Storage accelerator - who is using it and what are you experiences

Hello @Onno van den Berg 

Thanks for reaching out with your questions and thanks for using Commvault!

In regards to your CMR i can see that there was an update that states the following from Dev: 

“With recent changes to store job option, we should be able to show SA at job level in GUI”

With a CMR we do not commit to a time frame as to when and if the fix will be completed. I have reached out to the Dev team for an update and i will update here again with what they say back around any further updates.

Sorry i don’t have a better answer for you immediately but i will keep you posted. 

Kind regards

Albert Williams

Thanks @Albert Williams! I will also follow some alternative paths. 

has this “cosmetic issue”, in where still shows the media agent in the streams, been resolved?

Yes, they addressed it in the latest release (CPR2023E / FR32). I however hope they will add more improvements, so it becomes easier to see which clients are not working as expected and possibilities to flush the disablement settings from the clients in the case SA doesn't work correctly.

@Onno van den Berg Hey, we also want to use it and ran into the same problem that we cant see if Storage Accelerator is used or not for Hana Agent in Azure.

Can you tell on which log you found to see if it used or not?

Thx & BR

Marcel

You can check the CVD.log and or the events sections within the CommCell console (and most likely also within Command Center) where it will report if the client is unable to talk directly to the given cloud library. 

Ok I see nothing in cvd.log nor in the events, which is not possible. The cloud library is accesible from Client I already tested with Cloudtesttool.

So I understand rigtht there will no hint the in the log that Storage Accelerator is used, only if it is not working is logged ?

Thx & BR

Marcel

I assume you deployed the SA role, right? Did you also enable the SA option in the settings module?

Yes

• Installe SA Role
• Active SA on Commcell Level
• Checked Additional Settings → there is no Disable = true on the CLient
• Added Additional Key & Secret to Cloud Storage for SA
• Tested Connectivity from Cleint to CLoud Storage → works

Job runs , but I cant see anywhere if SA is used

If you are running on FR32 than you should see it in the job details. If not than the only way to asses it is to go through the logs. It mention it somewhere throughout the run in the CVD.log. 

It is such a miss that you really miss a good eye on it how it works. I already requested a change to be implemented in Command Center on the level of the client/object that you would see the connection status towards the cloud storage backend in case the plan uses cloud storage and SA is enabled and enrolled. 

Thank you for the update, I had a case with CV and find it out in “cvd.log”. At the moment we are on 11.28 but Q1 2024 we go to 11.32.x then I will check. Hopefully in future you can see in Command Center as you mentioned, because is a important feature which should be possible to see directly and not to grep in logfies.

Thx again

One thing, which is very unfortunately, is that development overlooked to implement it also for restore jobs. In all honesty I just would like to see on client level, so not on job level, if SA is active and working for both backup and restore. For this I will have to open another CMR :-(

Hi Onno,

I am also considering the use of Storage Accelerator, but one obvious limitation appears to be the lack of a primary copy occurring on the local storage connected to the Media Agent.

Do I have that correct, or does a copy end-up on there anyway (maybe seeds it from the Cloud Library?).

Obviously, clients writing direct to a Cloud Library can be a good thing, but if we need an MA in the loop AND we are dropping a primary (non-cloud) copy, then are we not introducing significant risk?

(as per the documentation https://documentation.commvault.com/v11/expert/accelerating_backups_to_cloud_storage_libraries.html  )

The reason I ask, is that we have a number of media agents in remote locations, in crappy pseudo datacentres (likely some back-of-the-office scenario), and so the Storage Accelerator feature sounds appealing. But then digging deeper, I wonder about :-

1 - Could this actually reduce the need for remote MA?

2 - Are we really going to a single-copy of backup data for the client?

I would assume that the Storage Policy “should” be dictating where the data is written (eg Copy 1 local to MA , Copy 2 to Cloud) but it’s not clear how the pieces fall into place once SA starts working.

Thanks, and look forward to your reply if you have time.
 

You would use this where your Primary Copy is to a cloud / object storage target. 

1 - Could this actually reduce the need for remote MA?

While you could still potentially leverage Storage Accelerator to reduce your reliance on remote MediaAgents, it would be at the expense of restore performance. I wouldn’t do it.

Thanks mate,

I might test the water, and see what the appetite is from the customer.
We have some absolute clunkers out there, and we also have to manage them, including patching, firmware …. usual suspects.