WHITE PAPER

BACKUP USING COMMVAULT WITH DELL

EMC ISILON

Abstract
This white paper outlines best practices for deploying Dell EMC Isilon scale-
out storage with Commvault to provide a flexible and scalable backup
solution.

September 2017

1 | Backup
Backup Using Commvault
Using Commvaultwith with
Dell Dell
EMCEMC
IsilonIsilon
© 2017 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive summary.............................................................................................................................. 4
Audience ............................................................................................................................................................................ 5
Terminology........................................................................................................................................................................ 5
Solution Components ......................................................................................................................................................... 5
Architecture Overview .......................................................................................................................... 6
Best practices ...................................................................................................................................... 7
Networking ......................................................................................................................................................................... 7
Basic ................................................................................................................................................................................................. 7
Advanced ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 7
Performance ....................................................................................................................................................................... 8
Basic ................................................................................................................................................................................................. 8
Advanced ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 9

Configuration...................................................................................................................................... 10
Isilon Storage Platform Configuration .............................................................................................................................. 10
Basic ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 10
Advanced ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 10
CommVault Simpana Configuration ................................................................................................................................. 12
Basic ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 12
Advanced ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 17

Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 18

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Executive summary
This paper describes the best practices and solution-specific configuration steps for deployment of Commvault with Dell EMC Isilon for
both basic and advanced deployments. Isilon scale-out NAS storage together with Commvault provides a comprehensive, flexible and
scalable backup and archive solution that lets enterprises of all sizes address their backup needs; from data protection to preservation
while providing secure self-service access to data.

Backup challenges with traditional storage

1. Compounding effect of backups

Each year organizations are generating more data and keeping that data for longer. This growth can be exponential, since
traditionally many full backup copies are kept weekly, monthly, and yearly. For example: If the most recent weekly backups are kept
for 8 weeks, monthly backups for 10 months (covering the remainder of the year), and yearly backups for 7 years, then one file would
have 25 copies just using the backup algorithm. Using this example, just 40 TB of new data would need 1 PB of storage. There are
mechanisms to reduce some of the common data, like compression, deduplication, and snapshots, but portions of the data will be
unique or not easily reduced.

This compounding growth affects the cost of tape even more, since many of these data reduction mechanisms are not available, native
tape drive compression is only supported by tape. In addition, there are many often overlooked issues that need to be considered
when using tape – the cost of secure off-site storage, cost to periodically retrieve backups from storage to perform test restores as
needed for compliance or business policy, and the risk of not being able to read older tapes if too many tape drive generations have
passed.
2. Management overhead

Individually monitoring performance and free space on traditional RAID-based volumes / LUNs becomes a huge burden. The constant
juggling and adding of new volumes / LUNs when capacity or hardware limits are reached consumes more and more time, and each
storage change often requires the application’s configuration to be updated as well.
3. Refresh cycle and data migration

The inevitable, and often overlooked, hardware refresh every 3 to 5 years will more than likely take up many nights and weekends,
data center resources, and budget with traditional RAID-based storage systems. With extensive planning, a complete re-evaluation of
performance and capacity requirements, including future needs out to 3 or more years; they will need a new infrastructure to be stood
up alongside the old infrastructure to allow the data to be migrated, likely with one or more outage windows. Provisioning data center
rack space, power, cooling, and network infrastructure for this type of hardware refresh can be very expensive and time consuming.

Backup Solutions with Dell EMC Isilon and Commvault

Isilon scale-out technology removes the hurdles of multiple backup copies, management overhead, application reconfiguration, and
data migration; so you can focus on your organization’s backup and archive strategy.

The Dell EMC Isilon OneFS operating system, the intelligence behind the Isilon scale-out NAS, combines the three layers of traditional
storage architectures—file system, volume manager, and data protection—into one unified software layer, creating a single intelligent
file system that spans across all nodes within a cluster. The application only needs to be configured once to use the single namespace
provided by OneFS. New cluster capacity can be added in 60 seconds and is immediately available for use by the application without
any manual intervention. To eliminate performance and capacity hot-spots, and the juggling of volumes / LUNs, Isilon automatically
distributes clients, file data, and free space across the entire cluster. With Isilon’s utilization rate of over 80%, not achievable with
RAID-based storage systems, fewer hard drives are needed to satisfy the capacity demands while providing a comparable or higher
level of data protection. The ability to grow capacity to over 68 PB within a single cluster and push-button retire older hardware greatly
simplifies data migration on hardware upgrades and eliminates the need to support two infrastructures simultaneously. This saves
valuable data center rack space, power, cooling, and network infrastructure, not to mention time.

