Add a self-service protection policy for Storage Direct
Select a self-service protection policy if you want your backup application to manage the local protection stage, and
PowerProtect Data Manager to handle the additional stage by backing up selected assets within a policy. You can use the
PowerProtect Data Manager UI to add a self-service protection policy for Storage Direct data protection.
Prerequisites
Review the prerequisites.
If you have added a LUN to a storage group since the last SMIS server discovery, run a
Discover of the SMIS server.
Ensure that there is no lock on the VMAX.
Before you perform a backup on a weekly or monthly schedule from the protection policy, ensure that the
PowerProtect Data Manager time zone is set to the local time zone. If the
PowerProtect Data Manager time zone is not set to the local time zone, the weekly or monthly backup still runs but is triggered based on the
PowerProtect Data Manager time zone.
If applicable, complete all of the virtual network configuration tasks before you assign any virtual networks to the protection policy. The
PowerProtect Data Manager Administration and User Guide provides more information.
Steps
Select
Protection > Protection Policies.
The
Protection Policy window appears.
Click
Add.
The Add Policy window appears.
In the
Type page, specify the new protection policy fields.
In the
Name field, specify the name of the protection policy. For example,
Storage Direct VMAX Policy
NOTE The name that you specify here becomes part of the storage unit name.
In the
Description field, specify a short description of the protection policy. For example,
Storage Direct VMAX Policy Daily Backups.
In the
Type field, select
Storage Group.
Click
Next.
The
Purpose page appears.
In the
Purpose page:
Select
Self-Service Protection.
PowerProtect Data Manager.
Select one of the following options:
If this is a new Storage Direct environment, select
PowerProtect Data Manager will automatically provision and manage all storage required to meet this objective.
When selected,
PowerProtect Data Manager will perform the provisioning of the Storage Direct environment and create the required configuration on both the VMAX storage and the DD system. For example, a backup device group and restore device group are created on the DD system, and a backup storage group that is linked with the source storage group, and a restore storage group, are created on the VMAX.
If this is an existing Storage Direct environment, select
PowerProtect Data Manager will not provision and manage my storage.
When selected, only the storage group assets in the existing configuration will appear in the
Assets page. Also, no additional configuration will be performed since this was already completed during setup of the stand-alone Storage Direct environment. The configuration will be read from the configuration file and stored in the
PowerProtect Data Manager database.
Click
Next.
The
Assets page appears.
Select the unprotected storage groups that you want to add to the backup of this protection policy group. Within this page, you can filter by host or asset name to locate the required assets. Ensure that any assets you add to the policy have a hostname entry in the
Host column.
The
Assets page displays the storage groups that are attached to the host that are unprotected (storage groups that have not been assigned to a protection policy).
Click
Next.
The
Objectives page appears.
On the
Objectives page, select a policy-level Service Level Agreement (SLA) from the
Set Policy Level SLA list, or select
Add to open the
Add Service Level Agreement wizard and create a policy-level SLA.
The
PowerProtect Data Manager Administration and User Guide provides instructions.
Click
Add under
Primary Retention.
The
Add Primary Retention dialog appears.
On the
Retention pane of the
Add Primary Retention dialog box:
Under
Recurrence: Self-Service, specify the
Retain for period for which the backup scheduled by self-service is to be retained.
You can extend the retention period for the primary retention backup by adding an Extend Retention backup. For example, your regular schedule for daily backups can use a retention period of 30 days, but you can apply extended retention backups to keep the full backups taken on Mondays for 10 weeks. Step
12 provides instructions.
Click
Save within the
Retention pane to save and collapse the backup schedule.
Specify the fields on the
Target pane of the
Add Primary Retention dialog.
If you are a new Storage Direct user, the
Storage Name and
Network interface lists are enabled for selection, and the
Retention Lock slider can be moved to On. If you are an existing Storage Direct user, the
protection storage destination is selected automatically and you cannot modify the selection. Also, the
Retention Lock slider cannot be moved.
Storage Name—For the primary retention, select a destination from the list of
protection storage, or select
Add to add a
protection storage system and complete the details in the
Storage Target window.
NOTE The
Space field indicates the total amount of space, and the percentage of available space, on the storage system.
Network Interface—Select a network interface from the list, if applicable.
Retention Lock—Move the
Retention Lock slider to the right to enable retention locking for these backups on the selected system.
PowerProtect Data Manager uses Governance mode for retention locking, which means that the lock can be reverted at any time if necessary. Toggling the
Retention Lock slider on or off applies to the current backup copy only, and does not impact the retention lock setting for existing backup copies.
