Replication Configuration

• Overview
• How to get here in the StoreGrid Web Console?
• Replication Configuration
• Troubleshooting Tips
• Limitations

Overview

StoreGrid supports replicating a backup server to a replication server. Replicating the backup data in the backup server is done to create redundant copies of the backup data. The replication configuration UI page is used to configure and schedule replication of backup data as per the user/administrator requirements.

How to get here in the StoreGrid Web Console?
 In the top menu, select: "Server Admin->Replication Management". Click on 'Configure Replication' tab.

Replication Configuration

Step 1

Enable Replication : By checking or un-checking the checkbox, you can enable or disable replication for the Backup Server.

Replication Server : From the choice box, choose the replication server to which this backup server's data should be replicated.

Step 2

Set CPU Utilization - This is used to specify how this server’s CPU should be utilized by the StoreGrid process when the backup server replicates the backed up data to the Replication Server. Setting it to low will make the StoreGrid process do the replication slowly without taking much CPU so that it is least intrusive. But replication will take longer to complete if low CPU settings is chosen.

Attempt to replicate the backed up data every 5 minutes in case of non completion because of a problem (Network error etc.) : If enabled, then the replication schedule, irrespective of the schedule time/interval, will be scheduled every 5 minutes whenever replication is incomplete because of a network error, server crash etc. Note that this option is enabled by default.

Step 3

Replicate While Receiving a Backup: Choosing this option will schedule the replication as soon as the backup server starts receiving the backup data from the client.

1. Changing the schedule type from any other option to 'Replicate While Receiving a Backup' will cause the immediate scheduling of all the backups.
2. Disabling and then enabling replication with 'Replicate While Receiving a Backup' will cause the immediate scheduling of all the backups.

Replicate Immediately After Receiving a Backup: Choosing this option will schedule the replication after the client's backup schedule is completed.

1. Changing the schedule type from any other option to 'Replicate Immediately After Receiving a Backup' will cause the immediate scheduling of all the backups.
2. Disabling and then enabling replication with 'Replicate Immediately After Receiving a Backup' will cause the immediate scheduling of all the backups.

Replicate Every Few Hours: Choose the hours/minutes to schedule replication periodically. If StoreGrid is restarted in the interim, the replication will be scheduled as soon as StoreGrid starts. Thereafter, StoreGrid will automatically reschedule the next replication after the time period you’ve set.

For example, if the backup server receives a backup at 8 am and the backup completes at 10.30 am, and if you have set replication to run every 1 hour, StoreGrid will first run the replication schedule at 8 am (i.e as soon as the backup server starts receiving the data for the first time) and the next replication will be scheduled at 11.30 am. However, if at 8.30 am, StoreGrid is restarted, then the replication will be scheduled once at 8.30 am and the next replication will be scheduled 1 hr after the current replication schedule completes.

Additionally, you can also select the days in which replication should run. For example, if you do not want replication to run on Saturdays and Sundays, uncheck the checkbox against these days. If the "Select all days" checkbox is checked, then all the schedules will be scheduled on all the days of the week.

Note:
Disabling and then enabling replication with 'Replicate Every Few Hours' will cause the immediate scheduling of all the backups.

Replicate Daily: Choose the time at which the backup should run daily. All the backup schedules will be replicated everyday at the time you have provided.

Replicate Weekly: Choose the time and the day of the week replication should be scheduled. All the schedules will be replicated every week on the particular day and time chosen.

Troubleshooting Tips

	When Replication does not happen at the scheduled time.
Cause 1: If Replication is not enabled. Solution : In the Replication Management UI page, check the enable replication check box and save the configuration. Cause 2 : If Replication Server Name is not displayed in the UI. Solution : Add the Replication Server Name from the 'Administration->Add/Delete Peer' UI page. Then select the Replication Server name in Replication Management and save the configuration. Cause 3 : If the Replication thread count is limited to 1 or a limited number of threads, and if there are more (than the thread count) number of backup schedules to be replicated at the same time, then the replication schedules will be put in a queue and scheduled for replication one after the other. Hence all the schedules will not be replicated simultaneously at the particular time provided. Solution : Open the SGConfiguration.conf file located in <StoreGrid Home/conf> directory. Edit the Replication Thread count tag to desired number. Note: By default Replication Thread count is -1, which will allow infinite number of backups to be replicated simultaneously. For fresh installation of StoreGrid (since version 2.2.1) Thread count will be 5 in Linux machines and -1 in Windows machines.

Limitations

• The global Replication configuration in StoreGrid is applicable to all the customers, the clients under a customer and the backup schedules under the client. StoreGrid additionally supports configuring replication at the customer level which is then applicable to the clients under the customer. StoreGrid does not support separate replication configuration at the client and the backup schedule level.