Overview - Recovery Director^® Agent

Choose from the following topics:

• Introduction
• Snapshot Management Workflows
• Workflow Configuration Wizard
• Snapshot Volume Units (SVU)
• Generic Enablers
• Application Types
• Supported Data Types
• Tree Levels in the Recovery Director Agent
• User Capability Requirements
• License Requirement
• Disaster Recovery Considerations
• User Cases - Examples of Recovery Director^® Agent Implementation:
  • Implement the QSnap^® Service with The Recovery Director Agent
  • Implement EMC SnapView with The Recovery Director Agent
  • NetApp OSSV SnapVault Replicas with The Recovery Director Agent
  • Implement VSS Hardware Providers with The Recovery Director Agent
  • Protect Data Volumes of Custom Applications
  • Create a Generic Enabler

Introduction

The Recovery Director^® Agent provides a common method of specifying coordinated data protection operations across several snapshot-based Agents. Working in conjunction with the Quick Recovery^® Agent, the Recovery Director Agent both extends the capabilities of the QR^™ Agent, and as well directs, coordinates, and sequences the activities of the QR Agent with the Image Level ProxyHost and ProxyHostiDataAgents to provide:

• backups and quick recovery volumes which are identical, created from the same point-in-time snapshot
• proper sequencing of snapshot, QR^™ Volume creation, and backup operations
• the extended ability for the QR^™ Agent to identify, define, and create snapshots of user-defined Application Types using custom command-line scripts
• the use of 3rd-party (hardware) snapshots with the QR Agent using Generic Enablers

By defining Snapshot Volume Units (content) and Snapshot Management Workflows in the Recovery Director agent, a complex series of data protection operations can easily be configured. Recovery Director can, for example, schedule the creation or update of a QR volume to run three times each day, but only once per day use that same point-in-time copy to perform a ProxyHost backup.

More simply, the Recovery Director agent can be employed merely to extend the abilities of the QR Agent. Through the use of Generic Enablers, 3rd-party (hardware) snapshots can be utilized by the QR Agent. By defining new Application Types, the QR Agent is able to quiesce and un-quiesce the I/O of additional applications not already supported by the QR Agent during QR Volume creation or updating (it already features built-in application intelligence for Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL, and Oracle.)

The Recovery Director agent is used to coordinate backup and QR volume creation only; all restore/recovery operations are performed using the individual Agents involved.

Subclient Policies and Schedule Policies are not supported.

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Supported Data Types

Refer to the Overview for each product to be used with the Recovery Director^® agent to determine the data types supported:

• Overview - Quick Recovery^® Agent
• Overview - Image Level ProxyHost iDataAgent
• Overview - ProxyHost iDataAgent

See also: Support Information - Snapshot Engines

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Tree Levels in the Recovery Director^® Agent

When the Recovery Director Agent software is installed, the following levels are automatically created in the CommCell^® Browser.

olympus: Client
Recovery Director: Agent	Application Types Snapshot Volume Units Snapshot Management Workflows

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User Capability Requirements

To perform any of the following actions in the Recovery Director^® agent, certain User Capabilities are required:

• Create a new Snapshot Management Workflow
• Edit the Workflow properties
• Edit the subclients created by the Recovery Director Agent at the Quick Recovery^® Agent, ProxyHost or Image Level ProxyHost level

The required User Capabilities are:

• Administrative Management - CommCell^®
• Agent Management - Recovery Director^® Agent, Quick Recovery^® Agent, ProxyHost, and any other iDataAgent associated to the Snapshot Volume Unit.

For more information about this subject, see User Administration and Security.

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License Requirement

To perform a data protection operation using this Agent a specific Product License must be available in the CommServe^® Server.

Review general license requirements included in License Administration. Also, View All Licenses provides step-by-step instructions on how to view the license information.

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Disaster Recovery Considerations

• Before you use your agent, be sure to review and understand the associated full system restore (or disaster recovery) procedure. The procedure for some agents may require that you plan specific actions or consider certain items before an emergency occurs.  See Disaster Recovery for more information regarding your agent.

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