DR Series Software 4.0.0.3 - Administration Guide

In the Edit Interface pane, for IP Mode, select Static (to set static IP addressing for your system) or DHCP (to set dynamic IP addressing for your system).

If you selected Static for the IP Mode, enter the IP , Netmask, and Gateway addresses. (the system IP address and netmask identify the network to which your system belongs).

For MTU, enter a number to set as the maximum. (The MTU setting accepts values between 512 and 9000.)

NOTE: Ensure that the value that you enter in MTU is the same for the clients, Ethernet Switch, and the appliance. The connection between the clients, the Ethernet switches, and the appliance will break if the MTU number is not the same on all the components.

NOTE: In computer networking, jumbo frames are Ethernet frames with more than 1500 bytes of payload (but in some cases, jumbo frames can carry up to 9000 bytes of payload). Many Gigabit Ethernet switches and Gigabit Ethernet network interface cards support jumbo frames. Some Fast Ethernet switches and Fast Ethernet network interface cards also support jumbo frames. Some computer manufacturers use 9000 bytes as the conventional limit for jumbo frame sizes. To support jumbo frames used in an Internet Protocol subnetwork, both the host DR Series system (initiator or source) and the target DR Series system have to be configured for 9000 MTU.

NOTE: Consequently, interfaces using a standard frame size and those using the jumbo frame size should not be in the same subnet. To reduce the chance of interoperability issues, network interface cards capable of supporting jumbo frames require specific configurations to use jumbo frames.

NOTE: To verify that the destination system can support a specific frame size, use the DR Series system CLI command network --ping --destination <IP address> --size <number of bytes>. For more information, contact Technical Support for assistance.

NOTE: Make sure that if you are using any Dell network switches that you take full advantage of the latest switch firmware upgrades and application notes. The application notes provide procedures that assist you in performing switch firmware upgrades and saving configuration files (for complete details, see support.dell.com/ and navigate to Drivers and Downloads for your system type).

NOTE: When setting or changing the MTU value, make sure that you verify that the Ethernet network switch is capable of supporting an MTU size that is equal to or larger than the value you are setting. Any mismatch in MTU values between the clients, Ethernet network switch, and the DR Series system appliance will make it inoperable.

In the Bonding Configuration drop-down list, select one of the following bonding configurations.

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ALB—Configures adaptive load balancing (ALB), which is the default setting.

NOTE: ALB load balancing does not balance the load properly when your backup servers are on a remote subnet. This is because ALB uses the address resolution protocol (ARP) and ARP updates are subnet-specific. Because this is the case, ARP broadcasts and updates are not sent across the router. Instead, all traffic is sent to the first interface in the bond. To resolve this ARP-specific issue, make sure that your data source systems reside on the same subnet as the DR Series system.

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802.3ad—Configures dynamic link aggregation using the IEEE 802.ad standard.

CAUTION: If you change the existing bonding setting, the connection to the DR Series system may be lost unless you are sure that the system can accept this bonding type.

Click Save.

Under Bandwidth Limits, you can view the following columns of information, which represent network bandwidth for replication connections:

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Target System—The DR Series system to which network traffic is being sent.

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Target IP—The IP address of the DR Series system to which network traffic is being sent.

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Bandwidth Limit—This limit is shown in KBps, MBps, or GBps and represents the user-set value of the Max Speed.

To modify Bandwidth Limit settings, in the Action column, click the Edit icon.

In the Edit Bandwidth Limit pane, for Bandwidth Speed Rate, select Unlimited or Limited.

If you select Limited, for Bandwidth Speed Value, enter a number for the bandwidth speed, and then select KBps, MBps or GBps from the drop-down list.

Click Save.

Parent topic

Understanding the networking page and Ethernet port values

In the DR Series system GUI, the Networking page displays the currently configured multiple Ethernet ports for the DR Series system in the Interfaces list. For 1–Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) ports in the DR4000 system this could be Eth0, Eth1, Eth2, and Eth3, and in the DR4100 system this could be Eth0, Eth1, Eth2, Eth3, Eth4, and Eth5. For 10-GbE/10-GbE SFP+ NICs, this means that the two ports are bonded together into a single interface. For example, the DR Series system port configuration is as follows:

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In a 1-GbE NIC configuration: the DR4000 system supports up to four 1–GbE ports, which consists of up to two internal LAN on Motherboard (LOM) ports and two ports on an expansion card that are bonded together. The DR4100 system supports up to six 1–GbE ports, which consists of up to four internal LOM ports on the network daughter card (NDC) and two ports on a PCI Express expansion card.

