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Spectrum Protect Plus on IBM Cloud

Solution Architecture

Date: 2019–12–12

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Table of Contents

Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 4

1.1 About Spectrum Protect Plus .............................................................................................. 4

1.2 Key Benefits ........................................................................................................................ 4

Design .............................................................................................................................................. 6

1.3 Overview.............................................................................................................................. 6

1.4 Spectrum Protect Plus Deployment .................................................................................... 7

Scaling considerations ................................................................................................ 7

Network ....................................................................................................................... 8

Storage ....................................................................................................................... 8

Backup jobs ................................................................................................................ 9

Operating system updates.......................................................................................... 9

Spectrum Protect Plus updates .................................................................................. 9

Support ..................................................................................................................... 10

Appendix A—License Requirements ............................................................................................. 11

Appendix B—Reference ................................................................................................................. 12

Appendix C—Storage estimations ................................................................................................. 13

List of Figures

Figure 1 VMware on IBM Cloud logical architecture ..................................................................................... 4

Figure 2 Spectrum Protect Plus for VMware on IBM Cloud High Level Components ....................... 6

Figure 3 Spectrum Protect Plus on VMware Cloud Foundation Architecture Diagram................... 7

List of Tables

Table 1 Spectrum Protect Plus deployment summary ................................................................................. 8

Table 2 Spectrum Protect Plus virtual machine network ........................................................................... 8

Table 3 Spectrum Protect Plus backup storage ............................................................................................... 9

Table 4 License requirements ............................................................................................................................. 11

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Summary of Changes

This section records the history of significant changes to this document. Only the most significant changes

are described here.

Version Date Author Description of Change

1.2 2019–11–11 Scott Moonen

Gershon Malki

Update sizing and links for v10.1.5

1.1 2018–07–23 Scott Moonen

Gershon Malki

Deploy separate vSnap server and VADP proxy

1.0

2018–05–07 Jack Benney

Frank Chodacki

Daniel De Araujo

Bob Kellenberger

Simon Kofkin–Hansen

Scott Moonen

Jim Robbins

Renan Ugalde

Initial Release

© Copyright IBM Corporation 2019 Page 4 of 13

Introduction

1.1 About Spectrum Protect Plus

The purpose of this document is to define and describe the Spectrum Protect Plus architecture for the

vCenter Server and VMware Cloud Foundation offerings deployed in the IBM Cloud. Specifically, it will

detail the components of the solution and high-level configuration of each component in the design. This

solution is an additional component and extension of both the vCenter Server solution offering and the

VMware Cloud Foundation solution offering on IBM Cloud. As a result, this document will not cover the

existing configuration of the foundation solutions on IBM Cloud. Therefore, you should review and

understand the VMware on IBM Cloud solution architecture located on the IBM Architecture Center before

reading this document.

Figure 1 VMware on IBM Cloud logical architecture

1.2 Key Benefits

Enterprise VMware environments are designed with multiple levels of availability and recovery in mind,

often including continuous availability and always addressing disaster recovery through replication and

backup techniques. IBM’s Spectrum Protect Plus offering provides backup, recovery, and replication on

IBM Cloud infrastructure, enabling the following functionality:

• Data protection and availability for both VMware and Microsoft Hyper–V workloads

• Application backup for DB2, Exchange, MongoDB, Oracle, and SQL Server

• Data protection for Kubernetes containers

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• Easy to use portal enabling fast backup and instant operational recovery

• Global VM catalog allowing for instant search and restore across many VMs and recovery points

• SLA based policy management with dashboard view of protection compliance and storage

utilization

• Copy snapshot data to tape or cloud archive storage

• Advanced data governance when integrated with IBM Spectrum Protect

• Options for both perpetual licensing and monthly license rental

• 247 service and support with access to new software features

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Design

1.3 Overview

The IBM Spectrum Protect Plus solution complements the IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions offerings by

providing backup services. With proper configuration and planning, your administrators can use Spectrum

Protect Plus backup and restore capabilities as part of their plan to achieve high availability and disaster

recovery goals for your VMware environment.

