Using EMC Data Protection Advisor

with EMC Data Domain

Deduplication Storage Systems
Applied Technology

Abstract
EMC® Data Protection Advisor (DPA) provides a comprehensive set of features to analyze data protection
operations to ensure that your data is protected and recoverable. Analyzing the backup applications, supporting
infrastructure, and target storage, DPA can capture issues so that they can be addressed before a failure. This
white paper outlines how Data Protection Advisor operates in conjunction with EMC Data Domain ®
deduplication storage systems.

June 2010
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Part Number h7115.1

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Table of Contents

Executive summary ............................................................................................ 4

Introduction ......................................................................................................... 4
Audience ...................................................................................................................................... 4
EMC Data Domain ............................................................................................... 4
What can DPA provide Data Domain customers? ....................................................................... 5
Managing complexity and access ................................................................................................ 5
Data Domain, VMware, and DPA........................................................................ 8
Sample reports ............................................................................................................................. 8
Resource utilization .................................................................................................................. 8
Deduplication ratio .................................................................................................................... 9
Network interface utilization ................................................................................................... 11
Processor utilization and status ............................................................................................. 12
RTO and RPO ............................................................................................................................ 13
Cleaning ..................................................................................................................................... 13
Status reports ............................................................................................................................. 14
Data Domain status control panel .......................................................................................... 14
Disk status .............................................................................................................................. 14
Fan status ............................................................................................................................... 15
Thermometer status ............................................................................................................... 16
PSU status.............................................................................................................................. 16
Battery status ......................................................................................................................... 16
Network interface status ......................................................................................................... 17
Filesystem status .................................................................................................................... 17
VTL status .............................................................................................................................. 17
Configuration reports ................................................................................................................. 18
Host and disk configuration .................................................................................................... 18
Battery configuration .............................................................................................................. 19
Network interface configuration .............................................................................................. 19
VTL configuration ................................................................................................................... 20
File system configuration ........................................................................................................ 20
Performance reports .................................................................................................................. 20
Virtual drive performance ....................................................................................................... 20
Disk performance ................................................................................................................... 21
Fileserver performance .......................................................................................................... 21
Network interface status ......................................................................................................... 22
Change management reports .................................................................................................... 22
Multidomain analyses and alerting ................................................................. 24
Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 25
References ........................................................................................................ 25

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Executive summary
EMC® Data Protection Advisor (DPA) collects, monitors, analyzes, and reports on information from our
customer’s entire data protection infrastructure, providing a unified data protection management window
across their entire backup and EMC replication investment, accelerating access to information, saving time
and money, allowing faster decisions, and improving data protection.
Through support for heterogeneous backup infrastructures including EMC Backup Solutions and support
for EMC Replication Solutions, DPA reduces the cost and risk to manage a data protection environment,
enabling our customers to get more from their existing investments and increase efficiency.
The DPA graphical user interface (GUI) can present this information in a familiar manner by arranging
assets in common sense groups or views such as business unit or geography, greatly enhancing readability
and giving the user the ability to perform advanced reporting, troubleshooting, performance management,
and capacity planning operations.
EMC Data Domain® support in DPA gathers information about the configuration, status, and performance
of Data Domain components. Data Protection Advisor uses SNMP to gather this data from the Data
Domain management information base (MIB).

Introduction
DPA monitors a very wide range of components/assets and provides a comprehensive range of reports for
each. This white paper seeks to describe DPA and its interaction with Data Domain deduplication storage
systems. Because DPA supports a wide range of products and technology, it often uses general
terminology. Therefore in this document and within the DPA console, Data Domain Global Compression
technology is referred to as ―deduplication.‖

Audience
This white paper is intended for use by backup administrators and operations managers to understand the
benefits of using EMC Data Protection Advisor in conjunction with EMC Data Domain deduplication
storage systems. As a target storage device used by backup systems to store backup copies of critical data,
it is helpful to understand aspects such as system performance, capacity, and availability. DPA maintains a
historical record of the systems operation, providing consistent monitoring, alerting, and reporting. Data
Domain support in conjunction with data from the backup environment enables a comprehensive view of
the operations and health of the backup systems.

