593 - Architecting Storage Platforms for geographical affinity

Background

When building a Storage Platform it may be desirable to ensure geographic affinity for specific groups of Agents to corresponding StorageServers or Storage Pools.

Doing this may allow for best use of local administrative resources for both Agent and Storage Platform, and help to minimise travel time for both personnel and Snapshot disks.

A typical Storage Platform

For a typical Storage Platform, the Agents back up over the internet to StorageServers in one datacenter, and replicate that data to a MirrorServer in another datacenter.

When snapshots are required, removable disks containing initial backup data from Agents must be physically conveyed to the datacenter for import.

For an administrator, this works well when the StorageServer is physically close to the Agents or base of operations, and travel time between it and the datacenter is minimal. Configuring the Storage Platform to match physical locations can help to reduce this issue.

A Storage Platform with geographical affinity

When configuring a Storage Platform with geographical affinity, the following needs to apply:

• StorageServers should be present in different geographical locations.
• Mirroring, if configured, is recommended to be present in an alternate site - but can be at the same site as other StorageServers.
• Agents should be configured to backup to StorageServers in appropriate locations, for example, Agents in London back up to StorageServers in a London datacenter.

To achieve this, the following configuration can assist:

• Assign collections and groups to appropriate StorageServers or storage pools where new accounts will be created.

Example:

• Create MSI deployment files (or enter details manually for Linux and Mac) for the appropriate groups, so that the accounts will be created on StorageServers in the correct locations.

Example of group deployment:

Snapshots, when run, can then be imported at a site close to the Agent so as to not require long travel time between sites.

Using a temporary site for Snapshot or initial backups

Whilst geographic affinity may be appropriate if you have permanent sites in different locations, it may also be desirable to set up a site on a temporary basis before relocating accounts to their permanent location.

Example:

In the example above, the Glasgow datacenter is a temporary site. Agents in the Glasgow area are created on the ss02.domain.com StorageServer in the Glasgow datacenter, either sending over the network or using a Snapshot for the initial backup.

When Snapshots and initial backups are complete, the accounts can then be moved to their permanent location on ss01.domain.com using an account move. This does not interrupt backups, and incremental backup data is sent directly to the permanent StorageServer without requiring a full backup or Snapshot.

To achieve this, as with the conventional affinity configuration, the appropriate group should be configured to match the StorageServer, and an MSI file deployed for the group.