform LAN free operation wherever possible. |
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Example 2 |
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In this example, the MediaAgents perform LAN-free operations using a
tape/optical library for creating both the primary and secondary copies.For MediaAgents 1 and 2:The primary copy is created with the following data paths:
The secondary copy is created with the following data paths:
For MediaAgents 3 and 4:The primary copy is created with the following data paths:
The secondary copy is created with the following data paths:
Make sure that the Use Preferred Datapath option is enabled to ensure that the system automatically perform LAN free operation wherever possible. |
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Assume you have two MediaAgents and one LUN volume configured as follows:
To configure alternate data paths on these MediaAgents, perform the following configurations:
Refer to the Configure Shared Disk Libraries With Static Mount Paths procedure to perform this operation.
Refer to the Configure a MediaAgent for Index Cache Sharing procedure to perform this operation.