Commvault is a comprehensive information protection and preservation platform that offers advanced features like OnePass™ which
converges backup, archive and reporting operations into a single job maximizing efficiency while minimizing any impact of production
infrastructure.

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This document describes the best practices and solution-specific configuration steps for deployment of Commvault with Isilon for both
basic and advanced deployments. Basic best practices enable quick, easy, and straightforward deployments using the fewest settings
to get you started. The advanced best practices identify opportunities to configure the system for performance, scalability, or highly
secure environments for a more optimized deployment model. This requires a high level of knowledge, support, and time to plan the
deployment of all the components in advance.

Audience
This document is intended for administrators who will deploy and configure Dell EMC Isilon with Commvault. The assumed level of
technical knowledge for the devices and technologies described in this document is high.

Terminology
The abbreviations used in this document are summarized in Table 1.

Abbreviation Description

CS CommServe Server

MA MediaAgent Server

DB Database

DDB Deduplication Database

SQL Microsoft SQL Server

Table 1. Abbreviations

Solution Components
The following solution components are described in this document:

• Commvault Simpana 9 10, and Commvault 11 and Dell EMC Isilon scale-out NAS with Isilon OneFS 7.1, 7.2 and 8.0

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Architecture Overview
To understand the Commvault architecture, let us first discuss the components and their function. Starting at the edge and working
our way towards the center, the iDataAgent software is deployed on all servers, workstations, and laptops that need to be backed up;
they are collectively called clients. There are specific iDataAgents for each of the different File Systems, Applications, and Databases
supported by Commvault. The MediaAgent software is deployed on dedicated servers that manage the transfer of data between the
clients and media; there are often multiple MediaAgents within an environment to distribute the load. The CommServe software is
deployed on a dedicated server that communicates and coordinates all operations; backups, restores, copies, media management,
etc. The CommServe creates a logical grouping of MediaAgents and clients called a CommCell; depending on the size of the
environment, or network and physical boundaries, there can be multiple CommCells within an environment.

An overview of the logical architecture for a Commvault and Isilon scale-out storage deployment is provided in Figure 1. This shows
the Isilon cluster defined as a single CommCell Disk Library that is being shared between the CommServe and MediaAgents. With this
configuration, the Disk Library settings never need to be updated. When capacity is added to the Isilon cluster, the CommServe and
MediaAgents immediately see the additional capacity without intervention; nodes can be added to an Isilon cluster in as little as 60
seconds with just a few clicks.

Adding capacity to a CommCell that is using traditional RAID-based storage requires many configuration steps on both the storage
system and the CommCell. The storage system needs to be manually configured to provision the additional storage on existing or new
volumes / LUNs. The CommCell would need an existing Disk Library modified with an additional mount path or a new Disk Library
created, which requires a new Storage Policies to be defined. This could also require that Subclients be manually rebalanced across
the existing Storage Policies. These are time consuming tasks that are eliminated when Isilon storage is used instead.

Figure 1. Logical architecture overview

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Best practices

Networking
The networking sections that follow provide guidance and best practices to design and deploy the network connectivity and
communication pathways of your environment.

Basic

In this section we will discuss the basic information you should know to avoid firewall, permissions, and latency pitfalls, and understand
your connectivity options.

Firewall

During the installation, it is recommended to select the option to “Add programs to the Windows Firewall Exclusion List”, even if the
Windows Firewall is disabled. This will add CommCell programs and servers to the exclusion list and ensure they function, even if a
disabled Windows Firewall is later enabled. Depending on the Commvault version, this may be enabled by default.

Permissions

The CommServe, MediaAgent, and client software must be deployed using an Administrator account or an account that is a member
of the Administrator group on these systems.

