Seijo University, which had a problem in backing up the campus system, introduced "Rubrik" as a backup product. Why did you choose Rubrik? What are its merits and challenges? I asked the person in charge of system operation at the school.
[Okubo Shinori, TechTarget Japan]
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Virtual Machine (VM) | Backup | Backup Appliance | Disaster Countermeasures | Education IT
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Seijo University << Click to enlarge >>
Seijo University uses the backup product "Rubrik Cloud Data Management" (hereinafter referred to as "Rubrik") to back up the campus system operated using a virtual machine (VM). It is said that the load of backup operation could be reduced by solving the problem that "the backup VM puts pressure on resources" that had been held before the introduction. We spoke with Mr. Kazuhiro Igarashi of the Media Network Center, who is in charge of system operation at the university, about product selection points and introduction effects.
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Backup that overwhelms the resources of the virtual environment
Mr. Igarashi
Mr. Kazuhiro Igarashi of Seijo University
The system operation team of Mr. Igarashi and others designs, builds, and manages management systems such as authentication servers, DNS / DHCP servers, network monitoring software, and security appliances for on-campus services operated at Seijo University. .. The infrastructure on which these systems operate is a virtual environment built with the server virtualization software "VMware vSphere". Each system is operated using a "Linux" -based VM in that environment. In the backup operation of these VMs, the team used the backup appliance "Dell EMC Avamar" and the VM backup software "VMware vSphere Data Protection" (VDP). While utilizing these, he said he faced the following issues.
VM (image proxy) for backup management puts pressure on resources
If the process stops while the backup data is being acquired and the process does not proceed, the snapshot being created will be locked. As a result, snapshots that failed to be created continue to remain, squeezing storage as "garbage" data. In addition, such fragmented snapshots require extra work because you have to manually assemble the data to create one successful snapshot.
Snapshots left in an unknown owner state cannot be aggregated or deleted, and it becomes necessary to restart the hypervisor "VMware ESXi" running on the VM or host server. However, in order to restart the host server of the VM, the consent of the organization that uses the system operating on that server must be obtained, and the necessary processing cannot be executed immediately.
The user interface (UI) of the management screen of Dell EMC Avamar is complicated and difficult to operate.
Since the management screen opens an individual window for each function to be operated, it is necessary to operate while switching between multiple windows, which increases the burden of management work.
The number of members who can perform complicated operations is limited, and there is a problem that the work is personalized.
Three selection conditions for backup products
In order to solve these problems, from 2016 to 2017, Mr. Igarashi and his colleagues selected alternative backup products. The conditions required for the product are as follows.
Condition 1. Be a hardware appliance
In the method of creating and operating a backup VM, resource contention occurs as described above. Therefore, it was a condition that the hardware appliance could be operated by the backup system alone.
Condition 2. Be agentless
The operation staff may not be able to operate the server used by each department without permission, such as when the server is being restarted or an application is being installed. Even in that case, it had to be an "agentless" product that could create and manage backups without having to install a dedicated application (agent) on the VM.
Condition 3. The management screen should have an easy-to-understand UI
It is desirable that the product can be easily operated by anyone so that the skill does not depend on a specific member of the operation team. Therefore, the selection was made with an emphasis on whether the UI of the management screen is easy to understand.
Mr. Igarashi, who was looking for a product to migrate to, participated in the event "VMworld 2016 US" held by VMware in the United States in 2016, was interested in Rubrik exhibited there, and came to investigate the details. "There are other products out there that meet our requirements now, but at the time only Rubrik met our requirements," he said.
Realization of automation by formulating backup policy
Since June 2018, Mr. Igarashi and his colleagues have been using two "r334" units of Rubrik's appliance version to back up their virtual environment. One is installed at the university and the other is installed at the DR (disaster recovery) center set up by Seijo University in Okinawa, and the created backup is replicated. "It was introduced with almost no verification period, but it was immediately available," he recalls.
Since Rubrik is an agentless type (Note), it is not necessary to place an agent or backup VM on the same server as the managed VM. Compared to the case where they need to be placed, the load on resources can be expected to be reduced. The management screen is provided as a single Web application, and Mr. Igarashi said, "Not only has it become easier to perform the operations required for processing with an intuitive UI, but it has also become possible to search and restore on a file-by-file basis. Can also be evaluated. "
* Note: An agent is required to install the virtual appliance version of Rubrik in the cloud.
There are other points that could be simplified. Rubrik can formulate policies (rules) based on backup service level agreements (SLAs) that set the frequency and retention period of snapshots. By applying this policy when creating a new backup target such as a folder or VM, it will be possible to automatically obtain a backup according to the settings. Until then, every time a new backup target was created, it was necessary to describe the rules for batch operation, which was troublesome.
Possibility to expand by using high-speed network
Backup using Rubrik has been operating without any problems as of December 2019, and there are no particular operational issues (Mr. Igarashi). "Actually, it seems that some node has a failure, but since the three nodes automatically distribute the load, there is no problem with the system as a whole," he said.
Mr. Igarashi cites "improvement of disk read / write speed" and "installation of a faster network interface" as points that he hopes to improve in expanding the use of Rubrik. This is because not only the time required for backup processing is shortened, but also effective use when the speed of the university / research institution network "SINET" used at the DR center in Okinawa is increased.
The communication speed of SINET currently used in the DR center is 10 Gbps, and the r334 in operation also has a 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) communication interface. "If a faster network becomes available at the DR center, we will be able to secure sufficient communication capacity even if all backup data is managed at the DR center," Igarashi said.
We are also considering using the created backup file. For example, he says he is planning to use the backup file analysis tool "Polaris GPS" provided by Rubrik after expanding the backup target to other than VM. "By automatically acquiring information such as the location of files and the date and time of modification for each owner, it would be good if the entire university could manage" who, what, and where "(Mr. Igarashi). Seijo University's efforts will serve as a reference for educational institutions and companies that are considering a series of processes from backup data management of virtual environments to their effective use.
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