Refer to the following important notes and guidelines for understanding and using replication in QoreStor.
- TCP Port Configuration—If you plan to perform replication operations across a firewall, the replication service requires that the following fixed TCP ports be configured to support replication operations:
- port 9904
- port 9911
- port 9915
- port 9916
- DMAs and Domain Relationships — To allow replication storage information to be viewed by a corresponding data management application (DMA), the target QoreStor system must reside in the same domain as the source QoreStor system in the replication relationship.
- Replication Limits — Refer to the QoreStor Interoperability Guide for details about the supported system limits for replication. For a definition of connections and streams, see Streams_vs_Connections.
- Version Checking — The QoreStor software includes version checking that limits replication only between other QoreStor systems that run the same system software version. If versions are incompatible, the administrator will be notified by an event, and replication will not continue.
- Storage Capacity and Number of Source Systems — Be aware that the storage capacity of the target QoreStor system is directly affected by the number of source systems writing to its containers, and also by the amount being written by each of these source systems.
- Bandwidth limiting — Refer to the replication command in the QoreStor Command Line Reference Guide for information regarding limiting bandwidth consumption for replication.
- MTU Setting — Primary and secondary replication targets should have the same network maximum transmission unit (MTU) setting.
QoreStor supports replication seeding, which provides the ability to create a local seed and place it in a remote system. The seed backup is a process on the source QoreStor system, which collects all of the unique data chunks from the containers and stores them on the target device. This is helpful if you have a new replication target to set up, the amount of data to be replicated is very large, and the network bandwidth is low.
You can seed the target replica with the source data saved on a third party device, for example, a CIFS-mounted share, attach it to the target QoreStor and then get the data into the target QoreStor. Once the seeding is complete, replication is enabled between source and target and replication re-synchronization is done to complete any pending data transfers. Thereby, continuous replication can be done, which reduces network traffic significantly, and data can be replicated and synced with the target in a short amount of time.
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NOTE: The following scenarios are not supported for seeding:
- Import AND export from one share/device cannot occur at the same time.
- Import from one share/device cannot be completed from multiple locations at the same time.
- Export to a mount point can be completed only from one seed job. Multiple seed export jobs cannot send data to a single mount point.
- Import to a QoreStor with Object Direct Storage is not permitted.
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You can initiate seeding using the QoreStor command line interface (CLI), and the data to be seeded is gathered in an organized manner and stored in the target devices. Refer to the QoreStor Command Line Reference Guide for more information about replication seeding support.
When configuring replication for object containers, replication must be added from the source system. Also once replication is added for Object container, the replica container is not accessible. Once replication is deleted then the replica becomes accessible over S3 to the clients.
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NOTE: For DR-to-QoreStor replication, configure replication from QoreStor. |
To add a new replication relationship, complete the following steps.
- In the navigation menu, click Replications.
- Click Add Replication.
- To define the Source Container, select the Local or Remote option.
- If you select Local, select the local container from the drop-down list.
- If you select Remote, configure the following settings:
- Username—enter the username for the remote system.
- Password—enter the password for the remote system.
- Remote Machine—enter the domain name of the remote system.
- Click Retrieve Containers.
- Select Remote Container—Select the remote container from the drop-down list.
- For Encryption, select one of the following encryption options to encrypt the data as it is replicated: None, AES 128–bit, or AES 256–bit.
- Under Target Container, define the target replica container by configuring the following settings.
- Username—enter the username for the remote system.
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NOTE: The credentials used need to be either the admin or administrator account. |
- Password—enter the password for the remote system.
- Remote Machine—enter the domain name of the remote system.
- Click Retrieve Remote Containers.
- Select the remote container from the drop-down list.
- Click Next.
- Review the summary and click Finish.
By default, replication of any newly written files in the replicated container will occur when QoreStor detects three (3) minutes of idle time. If you wish to constrain replication activities to a specific schedule, you can configure replication schedules on a weekly basis for individual replication-enabled source containers.
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NOTE: It is recommended that you do not schedule the running of any Replication operations during the same time period when Cleaner or data ingest operations will be running. If you do not follow this recommendation, the time required to complete the system operations or system performance might be affected. |
To configure replication schedules using the UI:
- On the left navigation menu, click Replications.
The Replications page is displayed, listing all configured replication relationships.
- The configured replications are displayed.
- To configure or edit the replication schedule, click Details.
- Click Edit Schedule.
- For each day of the week, click the time selector field. Select the From and To times to configure a window during which replication can run. Click Set.
- Click Save Schedule.
To configure replication schedules, complete the following steps.
- Access the QoreStor command line interface.
- Use the QoreStor command line interface (CLI) to create and delete the replication schedule. The available commands are:
schedule --add --day <Day of the Week> --start_time <HH:MM> --stop_time <HH:MM> --name --replication
schedule --delete --day <Day of the Week> --name --replication
For full details on running the cleaner schedule commands, help is available by entering:
You can view replication details and status on the Replications page in the QoreStor GUI by selecting a replication and clicking to expand and view details.