Similarly, the account used to define an Isilon cluster as a Commvault Disk Library should have full control permissions on the share
and directory.

Target Permissions Required

• Local Administrator
CommServe, MediaAgents, and Clients
• Administrator Group

Disk Target (Isilon Share and Directory) • Full Control

Table 2. Permissions Requirements

Bandwidth

Generally, more bandwidth available between services provides better performance. Other factors account for overall performance;
however, bandwidth can be an important component

For most deployments, a pair of bonded Gigabit Ethernet connections on the CommServe, MediaAgents, and Isilon cluster nodes will
provide sufficient bandwidth and resiliency. The Commvault recommendation for one exclusive 10 GbE connection to a NAS Disk
Library is based on a traditional NAS that has one or two filer controllers with limited connectivity. Isilon is a scale-out NAS with CPU,
RAM, drives, and networking that scale-out together to provide more configuration options.

If switch ports are limited and bandwidth needs can be met with less than all the Isilon cluster nodes, the excess nodes can remain
disconnected on the external Ethernet interfaces. This is possible due to the internal InfiniBand connections that enable all of the
nodes to continue to communicate and access resources, including capacity. At a minimum, it is recommended to connect at least two
different nodes in the cluster to two different Ethernet switches to avoid a single point of failure.

Latency

Latency can affect transfer rate performance. Therefore, it is recommended that no more than 25 ms of latency exist between the
Commvault services and Isilon cluster. Performance could be seriously affected if this latency is greater than 50 ms.

Advanced

In this section we will discuss the advanced information you should know regarding firewall ports and connectivity option for high
performance.

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Firewall

Server Destination ports Comments

CommServe Server 81 CommCell Console – Management UI

CommServe, MediaAgent, and Clients 8400 Commvault Communications Service (CVD)

CommServe, MediaAgent, and Clients 8401 Commvault Server Event Manager (EvMgrS)

CommServe, MediaAgent, and Clients 8402 Commvault Client Event Manger (EvMgrC)

CommServe, MediaAgent, and Clients 8403 Commvault Tunnel HTTP/HTTPS

MediaAgent and Clients 1024 to 65525 Commvault Backup/Restore Range (Dynamic)

Table 3. Advanced firewall

Bandwidth

The use of 10 GbE connections should be considered for deployments where there are enough excess Commvault and client
resources to support higher transfer rates than the dual bonded Gigabit Ethernet interfaces can provide, and a reduced backup/restore
window is needed.

Performance
The performance sections that follow provide guidance and best practices to ensure the health and performance of the CommCell
components and their resources.

Basic

In this section we will discuss the basic information you should know about the resource requirements for the CommServe and
MediaAgent servers, CommServe database, and virtual deployments.

CommServe and MediaAgent Server Configurations

The Commvault server recommendations should be followed for your deployment size. Consider stepping up to the next higher
recommendation to ensure optimal DB performance and to provide the most flexibility. For example, client resources may be
insufficient to perform deduplication and/or compression tasks on backup data at an acceptable transfer rate, so it may be best to
offload those tasks to the MediaAgent servers. In which case, more network bandwidth may be consumed, so that must be considered
when making these types of adjustments.

SQL Configuration

On the CommServe server, the SQL memory size is typically set to 50% of the physical RAM. With that in mind, if feasible, monitor
the CommServe database size so that there is enough RAM for the DB to run in memory. Also, it is recommended to run the CS DB
on fast disks, possibly SSDs or PCIe flash. For more information, see IOPs for CommServe Database Volumes
(http://documentation.commvault.com/commvault/v11/article?p=products/commserve/iops.htm).

Deploying in a Virtual Environment

The CommServe SQL data and log files should be stored on different virtual hard drives (VMDKs or VHDs) and the log file should be
placed on faster storage (RAID 10 or RAID 1).

Commvault states that MediaAgent virtualization may only achieve 60% of the maximum number of concurrent streams supported in a
physical deployment.

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Local Server Storage

In most cases, two 15K drives (RAID 1) is the recommended local storage configuration for the operating system on both the CS and
MA servers, except for the highest CS tier which recommends eight 15K drives (RAID 10) or enterprise SSDs (RAID 5).

