Source:HPE StoreOnce Replication - Jaglion

Overview

As of v. 4.4.3 Beefalo, you can use Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) StoreOnce Catalyst stores as a backup storage. HPE StoreOnce fully controls the backup data and enables you efficient replication, deduplication, encryption and recovery. SEP sesam supports the replication of savesests from one HPE Catalyst store to another, and as of version HPE StoreOnce v. ≥ 3.18, from HPE Catalyst store to external object storage – HPE Cloud Bank Storage.

4.4.3 Beefalo V2 (HPE StoreOnce v. ≥ 4.1) introduced support for HPE Cloud Bank Storage as a Catalyst copy target for replicating your data. HPE Cloud Bank stores write deduplicated data to public or private cloud storage, as opposed to a regular HPE StoreOnce Catalyst stores where data is written to disk in the HPE StoreOnce system.

Configuring a Cloud Bank store as a replication target is pretty straightforward and does not differ much from the configuration of a regular Catalyst store. Before you configure SEP sesam replication for HPE StoreOnce, your HPE StoreOnce backup appliance must be set up properly with all the requirements met (e.g., the minimum supported version of HPE system, required licenses for the HPE StoreOnce Catalys store and HPE Cloud Bank store, etc.), as described in HPE StoreOnce Configuration.

HPE StoreOnce replication workflow

The replication process uses the following workflow:

1. The Catalyst store is created in the StoreOnce system.
2. All backed up data is sent from the backup server (SEP sesam Server or RDS) to StoreOnce where the data is duplicated and stored in the HPE Catalyst store.
3. Deduplicated data is replicated to the secondary StoreOnce remote system, e.g., HPE remote Catalyst store or HPE Cloud Bank Storage.

Configuring HPE StoreOnce replication with SEP sesam

SEP sesam HPE StoreOnce replication enables you to replicate the data between HPE Catalyst store to another HPE (remote) Catalyst store or HPE Cloud Bank store. SEP sesam replication searches only for new blocks of data on the source media pool and replicates those changes to a target media pool according to defined schedule. Replication means that only changed data blocks are sent over a network and replicated to the target server. This reduces the data transferred over the network and gives you ability to control your network usage by scheduling replication. For details on SEP sesam replication and its prerequisites, see Replication.

Step-by-step procedure

To replicate the data from HPE remote Catalyst store to HPE Cloud Bank store (recommended) or HPE remote Catalyst store, proceed as follows:

1. Create an HPE StoreOnce Catalyst store.
2. In order to replicate to the HPE Cloud Bank Storage, first set up the HPE Cloud Bank store(s) using HPE StoreOnce Management Console and enter the required credentials (for Amazon AWS S3 or Microsoft Azure object store, respectively).
3. In SEP sesam, configure two different HPE StoreOnce data stores according to your HPE StoreOnce Catalyst stores configuration (local, remote or Cloud Bank).
4. Create media pools for your HPE StoreOnce stores; replication requires one source media pool and one target media pool.
5. Run a test backup to make sure that your backup works properly.
6. Then create a replication task for the HPE Catalyst store.

Configuring HPE StoreOnce data stores

Once your HPE StoreOnce appliance is set up and the Catalyst stores and Cloud Bank stores are created, you can configure the HPE StoreOnce data stores in the GUI. SEP sesam HPE StoreOnce data store is a special device type used for writing savesets directly to HPE StoreOnce Catalyst stores.

You have to configure two different HPE StoreOnce data stores for replication. The first data store (Catalyst store) will be used as a replication source and the second as a replication target (remote Catalyst store or Cloud Bank store). When configuring the stores, select HPE StoreOnce as a store type and specify your credentials, as described in Configuring HPE StoreOnce data store.

Creating media pools

Each data store requires a media pool. Note that you can create the media pools during a data store configuration by clicking the Create Media Pool button or later in the HPE StoreOnce data store properties, as described here.

Replication requires a source and a target media pool to where the data is replicated.