Figure 2 Spectrum Protect Plus for VMware on IBM Cloud High Level Components

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Figure 3 illustrates how Spectrum Protect Plus interacts with other components of IBM Cloud for VMware

Solutions.

Figure 3 Spectrum Protect Plus on VMware Cloud Foundation Architecture Diagram

1.4 Spectrum Protect Plus Deployment

Scaling considerations

Considerations for sizing your Spectrum Protect Plus backup storage repository are discussed below in

section 1.4.3.2. There are also considerations for sizing your Spectrum Protect Plus server deployment. You

should familiarize yourself with IBM’s recommendations and configuration guidance listed in Appendix B.

For example, your backup job configuration can affect the performance of backup significantly.

Spectrum Protect Plus server

Spectrum Protect Plus is deployed as two virtual machines within your primary VMware cluster in your

IBM Cloud for VMware instance. This puts it in close proximity to your workloads and the bare metal

servers on which they run. One virtual machine hosts the Spectrum Protect Plus server, and the other virtual

machine hosts the vSnap server and VADP proxy.

You may purchase a monthly Spectrum Protect Plus license from IBM Cloud, or provide a perpetual

license that you purchased separately.

Spectrum Protect Plus is deployed with the following parameters. The sizing of the virtual machine hosting

the vSnap server and VADP proxy is dependent on the amount of storage selected at deployment time,

using guidance from the Spectrum Protect Plus blueprint located in Appendix B:

Component Spectrum Protect Plus server vSnap/VADP server

CPU 8 vCPU 8–30 vCPU (depending on storage size)

RAM 48 GB 24–176 GB (depending on storage size)

Boot disk 528GB, on the VMware

management datastore

278GB, on the VMware management

datastore

Operating System CentOS 7.x CentOS 7.x

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Component Spectrum Protect Plus server vSnap/VADP server

Location VMware primary

(management) cluster

VMware primary (management) cluster

Spectrum Protect Plus

license options

In units of 10 VMs: 10, 20, 30, up to 1,000.

Concurrent jobs per

ESXi server

Not applicable 3

Table 1 Spectrum Protect Plus deployment summary

Horizontal scaling

This architecture specifies the deployment of a single Spectrum Protect Plus server together with a single

backup proxy that performs the work of fetching virtual machine storage and performing deduplication,

compression, and encryption. Deduplication and encryption are not enabled by default.

As you increase the number of backup jobs beyond the point that your first server can support (taking into

account CPU, memory, and network requirements), consider deploying a new virtual machine and

installing the vSnap server and VADP components. Review the blueprint and sizing guidance in Appendix

B for help planning your deployment size, together with the user’s guide in Appendix B which describes

the steps and considerations to install such components.

Network

In this architecture, the Spectrum Protect Plus virtual machines are deployed with a single network

interface on the VMware management port group and VLAN. This affords them direct connectivity to the

management components of your instances: VMware vCenter Server and the vSphere hosts. IBM Cloud’s

automation automatically allocates an IP address for the virtual machines from the portable subnet it

manages for this VLAN.

Network component Configuration

VLAN Private VLAN A

Subnet type Portable

Port group Management port group (SDDC-DPortGroup-Mgmt)

Table 2 Spectrum Protect Plus virtual machine network

Storage

Devices

The operating system, software, and configuration for the Spectrum Protect Plus virtual machines are

stored on a dedicated 1TB IBM Cloud Endurance datastore attached to your VMware for IBM Cloud

instance.

Additionally, one or more IBM Cloud Endurance file storage volumes are attached to the vSphere hosts for

storing virtual machine backups, with the configuration outlined below. On each Endurance volume a disk

is created for the Spectrum Protect Plus vSnap server, and Spectrum Protect Plus is configured to extend its

vSnap backup storage repository across this disk or disks.

Storage attribute Configuration

Volume type Endurance file storage

Performance options • 0.25 IOPS/GB (recommended)

• 2 IOPS/GB

• 4 IOPS/GB

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Storage attribute Configuration

Size options • 500 GB

• 1,000 GB

• 2,000 GB

• 4,000 GB

• 8,000 GB

• 12,000 GB

Number of storage volumes 1–10

Table 3 Spectrum Protect Plus backup storage

Sizing considerations

IBM has published a blueprint document and sizing tool for Spectrum Protect Plus; see the link in

Appendix C. The sizing tool is a spreadsheet that allows you to calculate estimated backup storage

requirements depending on factors including your compression estimate, reserve capacity, VM storage,

change rate, and backup policy (which determines backup frequency and retention). The blueprint

document provides instructions and examples of using the sizing tool.