EMC Data Domain

Data Domain high-speed, inline deduplication technology has proven to be the key enabler that has helped
customers reduce or eliminate the use of tape for backup and recovery; experience longer onsite retention
for backup, archive and reference data; and leverage network-efficient replication capabilities for disaster
recovery (DR). EMC Data Domain systems are integrated appliances that can support small remote office
appliances up to large enterprise data centers.
This white paper focuses on the DD140, DD600 series, and DD880 appliances running Data Domain
Operating System (DDOS) versions 4.4.2 to 4.8.
EMC Data Domain Enterprise Manager
All EMC Data Domain deduplication storage systems ship with EMC Data Domain Enterprise Manager, a
simple Web-based rich internet application for managing Data Domain systems. With DD Enterprise
Manager, you can monitor multiple systems from a central workstation and manage all critical aspects of
Data Domain systems, such as the filesystem, replication, EMC Data Domain Boost, NFS, CIFS, and
virtual tape libraries, in a simple manner using the GUI. DD Enterprise Manager dashboards provide a

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high-level overview of health status and then let you drill down into areas of interest. The operational
simplicity of the dashboards helps to reduce administrative costs.

What can DPA provide Data Domain customers?

EMC DPA is more than a reporting tool. It provides the analytical capabilities that provide insight into the
entire backup environment from familiar viewpoints. DPA gathers data from backup applications, backup
servers, backup clients, network switches, SAN switches, tape libraries, and target storage. This paper
focuses on Data Domain environments, specifically the following areas:
DPA gathers information about the Data Domain system configuration, status, and performance using
SNMP to gather data from the Data Domain MIB. The flexibility of the DPA data collection allows
EMC to constantly improve Data Domain reporting capabilities in DPA as the Data Domain MIB
expands.
The DPA GUI presents Data Domain system information in a familiar manner by arranging assets in
common sense groups or views such as business unit or geography, greatly enhancing readability and
giving the user the ability to perform advanced reporting, troubleshooting, performance management,
and capacity planning operations.
Data Domain deduplication reduces the amount of disk storage needed to retain and protect data by
ratios of 10 to 30 times, making disk a cost-effective alternative to tape. Data Domain systems are
qualified with all leading enterprise backup software and archiving applications and easily integrate
into the existing storage infrastructure without change for either data center or distributed office data
protection. DPA can monitor both the backup application and the Data Domain storage, providing
visibility into both worlds.
DD Enterprise Manager can monitor and manage up to 20 Data Domain systems on a per-system basis.
However, DPA can add value to DD Enterprise Manager in the following ways:
Provides the ability to aggregate monitoring information from more than 20 Data Domain systems
in a single interface.
Provides the ability to tie in the resource utilization from the perspective of multiple backup
applications and multiple Data Domain systems from a single interface.
Provides visibility into the status and performance of Data Domain replication
Data Domain systems support replication fan-in from up to 270 remote sites with Global Deduplication
across all remote sites. DPA allows the user to gain a global view of all the remote and local Data
Domain systems on one screen.
DPA can be useful for documenting system settings and configurations in multisite deployments, for
both Data Domain systems as well as the backup application, OS versions, network infrastructure, and
any other backup-related components.
DPA can track the system settings and through its change management function help maintain
standardization of multiple systems and reduce time to troubleshoot problems.
DPA aids in ongoing capacity planning, through regular data collection, and ongoing measurement.
DPA can forecast capacity needs, and even alert on a system running out of capacity at some point in
the future by leveraging historical data.

Managing complexity and access

Data Domain systems support all leading backup applications and can be used for backup and recovery,
protection of enterprise applications (Oracle, Microsoft Exchange, VMware, and others), archiving, and
online reference storage. Since these systems can be deployed in many configurations and environmental
combinations, it can be difficult to monitor the relationships of all components without knowledge of these
components and suitable permissions to all of the different interfaces.
DPA allows the user to view Data Domain system functions and operations in the context of the wider
environment, that is, backup application and host, and FC/IP switches and ports.

