vRanger 7.8 - Integration Guide for Quest QoreStor

Deduplication and compression

QoreStor uses various data-reduction technologies, including advanced deduplication algorithms, in addition to the generic and custom compression solutions that prove effective across many differing file types. Data deduplication and compression is addressed in the following areas:

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Deduplication: This technology eliminates redundant copies of data and in the process it decreases disk capacity requirements and reduces the bandwidth needed for data transfer. Deduplication can be a major asset for companies that are dealing with increasing data volumes and require a means for optimizing their data protection.

•	Compression: This technology reduces the size of data that is stored, protected, and transmitted. Compression helps companies improve their backup and recovery times while helping reduce infrastructure and network resource constraints.

In general, offers advanced deduplication and compression capabilities to reduce the time and cost associated with backing up and restoring data. Based on deduplication and compression technology, eliminates the need to maintain multiple copies of the same data. This lets customers keep more data online longer and reduce the need for tape backup dependency.

Using its deduplication and compression technology, can help achieve an expected data reduction ratio of 15:1. Achieving this reduction in data means that you need fewer incremental storage operations to run and it provides you with a smaller backup footprint.By removing redundant data, deliver fast reliable backup and restore functionality, reduce media usage and power and cooling requirements, and improve your overall data protection and retention costs.

 

Replication

Replication is the process by which key data is saved from storage locations, with the goal of maintaining consistency between redundant resources in data storage environments. Data replication improves the level of fault-tolerance, which improves the reliability of maintaining saved data and permits accessibility to the same stored data.

QoreStor uses an active form of replication that lets you configure a primary-backup scheme. During replication, the system processes data storage requests from a specified source to a specified replica target, which acts as a replica of the original source data.

Replicas are read-only and are updated with new or unique data during scheduled or manual replications. QoreStor can be considered to act as a form of a storage replication process in which the backup and deduplication data is replicated in real-time or via a scheduled window in a network environment. In a replication relationship between two QoreStor instances (or a QoreStor and a DR Series system), this means that a relationship exists between a number of systems. One system acts as the source and the other as a replica.

NOTE: QoreStor includes version checking that limits replication to compatible QoreStor instances or DR Series systems. Replication from a DR Series system to a QoreStor instance is one-way, with the DR Series acting as the source.

Replication is done at the container level and is one directional from source to replica; however, since replication is done at the container level you can set up various containers to meet your specific replication requirements for your specific workflow. This form of replication is supported for the CIFS, NFS, Rapid CIFS, and Rapid NFS protocols and is fully handled by QoreStor.

While replication of NFS, CIFS, Rapid NFS or Rapid CIFS containers is managed by QoreStor, RDA with vRanger container replication is managed by vRanger

If the source and target systems (replica or cascaded replica)are in different Active Directory (AD) domains, then the data that resides on the target system may not be accessible. When AD is used to perform authentication for systems, the AD information is saved with the file. This can act to restrict user access to the data based on the type of AD permissions that are in place.

 

NOTE: It is important to distinguish the difference between data that has been processed by backup, and data that has been processed by replication. This distinction is because backup saves a copy of data that generally remains unchanged for a long time.

Supported protocols

QoreStor supports the following file system protocols:

•	Network File System (NFS)

•	Common Internet File System (CIFS)

•	Rapid Data Access (RDA)

•	Rapid Data Storage (RDS)

 

NOTE: QoreStor supports three container connection types: NFS, CIFS, and RDA. RDS provides a logical disk interface that can be used with network storage devices to store data and support data storage operations.

Rapid Data Access (RDA)

RDA is developed by Quest and provides a logical disk interface for use with network storage devices. RDS allows for better coordination and integration between QoreStor backup, restore, and optimized duplication operations with vRanger and Quest NetVault Backup.

QoreStor and vRanger integration is done using the Rapid OFS (ROFS) plug-in developed by Quest. The ROFS plug-in allows vRanger control over backup image creation, deletion, and duplication. RDS allows deduplication operations to happen on the client-side so that network traffic can be reduced.

The RDS protocol allows the supported backup applications to communicate directly with QoreStor and determine whether a specific chunk of data exists on the system. If the data exists, only the pointers need to be updated on QoreStor, and the duplicate chunk of data does not need to be transferred to the system. This process provides two benefits: it improves the overall backup speed, and also reduces the network load.