Agents Administration - Tests
 

Configuration of ExGdStatTest

ExaGrid supports data deduplication globally across all targets and all appliances in a scale-out system. Global deduplication ensures that all data is deduplicated regardless of the number of targets and/or the number of appliances in a system. In addition, global deduplication allows organizations the flexibility to redirect backup jobs to any target, on any appliance, at any time while maintaining data deduplication globally across the entire system.

Once the backup job is complete and off the network, the data is protected and immediately available to be restored. When deduplication and replication are complete, the data is ready for restore on theExaGrid appliances at the disaster recovery site. The backup data is written directly from the backup server to ExaGrid’s disk landing zone at the highest possible rate with no inline processing to interfere, resulting in the shortest possible backup window.

As backup data is deduplicated, checksums are added to the deduplicated data as it is placed into the internal storage area, called the “repository”. These end-to-end checksums cover the deduplicated backup data itself, and are used to verify the backup data during processing and as it is read from disk. The deduplicated backup data can optionally be replicated to a remote site; these checksums are used to validate the replicated data as well.

If the backup data is not written to the disk at periodic intervals or if administrators notice a log in data reads/writes to the backup server, then, the whole purpose of deploying the backup server would be defeated! It is therefore, the onus of the administrators to overlook how well the backup data is written to / read from the respective disks. Also, administrators should constantly keep a vigil on the deduplication process that is carried out on the backup data. To aid administrators in this regard, eG Enterprise offers the ExGdStatTest test.

This test reports the overall performance of the target ExaGrid Backup Server in terms of how well backup data is wrriten to the disk landing zone and read from the retention repository. In addition, administrators are alerted to performance lags if any, in the deduplication process. Using this test, administrators are also alerted to irregularities in backups.

The default parameters associated with this test are as follows:

  • The TEST PERIOD list box helps the user to decide how often this test needs to be executed.

  • In the HOST text box, the IP address of the host for which the test is to be configured has to be specified.

  • In the SNMPPORT text box, specify the port at which the monitored target exposes its SNMP MIB; the default value is 161.

  • By default, the eG agent supports SNMPVERSION 1. Accordingly, the default selection in the SNMPVERSION list box is v1. However, if a different SNMP framework is in use in your environment, say SNMP v2 or v3, then select the corresponding option from the SNMPVERSION list box.

  • The SNMP community name is that the test uses to communicate with the firewall. This parameter SNMPCOMMUNITY is specific to SNMP v1 and v2 only. Therefore, if the SNMPVERSION chosen is v3, then this parameter SNMPCOMMUNITY will not appear.

  • This parameter USERNAME will appear only when v3 is selected as the SNMPVERSION. SNMP version 3 (SNMPv3) is an extensible SNMP Framework which supplements the SNMPv2 Framework, by additionally supporting message security, access control, and remote SNMP configuration capabilities. To extract performance statistics from the MIB using the highly secure SNMP v3 protocol, the eG agent has to be configured with the required access privileges-in other words, the eG agent should connect to the MIB using the credentials of a user with access permissions to be MIB. Therefore, specify the name of such a user against this parameter.

  • This parameter CONTEXT will appear only when v3 is selected as the SNMPVERSION. An SNMP context is a collection of management information accessible by an SNMP entity. An item of management information may exist in more than one context and an SNMP entity potentially has access to many contexts. A context is identified by the SNMPEngineID value of the entity hosting the management information (also called a contextEngineID) and a context name that identifies the specific context (also called a contextName). If the Username provided is associated with a context name, then the eG agent will be able to poll the MIB and collect metrics only if it is configured with the context name as well. In such cases therefore, specify the context name of the Username in the Context text box. By default, this parameter is set to none.

  • Specify the password that corresponds to the above-mentioned Username in the AUTHPASS text box . This parameter once again appears only if the SNMPversion selected is v3.

  • Confirm the AUTHPASS by retyping it in the CONFIRM PASSWORD text box.

  • This parameter AUTHTYPE too appears only if v3 is selected as the SNMPVERSION. From the AUTHTYPE list box, choose the authentication algorithm using which SNMP v3 converts the specified USERNAME and PASSWORD into a 32-bit format to ensure security of SNMP transactions. You can choose between the following options:

    • MD5 - Message Digest Algorithm

    • SHA - Secure Hash Algorithm

  • The ENCRYPTFLAG appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPVERSION. By default, the eG agent does not encrypt SNMP requests. Accordingly, this flag is set to No by default. To ensure that SNMP requests sent by the eG agent are encrypted, select the Yes option.

  • If this ENCRYPTFLAG is set to Yes, then you will have to mention the encryption type by selecting an option from the ENCRYPTTYPE list. SNMP v3 supports the following encryption types:

    • DES-Data Encryption Standard

    • AES-Advanced Encryption Standard

  • Specify the encryption password in the ENCRYPT PASSWORD text box.

  • Confirm the encryption password by retyping it in the CONFIRM PASSWORD text box.

  • Specify the time duration (in seconds) within which the SNMP query executed by this test should time out in the TIMEOUT text box. The default value is 10 seconds.

  • By default, in an IT environment, all data transmission occurs over UDP. Some environments however, may be specifically configured to offload a fraction of the data traffic-for instance, certain types of data traffic or traffic pertaining to specific components-to other protocols like TCP, so as to prevent UDP overloads. In such environments, you can instruct the eG agent to conduct the SNMP data traffic related to the monitored target over TCP (and not UDP). For this, set the DATA OVER TCP flag to Yes. By default, this flag is set to No.

  • This parameter ENGINEID appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPVersion. Sometimes, the test may not report metrics when AES192 or AES256 is chosen as the Encryption type. To ensure that the test report metrics consistently, administrators need to set this flag to Yes. By default, this parameter is set to No.

  • If multiple components of the same component type are awaiting configuration, then an APPLY TO OTHER COMPONENTS button will appear in this page. Clicking on this button will allow you to apply the configuration to all/selected components of that type.

  • Once the necessary values have been provided, clicking on the UPDATE button will register the changes made.

When changing the configuration for specific servers, a “*” beside the text box corresponding to the parameter signifies that these values have to be manually configured by the user. The parameter values that require to be configured will typically be prefixed with a “$” or contain a series of “*”. A value of “none” in the parameter value indicates that the corresponding parameter value can be changed if required.