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The multiple layers of a Data Domain user’s environment and the resource utilization within it can be
difficult to visualize.
The backup application, operating system, virtual devices, physical devices, and underlying SAN / SCSI
can have different architectures, and the utilization of these various layers and their inter-relationships, can
be difficult to reconcile.
DPA allows the user to create overviews/control panels that are essentially reports with multiple constituent
report windows embedded within them. These have a very useful application in Data Domain environments
as one could, for instance, graphically show on one screen the utilization of:
The backup application (for instance, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager)
TSM management processes and their relationships with storage pools
TSM storage pools from the TSM perspective
The underlying disk volumes from the OS perspective
Data Domain system utilization
The ability to view Data Domain system activity in the same window as TSM server-side processes is key.
The configuration tree in Figure 1 illustrates the wealth of assets that DPA supports.

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Figure 1. DPA supports many assets

Benefit
DPA provides the user with a common interface for the wide range of Data Domain system configurations
in numerous client environments.

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Data Domain, VMware, and DPA
The benefits of DPA in complex environments are even more evident in VMware environments. Due to the
relative ease with which VMware environments can be expanded, ―virtual machine (VM) sprawl‖ creates
increased pressure on the backup environment. By increasing the number of systems sharing a set of
physical resources, backups can be constrained by the backup of other VMs on the same host. Due to the
redundant nature of VMware backups, these environments are ideal for deduplication technology, usually
achieving deduplication ratios above those of conventionally hosted systems.
DPA provides excellent insight into VMware and Data Domain environments, allowing the user to identify
bottlenecks, load balance, and view the environment from differing perspectives in one screen.
By viewing Backup Application Schedules along with Resource Utilization reports of multiple VMs and
the ESX host, a user can establish if the backup workload is having an undue effect on the physical host. If
the server is overloaded from the backup workload, backup schedules can be adjusted accordingly to
balance the environment.
If the user is sending disk image backup to a Data Domain system, DPA can be used to ease the process of
scheduling the required VM shutdowns. DPA can also monitor the synchronization effects of the VM
shutdown scripts and backup activity, keeping downtime or performance impact to a minimum.

Sample reports
The following sections outline some typical reports with a description of the data presented and possible
interpretations.

Resource utilization
DPA provides reports that show the utilization of CPU, memory, and network activity. The Resource
Utilization control panel presents this information in a single report.
From the screenshot below, it can be seen that there could be some cause for concern as the memory is so
high (>80%) and processor utilization is so low this might be worth investigating due to the CPU-centric
architecture of Data Domain systems.

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Figure 2. Resource Utilization Overview report

Note: Filesystem utilization is not seen in this report but can be viewed from the perspective of the attached host.

Benefit
DPA allows the user to view the vital signs of the Data Domain system in one window, allowing insight
into any imbalance, such as the imbalance between the CPU, network, and memory utilization shown in
Figure 2.

Deduplication ratio
The Deduplication Ratio report plots the dedupe ratio that the Data Domain system is achieving over time.
This shows the storage savings gained from using Data Domain deduplication storage systems versus
traditional backup storage like tape or standard disk.
In a normal environment, one would expect the dedupe ratio to improve over time and eventually plateau.
If the deduplication ratio has declined, there may be reason to investigate any changes in the backup data
types over the time period and revise provisioning and capacity planning estimates.

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In addition, the deduplication ratio can be viewed and compared across the enterprise to identify lower-
performing configurations, systems, or locations.

Figure 3. Deduplication Ratio report

Benefit
DPA allows users to track deduplication ratios of a Data Domain system over time.

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Network interface utilization
The Network Interface Utilization Summary control panel provides insight into the performance of network
interfaces on the Data Domain system. This control panel shows the maximum and average utilization over
a reporting period, along with the utilization on a per-interface basis.
A well-balanced system/environment will likely have a similar utilization across all components. Figure 4
shows that two of the six available network ports on this Data Domain system are bearing the majority of
the load, which might be worth investigating. This imbalance could mean a variety of things. For example
backups may be occurring from different systems on different networks at different times. Other potential
problems include hardware failures, unbalanced workload, a backup host is offline, other network activity
impacting backups, backups configured for only two networks, and other issues
Although we could spend lots of time analyzing an unbalanced system, it may not be a serious problem.
The intent is that DPA provides a starting point to identify possible problems. The ―Processor utilization
and status‖ section next provides more information.

