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vRanger 7.8.6 - Installation/Upgrade Guide

Introduction Before you install System requirements and compatibility Installing vRanger Upgrading vRanger

VA usage

The vRanger VA can be used to perform the following operations. For each of these operations, the processing activity occurs on the VA.

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Backup: network and LAN-free (HotAdd)
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Restore: network and LAN-free (HotAdd)
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Linux® file-level restore
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Replication

Deployment locations

The locations to which the vRanger VA or VAs should be deployed depend on the specifics of the virtual environment in question. Some general guidelines for VA deployment are:

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You may share a single VA among the hosts within a cluster. You may install a VA to some or all hosts within a cluster as well. If a VA is not detected on the host, vRanger determines whether the host is part of a cluster, and then if that cluster has a VA available.
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You must have a VA deployed on any VMware® ESXi™ host or cluster that is used for replication and backup. This requirement is true regardless of whether the host or cluster is used as the source or target of the replication task.
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When using the VA for replication, both the source and target host or cluster must use a VA.
 
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NOTE: The vRanger VA is now bundled with vRanger, and can be found in: C:\Program Files\Quest\vRanger

Creating a vRanger repository

Designed for ease-of-use in recovery operations, repositories eliminate the need for countless backup locations and endless configurations. With vRanger, you can configure a repository once, and use it forever.

vRanger supports the following options for repository connections.

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NOTE: Any storage device or appliance that supports CIFS or NFSv3 is expected to be compatible with vRanger.
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Common Internet File System (CIFS)
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Network File System (NFS) (version 3)
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NetVault SmartDisk
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EMC® Data Domain® Boost (DD Boost™)
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Quest DR Series Disk Backup Appliance (Quest Rapid Data Access [RDA])
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Quest QoreStor (Quest Rapid Data Access [RDA])

A repository is essentially a directory on a supported file system that vRanger uses to store savepoints — backup archives. When viewed from outside vRanger, through Windows® Explorer, for example, a repository consists of a configuration file — GlobalManifest.metadata — and directories for each savepoint.

Any time you add a repository in vRanger a GlobalManifest.Metadata XML file is created in the selected folder. It is the presence of that manifest file that tells vRanger that a repository exists in that folder.

Repository location, along with the configuration of jobs to those repositories, plays a significant role in the performance of vRanger. Use the following recommendations to aid on planning your repository configuration.

Repository storage devices

Slow disk performance has been shown to negatively impact the backup performance of vRanger. When configuring repositories, special attention should be paid to the type of storage devices used.

The use of SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) disk drives are recommended. SAS drives typically offer a 30% performance improvement over SATA drives.

The use of external USB drives or low quality NAS devices is not recommended. If these types of storage are used, the vRanger configuration settings must be adjusted to accommodate the slow devices. Recommended configuration settings for slower repositories are shown in the following list. These configurations can be made on the vRanger Configuration Options dialog box, available on the Tools > Options menu.

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Maximum number of tasks running off a LUN = 3
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Maximum number of tasks running off a host = 1
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Maximum number of tasks running per repository = 2

If no errors are received with these settings, increment the tasks per repository value by 1 to find the best fit for your environment.

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