vRanger 7.8.5 - Integration Guide for EMC Data Domain Boost (DD Boost)

Getting started

NOTE: The information in this topic is intended only to provide an overview of the steps required to configure vRanger and DD Boost. Review all applicable documentation before implementing this solution.

Integrating EMC® Data Domain® Boost (DD Boost™) with vRanger is achieved by adding an EMC® Data Domain® appliance running DD Boost to vRanger as a repository. Backups written to that repository are deduplicated according to your configuration. The following steps describe the integration process at a high level, and provide links to the remaining topics for more exploration. Before implementing this solution in a production environment, read this documentation thoroughly.

Product overviews

The following topics provide an overview of vRanger and EMC® Data Domain® Boost (DD Boost™), and important information about the licensing required to integrate the two products.

vRanger is the leading VMware® data protection solution that also backs up and recovers Windows® physical servers and files with blazing speed and minimal storage requirements. With vRanger, you get comprehensive protection for both virtual and physical environments that you can manage from one intuitive interface.

vRanger has historically supported EMC® Data Domain® systems as repositories, but required that the Data Domain system was configured as a Common Internet File System (CIFS) share. vRanger extends this functionality to support the more advanced functionality offered by EMC® Data Domain® Boost (DD Boost™), and allow direct configuration of DD Boost repositories.

For virtual machine (VM) backup, a license for vRanger controls the number of source CPUs that you can configure for backup. For licensing purposes, a multi-core processor is counted as a single CPU. For physical backup, each server protected consumes one physical backup license.

Every VMware® ESXi™ host for which vRanger is expected to provide protection must be properly licensed, both by VMware and in the vRanger Host Licensing tab.

IMPORTANT: A Quest vRanger license is required for integration with EMC® Data Domain® Boost (DD Boost™). vRanger Standard Edition (SE) and vReplicator are not supported by DD Boost. This documentation uses “vRanger” for simplicity, but only vRanger Backup & Replication is supported for use with DD Boost.

EMC® Data Domain® Boost (DD Boost™) enables backup servers to communicate with storage systems without the need for EMC® Data Domain® storage systems to emulate tape. There are two components to the software:

The Data Domain system exposes pre-made disk volumes called storage units to a DD Boost-enabled backup server. By using the DD Boost Libraries, multiple backup servers can use the same storage unit on a Data Domain system as a storage server. Each backup server can run a different operating system, if it is supported by Data Domain.

EMC® Data Domain® Boost (DD Boost™) software is an optional product that requires a license to operate on the EMC® Data Domain® system. You can purchase a DD Boost software license key for a Data Domain system directly from EMC.

Understanding DD Boost

EMC® Data Domain® Boost (DD Boost™) enables backup servers to communicate with storage systems without the need for EMC® Data Domain® storage systems to emulate tape. There are two components to the software:

The Data Domain system exposes pre-made disk volumes called storage units to a DD Boost-enabled backup server. By using the DD Boost Libraries, multiple vRanger instances can use the same storage unit on a Data Domain system as a storage server. Each backup server can run a different operating system, if it is supported by Data Domain.

EMC® Data Domain® supports EMC® Data Domain® Boost (DD Boost™) on the following Data Domain (OS) versions:

The DD Boost Library version must be compatible with your Data Domain system and data protection application configurations.

DD Boost features

This topic provides a technical overview of EMC® Data Domain® Boost (DD Boost™) features. Configuration information for these features is described in Configuring the Data Domain system.

Distributed segment processing allows parts of the deduplication process to be performed by the EMC® Data Domain® Boost (DD Boost™) Library, which avoids sending duplicate data to the EMC® Data Domain® system that is configured as a vRanger repository. The option to distribute the processing is enabled or disabled on the Data Domain system; for more information, see Configuring distributed segment processing. The DD Boost Library negotiates with the Data Domain system for the current setting of the option and behaves appropriately. Therefore, the DD Boost Library offers two modes of operation for sending backup data to a Data Domain system: one with distributed segment processing enabled and the other with the distributed segment processing disabled.

Distributed segment processing provides the following benefits:

For more information about local compression and its configuration, see the EMC Data Domain Operating System Administration Guide.

You manage distributed segment processing by using the ddboost option commands, as described in Using the DD Boost commands.

NOTE: EMC recommends that you use distributed segment processing if your network connection is 1 Gb Ethernet.

In this mode, the EMC® Data Domain® Boost (DD Boost™) Library sends the data directly to the Data Domain system over the LAN. The Data Domain system then segments, deduplicates, and compresses the data before it is written to the disk. The DD Boost Library runs on the backup server.

In this mode, the deduplication process is distributed between the EMC® Data Domain® Boost (DD Boost™) Library and the Data Domain system.

NOTE: The DD Boost Library runs on the vRanger server. The DD Boost Library’s handling of data is transparent to vRanger and the library does not store any data on the backup server.

Parts of the deduplication process are run by the DD Boost Library so that only unique data is sent to data to a Data Domain system over the LAN. The DD Boost Library segments, computes IDs for the segments, checks with the Data Domain system for duplicate segments, compresses unique segments that are not found on the Data Domain system, and sends the compressed data to the Data Domain system. The Data Domain system then writes the unique data to disk.