Figure 4. Network Interface Utilization Summary report

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Benefit
DPA allows the user to identify potential load-balancing and functional issues across network interfaces.

Processor utilization and status

The Processor Utilization report shows CPU utilization over time and allows the user to identify possible
resource constraints on the Data Domain system. The Processor Status report shows how many CPUs are
online and/or offline.

Figure 5. Processor Utilization and Processor Status reports

Benefit
DPA provides CPU utilization detail that allows processor bottlenecks to be identified and addressed.

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RTO and RPO
Data Domain systems allow great gains in recovery times by eliminating the wait times required for backup
media availability, particularly the time required to mount physical tape. DPA can accurately calculate and
report on the Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) based on historical
data, estimated mount times, and data transfer rates. By setting the Off-Line Data Overhead field (also
known as tape recall) to zero we can account just for the time to restore. These accurate predictions are
important in ensuring SLAs can be met and that the benefits of deploying a Data Domain system in the
environment are evident to the end customer.

Figure 6. DPA reports on RTO and RPO

Cleaning
Data Domain systems require cleaning or ―garbage collection‖ operations to be run regularly, allowing
space reclamation to help maintain optimum performance. DPA can be used to ensure that the cleaning
processes run within periods of low backup activity.

Figure 7. TSM Server Processes report

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Status reports
Status reports show the state of the Data Domain system components at a glance, allowing adverse
conditions to be readily identified and rapidly addressed. Analyses can be configured and assigned to alert
the user to degradations in the environment that may have adverse effects.

Data Domain status control panel

The condition of vital Data Domain system components – including the disk, network, PSUs, fans, and
thermometer – can be viewed in an intuitive manner, providing insight into the health of individual systems
and the environment as a whole.

Figure 8. Health Status report

The Network status bar in the figure (second from the left) shows two network interfaces are online and
working (in green), while four of the six available are not. This relates back to Figure 4, where two network
interfaces are taking all of the workload.

Disk status
This Disk Status report provides detailed information about the underlying disk, allowing the user to
readily identify those disks with high operating temperatures, error counts, and other issues, and helping to
anticipate failures and inform when they result in deterioration of availability.
The Disk Status report and other reports are shown in the following pages.

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Figure 9. Disk Status report

Fan status

Figure 10. Fan Status report

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Thermometer status

Figure 11. Thermometer Status report

PSU status

Figure 12. PSU Status report

Battery status

Figure 13. Battery Status report

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Network interface status

Figure 14. Network Interface Status report

Filesystem status

Figure 15. Filesystem Status report

VTL status
This VTL Status report provides detailed information listing of the VTL system status, similar to the
Filesystem status report shown above. The VTL Status report is supported in DPA version 5.5 SP1 if you
are running Data Domain 4.7.

Benefit
With all of the various status reports available, DPA provides useful insight into the status of the
environment and can present this information in an automatically refreshed format that is ideal for
bridges/operations rooms.

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Configuration reports
The configuration reports display configuration detail on a wide range of components of the Data Domain
system. These reports might be useful to identify differences in configurations when investigating
differences in function across the enterprise. Any configuration changes can be automatically detected and
alerted to the user (see the ―Change management reports‖ section). Likewise, the configuration report can
be used to easily identify upgrade candidates based on details like firmware revision.

Host and disk configuration

These reports provide details of the Data Domain system itself, including make, model, version, and host
ID as seen in the following screenshots.

Figure 16. Host Configuration and Disk Configuration reports

In addition to these reports, configuration reports provide details on the VTLs. disks, CPUs, memory,
network interfaces, and Fibre Channel interfaces on the Data Domain systems. Other reports are shown
next.

