Data Domain: Media Agent Sizing Guidelines for Commvault v11

Media Agent Sizing guidelines for CommVault 11.32.x

With CommVault 11.32.x, Data Domain DDBoost replaces CommVault deduplication only.
Media Agent has nondeduplicated pools used for reducing the required resources for Media Agent Host.

Here are some guidelines which can help to size the Media Agent with various configurations.
For Media Agent Only (nondeduplicated database pools)
 
With DDBoost Client Direct, CommVault is not doing the hash lookups with Media Agent. It still sends metadata and indexing information to the Media Agents hence media agents can be sized accordingly.

Hardware Specifications for Non-Deduplication Mode

The following are the hardware requirements for Media Agent for Tape, Disk, Cloud, and Index Cache. For more information about system requirements, see System Requirement for Media Agent.

Important:
The following hardware requirements are applicable for nondeduplicated Media Agents. The suggested workloads are not software limitations, rather design guidelines for sizing under specific conditions. The recommendations given are per Media Agent.

• For large datasets that exceed the suggested capacity, we recommend that you group the similar data agents for backups, such as File System agents, Database agents, and so forth.
• The TB values are base-2.
• To achieve the required IOPs, consult your hardware vendor for the most suitable configuration for your implementation.
• The index cache disk recommendation is for unstructured data like files, VMs, granular messages, and so forth. Structured data like applications, databases and so forth require less index cache.
• CPU and RAM, operating system or Software Disk, and Index Cache Disk

Suggested Data Streams and workloads.
 

Component	Extra Large	Large	Medium	Small
Parallel Data Stream Transfer	300	200	100	50
Front End Terabytes (FET)	360 TB	250 TB	80 TB	50 TB

Notes:

1. SSD class disk indicates PCIe based cards or internal dedicated endurance value drives.
2. Recommendation for unstructured data like files, VMs, and granular messages; Structured data like application and databases require less index cache.
3. The index cache directory must be on a local drive. Network drives are not supported.
4. Front-End Terabytes (FET): Size of the data (for example, files, database, and mailboxes) on the client computer that have to be backed up.
5. To improve the indexing performance, it is recommended that you store your index data on a solid state drive (SSD).

The following agents and cases require the best possible indexing performance:

• Exchange mailbox agent
• Virtual Server agents
• NAS filers running NDMP backups
• Backing up large file servers
• SharePoint agents
• Ensuring maximum performance whenever it is critical.

Hardware Specifications for Access Nodes (Access nodes are also known as Proxy Clients.)

Hardware Specifications for Virtual Server Agent
Verify that the hardware requirements for Virtual Server Agent (VSA), installed on either physical or virtual machines, are met.
 

1. Assumes latest generation CPU architecture
2. Front-End Terabytes (FET): Size of the data on the client computer that has to be backed up, such as files, databases, and mailboxes.

Important Considerations:

• If the VSA is installed on the Media Agent (physical or virtual machine), then the capacity of the Media Agent that exceeds the VSA capacity can be used for other network-based agents, including remote VSAs, up to the maximum capacity specified in Deduplication Mode.
• When a VSA proxy with the Media Agent package installed is used for live browse operations, the block-level browse feature uses a Least Recently Used (LRU)-based pseudomount cache in the job results directory. At least 20 GB of free space I required.
• When restoring large files, you can improve the performance by increasing the size of the pseudomount cache so that it does not require to be pruned frequently during restores. For optimal performance, the free space on the pseudomount cache should be at least 10%ofthe overall disk size for the cache plus the size of the data to be restored.
• For virtual machines, to achieve maximum performance and scalability, reserve the recommended CPU, memory, and other resources for Commvault software processor that they operate within the set constraints.
• The sizing guidance provided here is applicable for direct or network connection to backup storage. If the Hot Add transport mode is used for backup and recovery operations, the overall throughput is lower.
• The hardware requirements listed here are increased by 25 percent when enabling File Indexing for virtual machines. For more information, see Requirements for File Indexing for Virtual Machines.

I/O Paths

• Dedicated I/O to datastores and backup disk
• Dedicated I/O should have one interface for read operations and another for writing to the backup disk.
• The server should have the recommended I/O operations per second (IOPS) for deduplication operations, as described in Deduplication Mode.

Related Topics

• For information about system requirements, see the System Requirements page for the hypervisor, under Virtualization.
• To optimize backup and recovery operations, see the sizing guidance in Deduplication Mode. For information about CommCell hardware specifications, see CommCell Sizing.

• MediaAgent: System Requirements
• Hardware Specifications for Non-Deduplication Mode
• Hardware Specifications for Deduplication Mode

• Hardware Specifications for Access Nodes (Proxy Clients)