It is very important to follow recommended best practice when using StoreOnce B6200 catalyst technology with HP Data Protector. The StoreOnce B6200 can have one of 5 different network templates. These templates specify can either be 2 discrete subnets for management and data or one subnet with management and data using the same subnet. The other key components are the Data Protector cell manager, data protector backup/application servers and DNS server (if used). Fig. 36 shows an example basic network configuration for HP Data Protector.
Fig. 36: StoreOnce B6200 Networking example
The StoreOnce B6200 only supports static ip addresses but can be addressed by fully qualified domain name if DNS is used and the B6200 has the ip address of the DNS server configured . Do NOT use host tables to resolve ip addresses to host names. You cannot setup a host table within the StoreOnce B6200 system. When configuring StoreOnce catalyst stores within Data Protector 7 use either fixed ip address or FQDN if DNS is in use. Backup servers and Cell manager server then would require DNS entries.
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StoreOnce Catalyst data and commands are passed between the backup server (equipped with DP media agent) and the StoreOnce B6200 node via the data subnet if configured with 2
subnets. Entries are placed in DNS for both management and data networks. For single subnet configurations there are entries for management and data addresses. The StoreOnce B6200 displays the fully qualified domain name and the ip address for each service set if DNS is used.
Fig 37 shows an example of a service set virtual ip address/fqdn. The management ip address is not displayed and is set in the initial configuration. However it can be displayed with the CLI command ‘net show config’.
Fig. 37 StoreOnce B6200 network information
The DNS entries for a typical 4 node B6200 system operating with 2 subnets is shown in Fig.
38. Note that the management (B6200) lists an ip address on a separate subnet to the 4 node VIFs (B6200SS1 – B6200SS2). The ip addresses are all static as DHCP is not supported for the B6200 system.
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Fig. 38: Example of DNS entries for a 4 node StoreOnce B6200 system
Each Data Protector Backup/Application server must have access to the data subnet. Data Protector clients running only disk agents and the cell manager do not require access to the data subnet of the B6200.
A single gateway can be configured. This enables access to other subnets for management OR data.
Key Points:
Do not use host tables for hostname resolution.
DHCP is not supported.
StoreOnce Catalyst does not use active directory services for access control.
B6200 does support the use of DNS.
StoreOnce catalyst data and commands use the data subnet when 2 subnets are in use on a StoreOnce B6200.
Only one network gateway can be configured.
Cell manager needs a network path to backup servers and clients. Access to StoreOnce B6200 is via media agent and gateway.
Bonding network interfaces
The network interfaces used in StoreOnce B6200 are bonded. This technology sometimes referred to ‘link aggregation’. Bonding combines 2 network interfaces into a single ‘logical’
interface with a single ‘virtual’ IP address (this is called a VIF in StoreOnce B6200 systems).
There are different modes for bonding which can deliver additional throughput (2 x bandwidth) or high availability). Some bonding modes require special network switch support. For the HP B6200 no special switch support is required. The StoreOnce B6200 with template 2 configured uses mode 6 bonding which distributes the network traffic across the interfaces. (Adaptive load
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balance) All other templates use mode 1 (active backup). Active backup provides high availability but transfers data via one network connection. If that connection fails then the 2nd connection takes over.
Key Points:
HP StoreOnce systems do NOT require special switch settings.
IEEE 802.3 ad support is not available.
VLAN tagging is not yet supported.
Housekeeping
Housekeeping is a process which is necessary in any deduplication storage process and is required at some time after any deletion or overwrite operations performed by the host system.
Data when written is stored essentially as ‘chunks’ of unique data together with a index reference and index count. The theory being that an unchanged ‘chunk’ of data between backups is stored only once and subsequent backups just increase a counter.
When a backup is overwritten or expired the housekeeping process will start providing the blackout window is not active. The process is no different to VTL or NAS share housekeeping.
Housekeeping is I/O intensive so the more disk shelves installed the faster the rate.
Approximate housekeeping rates for a single node are shown in table 1. These figures are built-in to the sizer tool.
Configuration Housekeeping rate MB/s
B6200 single node – base unit 1 disk shelf 800 B6200 single node – 2disk shelves 1019 B6200 single node – 3 disk shelves 1237 B6200 single node -4 disk shelves 1455
Table 1
It is important to periodically check that the housekeeping process is keeping up. A graphical display is available for each store. Use B6200 management GUI navigation tree to select StoreOnce Catalyst -> Housekeeping. See Fig. 39. Ensure that the ‘jobs processed’ (green) always exceed the ‘jobs received’ (red).
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Fig. 39: Monitoring Housekeeping Key Points:
Adjust blackout windows so that housekeeping does not clash with backup or replication.
Ensure that the ‘delete unprotected media’ will run at sometime before housekeeping. If the option is set to default unprotected media will run at 12:00hrs.
Do NOT permanently disable housekeeping.