DXi Veeam Installation

Overview

This document provides instructions for installing and configuring a Veeam™ Linux Repository on Quantum DXi V5000 systems.

Note: A license is not required to install Veeam on the Quantum DXi V5000.

Veeam

The Veeam feature on the DXi allows the system to perform backup and replication with Veeam software on VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V virtual environments.

The Veeam Agent runs in the DXi process space with direct access to DXi resources, providing better performance than Veeam running against a DXi NAS share as a shared folder.

The simplified block diagram below shows the data flow in a typical Veeam installation. Management communication is omitted for simplicity. The VMs on the Customer Network are identified by the Veeam Backup Server. The backups can be full or incremental using the Veeam Agent changed block tracking. At the scheduled backup, the Veeam Agent works with the Veeam Backup Server to facilitate the data movement from the backup sources to the DXi. The backup data is sent by the Veeam Agent to the NFS Share for deduplication and storage in the Blockpool.

Preparing for the Installation

Note: Please review the Veeam Backup and Replication Best Practices Guide, downloadable from the Best Practices page for your DXi product.

Before you begin the Veeam installation, make the following preparations:

DXi Configuration - Install Additional Memory

DXi Configuration - Create a NAS Share

You must create a Veeam NAS share to present the storage capacity of the DXi.

To add a VM NAS share:

  1. In the DXi remote management console, select Configuration > NAS. The NAS Summary page displays.

  2. Click Add.

    The Add NAS Share page displays.

  3. Under NAS Share Settings, enter information about the share:

    Name

    Enter the name of the DXi NAS share.

    Description (Optional) Enter a brief description of the share.
    Protocol

    Select the NFS option to use the share on a UNIX or Linux network.

    Note: CIFS/SMB is not currently supported for Veeam NAS shares.

    Hide from network browsing

    Do not select. This is for CIFS/SMB shares only.

    Enable deduplication

    Select the check box. Veeam NAS shares must have deduplication enabled.

  4. Click Apply.

DXi Configuration - Enable VDMS

Once a VM NAS share has been created, enable VDMS (Veeam Data Mover Service) on the DXi.

In the DXi remote management console, select Configuration > System > App Environment. The Application Environment page displays.

Enabling VDMS

To enable VDMS:

  1. Select the Enable VDMS check box.

  2. Select the Allow login with password check box.
  3. Enter the following information:

    New Password

    Enter the new password.

    Confirm Password Enter the new password again to confirm it.

    Additional Information

    Passwords can be up to 32 characters. Alphanumeric characters and special characters are allowed.

  4. Click Apply.

    A dialog box appears stating that the system will require a reboot. Click Yes. The DXi will reboot and the DXi login screen will appear.

    Note: The reboot takes up to 20 minutes to complete.

  5. Log back into the DXi.
  6. Navigate back to the App Specific page (Configuration > System > App Specific). VDMS will now be enabled with a status of Running or Not Running.

Application Environment - VDMS Enabled

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Note: The following information applies to DXi 9000 versions 4.0.3 and later, and requires DXi Enhanced CPU and memory configuration:

If you need to determine if your DXi9000 can be enhanced for Veeam, open the System Management (GUI) Status > Hardware > Firmware Version, and scroll until you see CPU information like the following:

If your DXi9000 comes with advanced CPU and memory (768 GB RAM), run the following syscli command:

syscli -- set veeam --cgroupslimit 416

This will allocate 416 GB RAM for VDMS usage. See DXi Command Line Interface (CLI).

Veeam Configuration

Once Veeam has been configured enabled on the DXi system, the Linux server within the Veeam Backup and Replication software must be configured. Do the following on the Veeam Backup and Replication server:

Additional Information

Prior to Veeam Backup and Recovery 9.5 Update 4, repositories for DXi were either created as shared folders (without VDMS support) or Linux Repositories (with VDMS support). With the release of Veeam 9.5 Update 4, you may now create deduplicating target repositories specifically for DXi. The legacy repositories are completely operational and the data integrity and deduplication are unaffected, but we encourage you to create new repositories as DXi deduplication repositories in Veeam v9.5 Update 4.

If you created a Veeam Linux Repository for DXi in earlier versions of Veeam, then after upgrading to Veeam v9.5 U4 further changes to the Linux repository configuration are not allowed by Veeam. You may create a new deduplicating DXi repository and make configuration changes as needed. Your data in the legacy Linux repository will still be used by DXi deduplication to reduce the size of data you store on disk, so there will be no loss of data reduction by adding the new repository.

Veeam 10 supports DXi Fast Clone. Fast Clone references backup file blocks already present on the volume. This means manipulations associated with synthetic full backups employ metadata updates and require reduced I/O operations on backed up data. This eliminates the re-hydration retrieve operations previously employed with synthetic full backups.

Installing AccentFS for Veeam 10

The Accent File System (AccentFS) includes your servers in the deduplication process, to minimize bandwidth and send only unique data over the network. Since the Accent File System appears as a native file system on the client, or backup host, any program that can write to a file system can use AccentFS.

Note: Installing AccentFS for Veeam is an option. It is not a required part of Veeam installation.

Installing AccentFS for Veeam 9.5

The Accent File System (AccentFS) includes your servers in the deduplication process, to minimize bandwidth and send only unique data over the network. Since the Accent File System appears as a native file system on the client, or backup host, any program that can write to a file system can use AccentFS.

Create and Designate a Local Target Repository for AccentFS

In the following section you will designate a local repository on the same Linux proxy server that has an AccentFS mount to the DXi, so that all data going from that particular Linux proxy, over the AccentFS link to the DXi will be deduplicated at the source and not the destination.

Manage Veeam

Use the following commands to manage Veeam agent integration.

Note: The CLI Admin (cliadmin) account must be enabled on the DXi. If you do not have the password for this account, contact the DXi administrator.