Advanced

In this section we will discuss the advanced information you should know regarding the MediaAgent Deduplication Database
performance.

Deduplication DB (DDB)

As a general guideline, you will need to store the DDB on four or more SSDs (RAID 5 or 10) or PCIe flash on each MA server locally to
achieve the DDB performance necessary to ensure adequate backup/restore transfer rates. The DDB should not be placed on an
Isilon cluster; it must be local to each MA server.

More information can be found in the following Commvault documents.

• Deduplication - Best Practices:

http://documentation.commvault.com/commvault/v11/article?p=features/deduplication/best_practice.htm

• Deduplication Building Block Guide:

http://documentation.commvault.com/commvault/v11/article?p=features/deduplication/deduplication_building_block.htm

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Configuration
An overview of the configuration steps for a Commvault and Isilon OneFS scale-out storage deployment is provided in Figure 2. The
sections that follow provide guidance on best practices or required settings for each step, where applicable.

Figure 2. Commvault and Isilon OneFS configuration workflow

Isilon Storage Platform Configuration

The sections that follow provide configuration guidance and best practices for configuring the Isilon cluster.

Basic

In this section we will discuss the basic requirement for creating the backup directory on the Isilon cluster.

Create Commvault Backup Directory

In a typical IT environment, it is common to have multiple applications utilizing a shared central enterprise storage system, such as an
Isilon cluster. To ensure simplified storage and application management, it is a recommended best practice to create directories using
a naming convention that easily represents the application (for example, /ifs/CommvaultData). In this way, it should be clear which
group owns the data, if capacity or other questions arise.

When creating the Commvault backup directory, ensure the user account used by the CommServe and MediaAgents has Full Control
permissions on the directory.

The default /ifs share or export can be used to access the directory (for example, \\IsilonClusterName\ifs\CommvaultData)

Advanced

In this section we will discuss the advanced options of creating a Commvault specific share or export on the Isilon cluster.

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Create Commvault Specific Share or Export

Depending on the cluster configuration and other workloads being placed on the cluster, it may be helpful to create a specific share or
export for Commvault. This could be useful to more easily expose the directory being use for this purpose, if not immediately under
the /ifs directory, or to more clearly show the workloads on a cluster from a visibility / manageability perspective. This is facilitated by
the additional details that can be recorded within the share or export description on the Isilon cluster.

When creating the Commvault share or export, ensure the user account used by the CommServe and MediaAgents has the
appropriate permissions on the share.

For example, the following CLI command can be used to create Commvault backup directory and its SMB share.

isilon-1-1# mkdir /ifs/CommvaultData

isilon-1-1# isi smb shares create –-name=CommvaultData –-path=/ifs/CommvaultData -–browsable=true –-description=”Share for
Commvault backups”

Isilon File Sharing

With its build-in multi-protocol support, Isilon OneFS provides the ability to share directories and files to Windows client machines
through SMB and to Linux client machines through NFS.

Create CIFS/SMB Share

Refer to the Isilon OneFS Web Administration Guide for complete configuration procedures.

Overview:

1. Enable the SMB Service, if not enabled already

2. Create a SMB share

3. Add the user account used by the CommServe and MediaAgents to the SMB Share with Full Control permissions

4. Test this SMB share by browsing to it on the CommServe and MediaAgents

Figure 3. Isilon SMB WebUI

Create NFS Export

Refer to the Isilon OneFS Web Administration Guide for complete configuration procedures.

Overview:

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1. Enable the NFS service, if not enabled already

2. Create a NFS export

3. Add CommServe and MediaAgents Server IP Address in the NFS client list and allow Read-Write access

4. Map users to user name ‘nobody’

5. Test the NFS export by mounting it on the CommServe and MediaAgents

Figure 4. Isilon NFS WebUI

Commvault Configuration
The sections that follow provide configuration guidance and best practices for configuring the Commvault CommCell.

Basic

In this section we will discuss the basic best practice for configuring a single Isilon Disk Library to be shared with all the MediaAgents,
the CommCell policy configurations, and the necessary alerts for virtual deployments.

Create an Isilon Disk Library

All MediaAgents can be configured to share a single Isilon Disk Library device using the following method.

