© 2010 Quest Software, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Quest vRanger / Architecture

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Backup and Restore Types

• Network backups for ESX – Direct to target

• Network backups for ESXi –vRanger as a Proxy

• LAN Free or Fiber/iSCSI backups for ESX and ESXi –vRanger proxy on Physical server attached to VMFS Datastores

• Hot Add backups – vRanger installed on a VM

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vRanger Pro 5.2 Architectural Options

Network Based

• ESX Hosts use direct to target

• ESXi Hosts use vRanger server as proxy

LAN Free

• ESX(i) Hosts use physical vRanger as proxy

• Proxy server has storage connections to VMFS and repository

Hot Add

• vRanger must be installed in a VM

• vRanger ESX(i) Host must see storage for all VM’s to back up

VM

Source VMSource.v

mdk

Hot Add

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ESX Network Backups

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ESX Network backups

Benefits• Simplest way to deploy vRanger

with ESX hosts• Uses “Direct to Target” • Works with vRanger as a VM or

as a physical server• Generally works well in small

environments and with dedup appliances for repository

Considerations• Service Console NIC can be

limiter• Consider using 2nd SC NIC to

isolate backup traffic• Multiple concurrent jobs can

saturate moderate storage devices (sata disks, controllers, interfaces) – use resource manager to adjust # of tasks

• Performs better with a larger number of ESX servers that are less VM/data dense

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ESXi network backups

• vStorage API running from vRanger server connects to ESXi host and requests a snapshot to be made

• Data travels out from ESXi host to vRanger uncompressed, vRanger compresses, and sends it to the repository

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ESXi Network backups

Benefits• Simplest way to deploy vRanger

with ESXi hosts• Works with vRanger as a VM or

as a physical server• Backups are streamed to

vRanger for white-space removal and compression, then sent to repository

• Generally works well in small environments

Considerations• ESXi Mgmt NIC can be limiter• Consider using 2nd Mgmt NIC to

isolate backup traffic• The entire VM must be copied

each time to vRanger• No “Direct to Target”

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LAN Free (Fibre or iSCSI) backups

• vStorage API running from vRanger server connects to ESX(i) host and requests a snapshot to be made

• vStorage API running from vRanger server reads VM disks and writes archives to repository. vRanger acts as proxy.

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LAN Free (Fibre or iSCSI) backups

Benefits• Leverages investment and

performance of your SAN• Isolates backup traffic to SAN• Performs very well• Can add additional HBAs or

NICs to backup server to increase performance and scalability

Considerations• Do NOT initialize the VMFS

datastores from your vRanger server!

• Scalability will also depend on # of cpu cores, amount of memory, and bandwidth to

repositories.

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Hot Add backups

VMSource VM

Source.vmdk

• vRanger server connects to ESX(i) host and requests a

snapshot to be made.

• vRanger server reads VM disks, removes whitespace, performs compression and/or encryption, and

writes archives to repository.

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Hot Add backups

Benefits• Simple to deploy and configure• vRanger server must be a VM• Read speeds @ native VM

performance

Considerations• Disable auto mount on vRanger

server• Add 2nd SCSI controller to VM• Scalability will also depend on #

of cpu cores, amount of memory, and bandwidth to repositories.

© 2010 Quest Software, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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