SLA—Select an existing service level agreement that you want to apply to this schedule from the list, or select
Add to create an SLA within the
Add Service Level Agreement wizard.
The
PowerProtect Data Manager Administration and User Guide provides instructions.
Click
Save to save your changes and return to the
Objectives page.
The
Objectives page updates to display the name and location of the target storage system under
Primary Retention.
NOTE After completing a backup schedule, you can change schedule details by clicking
Edit next to the schedule.
Optionally, extend the retention period for the primary retention copy.
The
PowerProtect Data Manager Administration and User Guide provides more information about
Extend Retention functionality.
Click
Extend Retention next to
Primary Retention. An entry for
Extend Retention is created below
Primary Retention.
Under
Extend Retention, click
Add. The
Add Extended Retention dialog appears.
Extend the retention of a full primary backup copy...—Specify a weekly, monthly, or yearly recurrence for the extended retention backup schedule.
Repeat on—Depending on the frequency of the full backup schedule, specify the day of the week, the date of the month, or the date of the year that the extended retention backup will occur.
Retain for—Specify the retention period for the backup. You can retain an extended retention backup for a maximum of 70 years.
Click
Save within the
Schedules pane to save and collapse the schedule for extending retention for the primary retention.
In the
SLA field of the
Target pane, optionally select an existing service level agreement that you want to apply to this schedule from the list, or select
Add to create an SLA within the
Add Service Level Agreement wizard.
Click
Save to save your changes and return to the
Objectives page.
NOTE After completing a schedule for extending retention, you can change schedule details by clicking
Edit under
Extend Retention.
Optionally, configure replication of the primary retention copy to a remote storage system:
Click
Replicate next to
Primary Retention. An entry for
Replicate is created to the right of the primary backup schedule.
Under
Replicate, click
Add. The
Add Replication dialog appears, indicating that MTree replication will be added for replication of the backup to a secondary
protection storage system. When you select the destination storage, the
Space field updates with the available capacity on the system.
NOTE To enable replication, ensure that you add a secondary remote
protection storage system as the replication location.
Add protection storage provides detailed instructions about adding remote
protection storage.
The schedule frequency can be every day, week, month, or
x hours for replication of the primary backup, and every day, week, month, year, or
x hours for replication of the extended retention backup. For daily, weekly, and monthly schedules, the numeric value cannot be modified. For hourly, however, you can edit the numeric value. For example, if you set
Create a Full backup every 4 hours, you can set a value of anywhere 1 to 12 hours.
Retention Lock and
Retain for are inherited from the primary retention schedule, and cannot be configured in the
Add Replication dialog.
Click
Save to add the replicate and return to the
Objectives page.
Click
Next.
The
Summary page appears.
Review the protection policy configuration details. You can click
Edit next to any details to make changes. When completed, click
Finish.
An informational message appears to confirm that
PowerProtect Data Manager has saved the protection policy.
Click
OK to exit the window, or click
Go to Jobs to open the
Jobs window to monitor the configuration of the new protection policy group.
The
Jobs window breaks down the
Storage Group protection by VMAX storage group. Click the link next to the storage group to open the
Details pane, where you can view more specific information about the job tasks, such as:
Creation of vDisks in the DD system and creation of backup and recovery storage groups.
Encapsulation, which involves creating backup and restore FTS devices on the VMAX and linking the DD vDisk with FTS.
Creation of the initial snapshot backup, and linking of the snapshot to the protection storage group.
Notification that a new configuration file has been pushed to the host.
If replication was selected, notification that a job for MTree replication was also initiated.
Job tasks vary depending on whether you are a new user or an existing Storage Direct user.
Next steps
Run the following command from the host to verify that snapshots will be created for each storage group in the protection policy, and to ensure that a successful relationship has been established between the source device and the backup FTS device for movement of data from the VMAX to
protection storage.
symsnapvx - sid xxx -sg
storage group name list
An
X in the Flags section of this output, as shown in the following, indicates that the relationship has been established without any issues.
Once the snapshots and relationship are verified, the
protectpoint snapbackup create command is used to perform the self-service backup. This command uses the configuration file that is created automatically upon the addition of storage groups to a
Storage Group protection policy. The configuration file provides information about the VMAX and
protection storage system attributes and the storage groups protected by this policy.
You can access the configuration file, for example,
VMAXPolicy1.config, by going to the
C:\Program Files\DPSAPPS\ppfsagent\config directory. The file name contains the name that you provided for the
Storage Group policy.
NOTE Do not modify this configuration file.
Run the following command to perform the self-service backup. This command example is from a Windows system.