Question

MA GRID setup | potential

  • 16 August 2022
  • 5 replies
  • 457 views

Badge +7

Hi, 

 

Do you have a best practice how to utilize media agents in a GRID format?

For example we have 4 MA’s and let’s say 3 subclients..1 sub client always uses 1 MA (more vsa proxies within the job for vm’s) for VMware backups. So there is a some sorting mechanism for other 2 sub clients to either receive idling MA’s to start the backup, or use the one which is already used by sub client 1…

 

But is there an option to utilize the potential of a GRID solution where we can use more than 1 MA for a backup of a sub client?

 

Hope it’s clear of what I am trying to achieve.


5 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +23

@benjaminas , following up on this one.

Were you able to get a case created?  I’m not seeing anything on my end.

Thanks!

Userlevel 5
Badge +13

Hello @benjaminas 

The way streams are allocated and distributed between VSA proxies depends on a few factors.

I have linked a few documents which explain Proxy selection in detail. Please let me know if this helps answer your questions.

 

VM Dispatch and Proxy Selection for VMware Backups

https://documentation.commvault.com/2022e/expert/32272_vm_dispatch_and_proxy_selection_for_vmware_backups.html

 

Backup Workload Distribution

https://documentation.commvault.com/2022e/expert/97216_backup_workload_distribution.html

 

Thank you,
Collin

Badge +7

Hi @Collin Harper 

 

After reading those documents and some more...When does it stop to matter how much VSA proxies we have per cluster in VMware to be available for VMs backups? If we have 400 VMs in 1 cluster and for example 5-10 VSA proxies. When it comes to the point of how buffed up should the VSA itself be then?

 

1 stream for a VSA proxy is a stream as a stream or 1 stream for a VSA proxy is a 1 VM being backed up at the time?
If it’s a stream, and in the documentation it says 10 streams per CPU for 1 VM, so should we have VSA proxies buffed up with more CPU to be able to do more VMs at the same time or just faster backups?

How can we improve the speeds?

Userlevel 5
Badge +13

Hello @benjaminas 

I appreciate your patience. It may be best to get a case opened with Support to review the logs for the bottleneck on your backups if performance is your overall concern regarding the proxy configuration.

Several factors on the Client and MediaAgent can be a limiting factor and will hurt performance.

 

Thank you,
Collin

Badge +7

Any ideas on this? :)

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