vRanger 7.7 - Installation/Upgrade Guide

LAN backups

LAN backups

vRanger can perform LAN backups one of two ways — either through the vRanger machine, or by using the vRanger VA.

•	VA-based LAN: This option transfers the source VM’s data from the source disk to the vRanger VA over the network using the VMware® VDDK LAN transport. The backup processing activity occurs on the vRanger VA, and then the data is sent to the repository directly.

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Machine-based LAN: If there is no vRanger VA deployed, vRanger transfers the source VM’s data from the source disk to the vRanger machine over the network. With this method, the backup processing activity occurs on the vRanger server. The backup data flows “direct to target” from the source server to the target repository, which means that the vRanger server does not process the backup traffic.

 

NOTE: Generally, this configuration yields the slowest performance, and should be avoided if possible. A better option is to deploy a VA to any VMware® ESXi™ servers, and use that VA for backup and restore tasks.

Installing with other applications

Installing with other applications

Customers often want to install vRanger on the same server as another application. Due to the wide variety of factors that may affect performance, it is impossible to make blanket recommendations. Some key concerns to keep in mind:

•	Many customers, to maximize their hardware investment, want to install vRanger on the same server as VMware® vCenter™. This practice is not recommended.

•	During testing, many customers install vRanger with other Quest products. In this case, Quest does not recommend installing vRanger on the same machine as Quest Foglight.

•	Only one version of vRanger may be installed on a machine at one time. For example, you may not install vRanger SE and vReplicator on the same machine.

Optimizing your network for backups

Optimizing your network for backups

vRanger pushes much data through the network quickly. While this performance is good for minimizing your backup window, if not configured properly it can degrade your production network.

An important best practice is to separate the backup traffic from the production network by configuring a dedicated backup network.

 

NOTE: This approach requires that each VMware® ESXi™ host and the vRanger machine have two NICs installed.

1	Using the first (primary) network interface card (NIC), connect the vRanger server, the vRanger VAs, the VMware® vCenter™ Server, and Management Network of each ESXi server host to the production network.

2	Create a virtual switch, connecting it to a dedicated physical NIC on each ESXi host.

This setup becomes the dedicated backup network.

3	On the vRanger server, each VA, and each repository, configure a second virtual NIC.

4	Connect this second NIC to the dedicated backup network.

Using NIC teaming

NIC teaming is a feature of VMware® Infrastructure that allows you to connect a single virtual switch to multiple physical Ethernet adapters. To utilize NIC teaming, two or more network adapters must be up-linked to a virtual switch. The main advantage of NIC teaming is increased network capacity for the virtual switch hosting the team.

When bonding NICs into a team, it is important to use NICs from the same vendor as different NIC vendors achieve bonding differently. When using teamed NICs with vRanger, it is critical that the NICs are teamed for performance rather than load balancing. vRanger backups are streamed as a continuous file — changing NICs during a data stream causes backup errors.

 

NOTE: For more information on NIC teaming, see VMware KB article 1004088.

Installing the vRanger database

Installing the vRanger database

vRanger utilizes a SQL Server® database to store application and task configuration data. The database can be either the embedded SQL Server Express instance — the default — or a SQL Server database running on your own SQL Server or SQL Server Express instance.