1. Double-click the relevant HPE StoreOnce data store and in the Properties window click Create Media Pool.
2. Enter a media pool name, for example, MP_source_StoreOnce_weekly.
3. Set up the Retention time for which the media from the pool are protected from writing (see Managing EOL).

	Note
	If the immutability (retention) period has been set when creating Catalyst store, the data will be protected for the defined period of time even if the SEP sesam EOL has expired. If the SEP sesam EOL is longer than the defined immutability period, the data will be protected as defined by SEP sesam.

Once you created a source media pool, create another - target media pool for your second HPE StoreOnce store, for example, MP_target_StoreOnce_weekly.

Testing your backups

To make sure that your data is backed up properly, test backup to both HPE StoreOnce stores.

1. Create a new backup task: In the Main Selection -> Tasks -> By Clients, select your HPE StoreOnce client and then click New backup task.
Configure your backup task and save it. For details, see Creating a backup task.
2. Test the backup on the source and target HPE StoreOnce data store: From the menu bar, select Activities -> Immediate start -> Backup. In the Immediate start: Backup dialog, select a source/target media pool as your backup target media pool. Click Start and check if your backup performed successfully.

Creating a replication task

If your test backups finished successfully, create a replication task for your Catalyst store.

1. In the Main selection -> Tasks -> Replication Tasks, click New replication task. The Replication Task window is displayed.
2. In the Name field, enter a meaningful name for the replication task, e.g., rep-source_StoreOnce_mediapool-to-target_StoreOnce_mediapool.
3. Under the Media Pool, specify the following:
• Pool: Enter the name of the source media pool from which the data will be replicated, e.g., MP_source_StoreOnce_weekly.
• Drive: Select the drive number of the drive that will be used to read the data. By selecting the source media pool, the drive number is set automatically, however, you can select another drive from the drop-down list.
• Interface: Optionally, from the drop-down list select the network interface of the RDS through which the data transfer will be executed.
4. Under the Destination, specify the following:
• Pool: Enter the name of the target media pool to which the data will be replicated, e.g., MP_target_StoreOnce_weekly.
• Drive: Select the drive number of the drive that will be used to write the data.
• Interface: From the drop-down list select the network interface of the RDS through which the data transfer will be executed.
5. To define the time frame of the backups that will be replicated, select Relative backup date and select the appropriate values for the From/To fields. These fields specify the number of days in the past that are considered for replication, meaning all data in the source media pool that was backed up within a given period of time is going to be considered for replication to the remote target pool. For example, to replicate all data from the past week, the Relative backup date is set to -7 while to is set to 0. Because the replication will always replicate only new blocks of data, you can specify a really high number in the From field, such as -99.999. This way all backups since the initial replication will always be checked, but only the changed data is going to be replicated.

	Note
	Only the savesets with status successful and with warnings are selected for replication, whilst savesets with errors and only partially restorable savesets (containing data from cancelled backups) are not replicated.

6. In the drop-down list Based on, the Sesam days option is selected by default. Sesam day is a backup day you define according to your backup routines. For example, your backups can run after midnight but retain the backup date of the prior day. Sesam day/backup day is defined by time set in the NEWDAY event. For details, see SEPuler: SEP sesam backup day.


7. Click Save to save your replication task.

If you want to start the newly created replication task immediately, right-click the name of the task and click Immediate start. Otherwise, you have to add your replication task to one or more schedules to automate your replication by clicking New Schedule under Main Selection -> Scheduling -> Schedules. Once you have configured a schedule, you must create a new replication event for it. For details, see Scheduling replication.

You can check the status of your replication task under the Main Selection -> Job state -> Migrations and Replications. The columns provide details on status, start/stop time, media pools, replication type, etc., used for the task. You can also examine the progress of the replication and see how much data is being transferred; you can check data size, physical and nominal data in the columns Data Size, Transferred, Transferred (Brutto) and Progress respectively. For details, see Checking replication status.