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System Created DDB Verification / Space Reclamation schedule policy

  • 9 September 2021
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K
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Hi,

 

I need some advice here…

 

My previous backup administrator disabled the below 2 System Created DDB Space Reclamation and Verification schedule policies, (I presume) due to lack of space on our disk. 

 

 

Now, with the disk space being OK again, I’m wondering if it’s necessary/beneficial for us to re-activate those 2 policies ?

 

BTW, we are about to move all the backup jobs to a new Commvault Server in the coming months, so is it still worth the effort of re-enabling those 2 policies on this old Commvault Server ?

 

Kelvin

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Best answer by Mike Struening RETIRED 9 September 2021, 19:01

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Mike Struening RETIRED
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The short answer is, yes it would be wise to reenable them, just to keep things clean and running well/efficiently.

Now, when you say moving to a new Commvault Server, do you mean doing a CommCell migration to a new Commserve?  If so, and these DDBs will essentially be static and age off naturally, then the benefit is diminished.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-struening
Damian Andre
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Hey Kelvin,

What sort of storage are you using? Space reclamation will actually free up space if your storage does not support SPARSE or if you have a HyperScale storage pool.

Recommended to re-enable DDB verification for sure - it may have been disabled as it can impact performance - it does a full then subsequent incremental check of all deduplicated blocks to ensure integrity.

When you say new commvault server - New CommServe? Media Agent? both?

 

K
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Hi Mike / Damian,

 

It’s going to be a new backup infrastructure, i.e. new installation of CommVault software on a brand-new Server with a new LTO-8 tape library (where the data will be written to directly), therefore, there won’t be any deduplication setup on the new backup Server.

 

The new backup Server will be both new CommServe and new Media Agent for our VMware environment which is pretty much where the 90% of our backup data comes from.

 

Once the new Server is in use, then, yes, all the backup jobs on the old Server will be kept only for restore purpose, and will age out naturally after 3 months or so.

 

Not sure if I need to “move” the current CommCell ID from the old Server to the new Server, or I just ask the Commvault Support for a new CommCell ID?

 

 

Mike Struening RETIRED
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@Kelvin , if I may, I’d like to take a step back and see what your overall goals are.

If your goal is to simply improve the Commserve hardware and add a new library, why not just perform a Hardware Refresh (Commserve and Media Agent docs) where you move the CS identity to a new machine?  that way, you still have the old history and libraries connected to your new environment (and only one to maintain).  Once the old jobs age off, you can decomission/reuse the hardware as needed.

Moving to a whole new CommCell ID is a decent amount of work, and more often than not, unnecessary.  Dev even discourages a CCM in most cases.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-struening
K
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Hi Mike,

It will be more like a “fresh start” than “move”, i.e. the new Commvault Server with the new tape library will only see new backups, it will have no knowledge of the history.

 

Therefore, for users who need to restore from the old backups, we will do it on the old Commvault Server, which will be kept alive until all the backups age out.

 

The reason being, we want to move away from the current deduplication and disk to disk configuration in the new backup Server.

 

But, when it comes to CommCell, I’m not sure what options we have here ? Can we just have a new CommCell ID assigned to the new Server ?  

Mike Struening RETIRED
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Splitting everything off might be more trouble than its worth.  If you move the CS to new hardware (and install the Media Agent software and the library), you’ll only have one CommCell to manage.  Once everything ages off, you can safely remove the older hardware and carry on.

From a support/administrative perspective, sorting out the licensing and support for each (and recalling which CCID you are calling about) can be a bit tricky.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-struening
K
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Hi Mike,

 

The thing is, “moving the old CS” to the new CS means, we will have to bring (at least) partial of the old backup solution (a tiny slow NAS + having to use Dedup = a slow Network backup solution) to the new backup solution/infrastructure which will be a fast SAN backup, under all the new ESXi Servers, 10 Gbps Network and a new Cisco FC Switch, a new SAN and a new LTO-8 tape library.

 

To be completely honest with you, it is because this currently old backup solution can only backups less than 20% of the total data, which is pretty much useless from business point of view, we have to replace it with a new design.

 

So, we are not really keen to bring any kits from the old infrastructure into the new, our Server administrator won’t want to make any connection between the old NAS and any of the shining new ESXi Servers, just to start...

 

To be honest, if I end up having to managing 2 CommCells, then I just have to do it, giving that it’s only for a couple of months. In fact, we already have 2 CommCells on site, but with this new solution, let’s say CommCell #3, we are aiming to decommission both CommCell #1 and #2

 

But, I take your point. I’ll contact Commvault support to see if there is any technical and support issue for us to setup a CommCell #3.

 

Kelvin

Mike Struening RETIRED
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Totally understand!  It sounds like you know full well what the impact is.

Reach out to your Account Rep with your plans so they can help you with any licensing considerations (support won’t be able to help there).

Let me know if you have any other questions or if we can consider this answered.

Thanks!!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-struening

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