Backup repositories and storage expansion

You can order additional storage from IBM Cloud later in order to expand your IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

vSnap repository. The following steps are necessary:

1. Order IBM Cloud Endurance file storage from the IBM Cloud Infrastructure portal. Ensure that

you order this in the same data center where your IBM Cloud for VMware instance is located.

2. In the IBM Cloud Infrastructure portal, authorize the hosts in your VMware instance to the

storage.

3. In your vCenter web client, attach the Endurance storage to each of your vSphere hosts using the

NFSv3 protocol.

4. Per the IBM Cloud for VMware architecture, configure routes on each of your vSphere hosts to

ensure that the NFS connection to the Endurance storage is routed over the secondary VLAN

(Private VLAN B) through the interface located on the NFS port group (SDDC-DPortGroup-NFS).

5. Create a disk on the new datastore and attach it to the Spectrum Protect Plus VM.

6. Within Spectrum Protect Plus, expand the vSnap repository to cover the new disk.

Appendix B includes a link to a step by step recipe for this storage expansion.

Backup jobs

In order to satisfy your availability requirements, you can configure Spectrum Protect Plus to backup both

the management components of your instance as well as your own workload. For some components and

solutions such as vCenter, NSX, F5 BIG–IP, and FortiGate–VM, a proper backup strategy may include

file–based configuration export. In this case you should deploy a file backup server and plan to include this

in your Spectrum Protect Plus backup job for management components.

Operating system updates

For the Spectrum Protect Plus virtual machine, operating system updates are not automatically configured.

You are responsible to obtain and apply operating system updates as needed.

Spectrum Protect Plus updates

You can download Spectrum Protect Plus updates from IBM Fix Central. You are responsible to download

and install these updates as needed. See Appendix B for the download information.

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Support

Support for Spectrum Protect Plus is provided through the IBM Cloud support portal. This applies for

customers who purchased the in-portal solution or the bring your own license (BYOL) approach. The

Appendix B refers to the process for opening a support ticket.

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Appendix A—License Requirements This architecture requires licensing for several components. The licenses required are as follows:

Component License Source

Backup services IBM Spectrum Protect Plus One of:

• IBM Cloud

• Previously purchased perpetual license

Table 4 License requirements

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Appendix B—Reference Additional information about IBM Cloud and Spectrum Protect Plus on IBM Cloud can be found at the

following sites:

• IBM Cloud Architecture Center for Virtualization:

https://www.ibm.com/cloud/garage/content/architecture/virtualizationArchitecture/reference-

architecture

• Backing up solution components for VMware in IBM Cloud:

https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/services/vmwaresolutions/archiref/solution?topic=vmware-solutions-

solution_backingup

• IBM Cloud for VMWare Solutions - Spectrum Protect Plus

http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg22012650

• IBM Spectrum Protect Plus knowledge center:

• https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSNQFQ_10.1.5/spp/welcome.html

• IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Installation and User’s guide (PDF format):

• https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSNQFQ_10.1.5/spp/r_pdf_spp.html

• IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Blueprints: https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/1119489

• IBM Spectrum Protect Plus – How to add storage post deployment

https://developer.ibm.com/recipes/tutorials/how-to-increase-vsnap-storage-for-ibm-spectrum-

protect-plus-on-ibm-cloud-post-deployment/

• Download information for Spectrum Protect Plus version 10.1.5:

https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/1072392

• Support for In-Portal & Bring your own license (BYOL)

https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/services/vmwaresolutions/vmonic?topic=vmware-solutions-

trbl_support

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Appendix C—Storage estimations The storage estimations were calculated using the following configurations:

• Daily change rate: 10%

• Compression: 50%

• Deduplication: Disabled

• Reserved space: 20%

Sizing guidance is based on the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Blueprints listed in Appendix B.