QoreStor 5.1.0 - User Guide

Rapid NFS and Rapid CIFS benefits

When Rapid NFS and Rapid CIFS are used with QoreStor they offer the following benefits:

• Reduce network utilization and DMA backup time
  • Chunk data and perform hash computation on the client; transfer chunked hash files on the back-end
  • Reduce the amount of data that must be written across the wire
• Improve performance
• Support DMAs such as CommVault, EMC Networker, and Tivoli Storage Manager. For the current list of supported DMAs, see the QoreStor Interoperability Guide.
• Compatible with existing NFS and CIFS clients — just need to install a plug-in (driver) on the client
  • Can use Rapid NFS and Rapid CIFS to accelerate I/O operations on any client — including a client that uses home-grown backup scripts
  • Can service multiple and concurrent media server backups

Best practices: Rapid NFS

This topic introduces some recommended best practices for using Rapid NFS operations with QoreStor.

• Containers must be of type NFS/CIFS

  RDA containers cannot use Rapid NFS. If you have existing NFS/CIFS containers, you do not need to create new containers to use Rapid NFS; you can install the plug-in (driver) to existing clients.

• The Rapid NFS plug-in (driver) must be installed on client systems
   
  After the plug-in is installed, write operations will go through Rapid NFS while metadata operations such as file creates and permission changes will go through the standard NFS protocol. Rapid NFS can be disabled by uninstalling the plug-in.

• Markers must be set on the client, not in the QoreStor GUI
• If you are using a DMA that supports a marker, should explicitly set it. Your containers should have the marker type of None until you set the marker using the Mount command on the client (after installing the Rapid NFS plug-in).
  • For existing containers, re-set the marker by doing the following:

    For example, if you wanted to set the CommVault marker (cv):

    mount -t rdnfs 10.222.322.190:/containers/backup /mnt/backup -o marker=cv

    Mount command usage:

    rdnfs [nfs mount point] [roach mount point] -o marker=[marker]

    where:

    nfs mount point = Already mounted nfs mountpoint

    roach mount point = A new mount point

    marker = appassure, arcserve, auto, cv, dump, hdm, hpdp, nw, or tsm

• Your QoreStor system must meet the minimum configuration

  Rapid NFS is available on a QoreStor system and a client with a minimum of 4 CPU cores running at a minimum of 4 GHz cumulative processing power and 2 GB memory. Kernels must be 2.6.14 or later. For a list of supported operating systems, see the QoreStor Interoperability Guide. If you update your operating system, you must update your Rapid NFS plug-in as well. Updates are available on the Quest Support site.

• Rapid NFS is stateful

  If the QoreStor system goes down, the connection will terminate. DMAs will restart from the last checkpoint.

• Rapid NFS and passthrough mode

  If Rapid NFS mode fails for any reason, QoreStor falls back to regular NFS mode automatically. For details, see Monitoring Performance.

• Rapid NFS performance considerations

  When using Rapid NFS on your client, Quest recommends that you do not run other protocols to the QoreStor system in parallel, as this will adversely affect your overall performance.

• Rapid NFS acceleration constraints
  • Rapid NFS does not support:
    • Direct I/O memory
    • Mapped files
    • File path size greater than 4096 characters

    • File write locks across clients

  NOTE: If the client and server do not have the same times, the times seen will not match typical NFS behavior due to the nature of file system in user space (FUSE).

Best practices: Rapid CIFS

This topic introduces some recommended best practices for using Rapid CIFS operations with QoreStor.

• Containers must be of type NFS/CIFS
  • RDA containers cannot use Rapid CIFS. If you have existing NFS/CIFS containers, you do not need to create new containers to use Rapid CIFS; you can install the plug-in (driver) to existing clients.
• The Rapid CIFS plug-in (driver) must be installed on client systems

  After the plug-in is installed, write operations will go through Rapid CIFS while metadata operations such as file creates and permission changes will go through the standard CIFS protocol. Rapid CIFS can be disabled by uninstalling the plug-in.