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Steps:

1. CommCell console ribbon > Storage tab > Library and Drive – (see Figure 5)

2. Click “Add All >>” from the Available MediaAgents, click OK – (see Figure 5)

Figure 5. Create an Isilon Disk Library – Step 1 and 2

3. Click Start (in the Library and Drive Configuration window, bottom-left button) > Add > Disk Library… – (see Figure 6)

Figure 6. Create an Isilon Disk Library – Step 3

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4. Enter an Alias and click OK – (see Figure 7)

Figure 7. Create an Isilon Disk Library – Step 4

5. Enter the Base Folder (is created), a MediaAgent, directory and share credentials, and Folder (full UNC path to share and
directory), then click OK – (see Figure 8)

Figure 8. Create an Isilon Disk Library – Step 5

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6. Select the Shared Disk Device tab > right-click Folder > select “Configure for All Selected MediaAgents” – (see Figure 9)

Figure 9. Create an Isilon Disk Library – Step 6

7. Click Yes to configure for all MediaAgents – (see Figure 10)

Figure 10. Create an Isilon Disk Library – Step 7

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8. This shows the MediaAgents configured with this Isilon Disk Library, the window can be closed now – (see Figure 11)

Figure 11. Create an Isilon Disk Library – Step 8

9. Once completed successfully, the Isilon Disk Library and Folder should be listed in the CommCell Browser under Storage
Resources > Libraries – (see Figure 12)

Figure 12. Create an Isilon Disk Library – Step 9

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Create Storage Policy

A new Storage Policy should be created that uses the Disk Library created above with the appropriate aging rules and other settings
needed for the environment. Depending on those needs, modifying the new storage policy and adding the other MediaAgents as Data
Paths to that storage policy with Round-Robin enabled in the Data Paths Configuration may simplify storage policy management.

Subclient and Schedule Policy

The Subclients should be configured with the Storage Policy created above. Depending on the needs of the environment, a new
Subclient can be created or the default Subclient can be used. To schedule the Subclient to run on a regular basis, add it to a new or
existing Schedule Policy with a Full and Incremental schedule that is appropriate for the client.

Deploying in a Virtual Environment

For CommCell health, a vMotion and Storage vMotion like operation must never be performed on an active CommServe DB. Any
automatic mechanisms that trigger these operations should be disabled on a CS virtual machine. Alerts should be configured in your
virtual environment to ensure you are aware of any such operations.

Advanced

In this section we will discuss the advanced performance considerations.

Commvault Backup Performance

The backup process is a resource intensive operation, especially the compression and deduplication process, so the amount of spare
CPU, RAM, and hard drive performance on a client all contribute to its backup performance.

If a client requires the total backup time to be reduced, in addition to monitoring the CS and MA performance, the client performance
should also be monitored during the time of the backups. Additional CPU and RAM can help with the compression and deduplication
hashing algorithms and therefore reduce the backup time. Obviously hard drive performance affects how quickly the data can be read
during the backup process and therefore the backup time, so ensure other workload or maintenance operations are not hampering the
backup. If resources cannot be easily increased, test if offloading the compression and/or deduplication process from the client to the
MediaAgents helps. This will cause more network bandwidth to be consumed between the client and the MediaAgent, so this must be
considered when making these adjustments.

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 Conclusion
The accelerating amount of data being generated today can have an exponential effect on the amount of space needed for backups.
This creates unprecedented challenges on storage systems not built with scale-out as a core component of their technology.
Choosing the right storage solution that provides ease of management, automated distribution, seamlessly scales, saves valuable data
center resources, and turns the inevitable hardware refresh / migration into a simple push-button affair is critical to providing peace of
mind to IT organizations already stretched thin on resources.

Using the basic deployment method you are able to implement the Commvault and Dell EMC Isilon environment with the least amount
of effort, provide good resiliency and performance, and have the information necessary to avoid common issues. The advanced
deployment method provides additional information to customize, administer, and optimize backup performance.

TAKE THE NEXT STEP

Contact your Dell EMC sales representative or authorized reseller to learn more about how Isilon scale-out NAS storage solutions can
benefit your organization.

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