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In a 10-GbE or 10-GbE SFP+NIC configuration: the DR4000 system supports up to two 10–GbE or 10–GbE SFP+ ports on an expansion card that are bonded together. The DR4100 system supports up to two 10-GbE or 10-GbE SFP+ ports that reside on the NDC that are bonded together.

NOTE: For more information on advanced networking options see the DR Series Command Line Interface Reference Guide available at support.quest.com/dr-series by selecting your specific DR model and then navigating to Technical Documentation.

The ports for bonded NICs display: MAC address, port speed in megabtyes per second (MB/s), maximum speed, and duplex setting. The following example shows Ethernet port values for the four ports in a 1-GbE NIC bonded configuration on a DR4000 system:

Eth0:

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MAC: 00:30:59:9A:00:96

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Speed: 1000Mb/s

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Max Speed: 1000baseT/Full

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Duplex: Full

Eth1:

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MAC: 00:30:59:9A:00:97

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Speed: 1000Mb/s

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Max Speed: 1000baseT/Full

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Duplex: Full

Eth2:

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MAC: 00:30:59:9A:00:98

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Speed: 1000Mb/s

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Max Speed: 1000baseT/Full

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Duplex: Full

Eth3:

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MAC: 00:30:59:9A:00:99

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Speed: 1000Mb/s

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Max Speed: 1000baseT/Full

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Duplex: Full

Parent topic

Understanding system operation scheduling

Configuring cleaner schedules

Configuring replication schedules

By scheduling system operations, you can optimize your system resources and achieve the best possible DR Series system performance. The most important thing to remember when scheduling critical DR Series system operations is that you want to ensure that you perform each of these operations at a time when it will not overlap or interfere with the running of any of the other key system operations.

You should carefully plan and schedule time periods in which to perform the following critical system operations:

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Data ingests (which are dependent upon your usage of your DMA(s))

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Replication

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System cleaner (space reclamation)

NOTE: Performing scheduled disk space reclamation operations are recommended as a method for recovering disk space from system containers in which files were deleted as a result of deduplication.

In the DR Series system, the main goal in planning and scheduling operations should be to run the Cleaner and Replication operations at times when they do not overlap or interfere with other important system operations. You want to make sure that by properly scheduling and planning, your system can perform each of these key operations independent of the other.

The best practice is to run these two operations during non-standard business hours, so that they do not conflict with any of your other backup or ingest operations.

To view currently scheduled operations and to access the Schedules page to configure system schedules, follow these steps.

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On the left navigation menu, click System Configuration > Schedules.

The Schedules page is displayed, showing a daily/hourly calendar representation of currently scheduled operations.

Parent topic

Configuring cleaner schedules

Viewing cleaner statistics

Performing scheduled disk space reclamation operations are recommended as a method for recovering disk space from the system. The recommended method is to schedule a time when you can run the Cleaner on your DR Series system with no other planned processes running.

NOTE: Even if no Cleaner schedule is set, but the system detects that there is disk space that can be reclaimed, the Cleaner process runs. However, the Cleaner will not start until the following conditions are met: it detects that there are no active data ingests, that two minutes of system idle time have elapsed since the last data file ingest was completed, and that the Replication process is not running (the Cleaner process runs as a lower system priority operation than the Replication process).

NOTE: Running the Cleaner while ingesting data reduces system performance. Ensure that you schedule the Cleaner to run when backup or replication is not in progress. For more information about best practices for using the system cleaner, refer to the DR Series System Cleaner Best Practices white paper for your specific DR Series system at support.quest.com/DR-Series.

To schedule cleaner operations on your system, complete the following steps.

On the left navigation menu, click System Configuration > Schedules.

The Schedules page is displayed, showing a weekly/daily calendar representation of currently scheduled operations.

To add a cleaner schedule, on the Action menu in the upper right corner of the page, select Add Cleaner Event.

In the Cleaner pane, select a day from the Set Event At Day drop-down list.

In the From and To drop-down lists, select the time (hour) of the day for the cleaner to run.

Click Save.

NOTE: You can also use the DR Series system command line interface (CLI) to create, view, and delete the cleaner schedule. The available commands are:

schedule --add --day <Day of the Week> --start_time <HH:MM> --stop_time <HH:MM> --cleaner
schedule --show --cleaner
schedule --delete --day <Day of the Week> --cleaner

NOTE: For full details on running the cleaner schedule commands, help is available by entering:

schedule --help

To run the cleaner now, on the Action menu in the right corner of the page, select Run Cleaner Now.

Viewing cleaner status

The current Cleaner Status is shown at the top of the Schedules page as one of the three following states:

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Pending—displays any scheduled window for the Cleaner operation.

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Running—displays when the Cleaner operation is running.

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Idle—displayed only if there is no Cleaner operation running.

On the Dashboard page, you can also view a graph of cleaner statistics.