• Your QoreStor system must meet the minimum configuration

  Rapid CIFS is available with a QoreStor system and a client with a minimum of 4 CPU cores running at a minimum of 4 GHz cumulative processing power and 2 GB memory. For a list of supported operating systems, see the QoreStor Interoperability Guide.

  If you update your operating system, you must update your Rapid CIFS plug-in as well. Updates are available on the Quest Support site.

• Rapid CIFS is stateful

  If the QoreStor system goes down, the connection will terminate. DMAs will restart from the last checkpoint.

• Rapid CIFS and passthrough mode

  If Rapid CIFS mode fails for any reason, the QoreStor system falls back to regular CIFS mode automatically.

• Rapid CIFS acceleration constraints

  Rapid CIFS does not support:

  • NAS functionality
    • Optlocks (but supported if a single client is writing)
    • Byte-range locks
  • Optimization of very small files (less than 10 MB). File size can be adjusted using configuration settings.
  • FILE_NO_IMMEDIATE_BUFFERING and FILEWRITE_THROUGH operations (sent via CIFS only).
  • File path size greater than 4096 characters

Installing the Rapid NFS plug-in

The QoreStor NFS plug-in must be installed on to the media server type you choose (for supported operating systems and DMAs, see the QoreStor Interoperability Guide). The plug-in software enables integration between QoreStor data storage operations and the supported data management applications (DMAs). Before you install, make sure you adhere to the Best Practices covered in another topic in this chapter.

The plug-in must be installed on the designated Linux-based media server in the following directory, /usr/openv/lib/. The plug-in is installed using a self-extracting installer that installs the Rapid NFS plug-in and all of its related components. The installer supports the following modes, with the default being Help (-h):

• Help (-h)
• Install (-install)
• Upgrade (-upgrade)
• Uninstall (-uninstall)
• Force (-force)

$> ./QuestRapidNFS-xxxxx-xxxxx-x86_64.bin -help
Quest plug-in installer/uninstaller
usage: QuestRapidNFS-xxxxx-xxxxx-x86_64.bin [ -h ] [ -install ] [ -uninstall ]
-h					: Displays help
-install		: Installs the plug-in
-upgrade		: Upgrades the plug-in
-uninstall	: Uninstalls the plug-in
-force			: Forces the installation of the plug-in

You can download the plug-in installer from the Quest website:

• Go to support.quest.com/qorestor, select your specific QoreStor version, and then navigate to Software Downloads.
• Locate the Rapid NFS plug-in and download it to your system.

After it is downloaded, follow the steps that follow to run the Plug-In Installer to install the plug-in on your designated Linux-based media server.

1. Download QuestRapidNFS-xxxxx-xxxxx-x86_64.bin.gz from the website, as detailed previously.
2. Unzip the package.

   unzip QuestRapidNFS-xxxxx-xxxxx-x86_64.bin.gz

3. Assign execute bit to change the permission of the binary package:

   chmod +x QuestRapidNFS-xxxxx-xxxxx-x86_64.bin

4. Install the Rapid NFS package. Before installing, remove the stale NFS entry.

   QuestRapidNFS-xxxxx-xxxxx-x86_64.bin -install

5. Load the file system in user space (FUSE) module, if not already loaded:

   modprobe fuse 
   

6. Create a directory on the client. For example:

   mkdir /mnt/backup

7. Mount Rapid NFS as a file system type using the mount command. For example:

   mount -t rdnfs 10.222.322.190:/containers/backup/mnt/backup

   If you are using a DMA that supports a marker, set the marker by using -o in the mount command. For example, if you wanted to set the CommVault marker (cv):

   mount -t rdnfs 10.222.322.190:/containers/backup /mnt/backup -o marker=cv

   NOTE: If you want to do a mount on AIX, you must set the nfs_use_reserved_ports and portcheck parameters first. The parameters cannot be set to 0. For example: root@aixhost1 / # nfso -po portcheck=1 root@aixhost1 / # nfso -po nfs_use_reserved_ports=1