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Blerrie-Backups
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Full Name: Alwyn Strydom
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EMC DataDomain OST integration lacking

Post by Blerrie-Backups »

Hallo guys

Have a client with a DDM2500(104TB), with the latest code installed, and 2x physical servers with 1x 32TB volume per servers(Unity with some fast cache and some 4TB NL-SAS drives). These are all bundled into a single SOR(Scale-Out Repository) totalling around 168TB of usable capacity. Latest OS patched, drivers and firmware installed on all repository servers. This SOR has been configured with Data Locality as per best practice.

The data on this SOR is being copied continuously to another DDM(DataDomain) at a DR site, in order to comply to auditory regulations and to ensure the integrity of the backups.

They then have an MSL4048 with 4x LTO6 drives configured to once a month copy all data/jobs on the SOR to tape. (NOT GFS based backups, but a copy job)

Now, with a brief description on the above, we seem to have identified some issues and pit falls with VEEAM and this configuration. Now, the last one is more related to the DDM appliance in my opinion.

VEEAM seems to not play optimally with the OST/DD-boost on DDM. When backing up to the SOR and using one of the “D-drive” extends, the backup flies at awesome speeds, but once the DDM extend is being used, this speed is anything from 2-4 time slower. I have had a DDM boffin from EMC look at the setup and detailed configuration on the DDM and some small issues was ratified, but this did not yield any major performance increases.

This forced us to do away with synthetic full’s and to stick to only 20x restore points with the oldest being merged in the full after backup.

This is all fine and manageable for now, but copying this data to tape slows down everything. I know VEEAM does not have proper tape integration, as I have been working with several other backup tech’s that seems to have much richer features and performance on this front.

With this said, when a copy to tape job runs, this slows down even the current backup jobs, especially these writing to the DDM extend.

We’ve been thru the VEEAM and DDM best practices back to front and the only way I see forward at this stage, is to up the capacity on the flat drive extends and then to move the DDM to the DR site to only be used as a copy repository. This would ensure max backup speeds and copy speeds to tape.

ANY suggestions would be greatly appreciated. 
Gostev
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Re: EMC DataDomain OST integration lacking

Post by Gostev » 1 person likes this post

Hello Alwyn, deduplicating storage appliances are indeed quite slow backup targets, which is why our reference architecture recommends using them for backup copies only - the conclusion you came to by yourself already. Thanks!
Blerrie-Backups
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Full Name: Alwyn Strydom
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Re: EMC DataDomain OST integration lacking

Post by Blerrie-Backups »

Hallo Gostev

I was afraid of that. :( Backup to a deduplication target with the right OST integration is not bad, and yes, recoveries from these type of devices is very slow. Was hoping we could better accommodate the DDM units thou.

Thanks for the reply. Flat/STD storage it will be from now on for any VEEAM implementations. :)
Gostev
Chief Product Officer
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Re: EMC DataDomain OST integration lacking

Post by Gostev »

Indeed. Aside of much better performance, you will find it is also much cheaper, especially when using ReFS.
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