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Hi Commvault gurus!

 

Since we changed the deduplication setting from 'on Client' to 'on Media Agent' for Virtual Server Backups, we have noticed a significant increase in backup speed, roughly three times faster. I have a few questions to clarify this topic.

 

Firstly, does 'deduplication on Client' refer to deduplication on the Virtual Server Agent (proxy), even when using SAN mode? In SAN mode, the data should be sent directly from one datastore (storage array) to another without involvement from other backup devices, correct? Similarly, for NDMP backups, where does the 'deduplication on Client' occur?

 

I found a useful thread discussing this topic (see below), but I would appreciate explicit answers to my questions."

 

Hello @drPhil 

Apologies for the delay in getting back to you. 

I will try my best to simplify the answer. During SAN backup, the VSA reads the virtual machine disks (VMDKs) directly over the SAN, performs block level deduplication, and sends the data to a local MediaAgent that writes to the shared library.

If you have changed the deduplication from VSA to MA it makes sense why it helped with the throughput since it decreased the load from VSA.

More information on SAN transport mode is here: https://documentation.commvault.com/2022e/expert/32040_san_transport_for_vmware.html

Hope that helps. 

Best,

Rajiv Singal

Hello @drPhil 

 

Adding to above, For NDMP backup and restore operations, if the MediaAgent associated with the storage policy does not have connectivity to the NAS file server, you can configure proxy MediaAgents that do have connectivity.
After a proxy MediaAgent is configured, the backup data flows from the file server to the proxy MediaAgent and from the proxy MediaAgent to the storage policy MediaAgent. The storage policy MediaAgent writes the data to the media.
Client-side deduplication reduces traffic between the proxy Media Agent and the storage policy Media Agent.

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