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Battery configuration

Figure 17. Battery Configuration report

Network interface configuration

Figure 18. Network Interface Configuration report

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VTL configuration
The VTL Configuration report is supported with DPA version 5.5 SP1 and Data Domain Operating System
version 4.7.

File system configuration

Figure 19. Filesystem Configuration report

Benefit
DPA provides one-stop insight into the configuration settings of the entire Data Domain environment.

Performance reports
DPA provides a wealth of performance reports for Data Domain systems and the relationships with the
boarder environment.

Virtual drive performance

With dedicated mapping the user could monitor the FC port of the backup host (storage node/media server)
in order to establish the performance of the virtual tape drive to which it is attached.

Figure 20. Fibre Channel Port Performance report

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Benefit
DPA can use its reporting of FC switches and backup host (storage node) FC HBAs to establish virtual
drive performance.

Disk performance

Figure 21. Disk Performance report

Fileserver performance

Figure 22. Fileserver Performance report

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Network interface status
This report shows the status of ports within a Data Domain system. Note the fact that a number of the ports
are not active, corresponding with the Health Status report earlier. This could mean that these network
cards were turned off or that there was a failure within the system.

Figure 23. Network Interface Status report

Benefit
DPA gives the user visibility of port status and performance from the perspective of the Data Domain
system and also potentially the switch and HBA ports in the wider SAN.

Change management reports

Change management reports reflect any changes in the configuration of Data Domain appliances’ VTLs,
tape drives, and shares on the Data Domain system. (DD VTL is supported in DPA 5.5 SP1 if running Data
Domain Operating System version 4.7.)
These allow the user to identify when any of these assets has been added, modified, or deleted. A real-time
and historical record of such changes is important to maintaining system configuration standards, tracking
system issues back to changes, and ensuring compliance with regulatory and local strictures.
When any aspect of the data protection environment is misaligned, it may affect daily backup job
completion or performance of the system.
The complex layered configuration architecture of environments can make standardization and change
management difficult. DPA can alert the user to any changes in configuration or policy across all Data
Domain systems in a worldwide enterprise, allowing gold standards to be enforced — reducing diversity,
complexity, and cost.

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Figure 24. Change Overview

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Figure 25. Change Details report
Benefit
In today’s dynamic environments it is essential to keep track of changes. DPA allows the user to readily
establish the change history of the Data Domain system assets both in real time and historically.

Multidomain analyses and alerting

A domain refers to each piece of hardware and software in the chain from the source of the client’s data to
the destination of the data on a Data Domain system. These multiple layers in the environment can make it
difficult to manage and troubleshoot when problems arise. The first reaction is usually that the most recent
change caused the problem, when many times the problem was simply uncovered by this latest change.
DPA enables a user to look at each domain to locate problems, getting the source of the problem quicker.
DPA is much more than a reporting tool. It provides the analytical capabilities of a skilled operator
scanning the backup infrastructure and processes 24x7 to pick up problems and potential issues and alert
operations staff before the issues become breaches of data protection policies.
DPA has a comprehensive set of analyses that can run continually, look for exceptions, and alert the user
when it finds them. These real-time alerts can identify issues before they escalate and provide a truly
proactive capability.
Although reporting is an important area for customers, they need something more proactive to help them
meet their data protection requirements. This is where DPA’s Proactive Analysis Engine (PAE) comes in to
play.

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If virtual or physical tape resources are unavailable to the backup application the user could be
automatically alerted to this fact, enabling them to investigate the Data Domain system in the event of a
failure.

Figure 26. User alerts

Benefit
DPA analyses provide monitoring of critical systems and intelligent reporting of failures, exceptions, and
predicted events. With the addition of integration into standard event management tools DPA removes
many layers of complexity in monitoring a backup environment and allows the equivalent of a highly
skilled and vigilant operator on a 24x7 basis.

Conclusion
EMC Data Protection Advisor (DPA) collects, monitors, analyzes, and reports on information from your
customer’s entire data protection infrastructure, providing a unified data protection management interface.
Data Domain system support in DPA gathers information about the configuration, status, and performance
of Data Domain system components, via SNMP from the Data Domain MIB. DPA can present this
information in multiple formats, arranging assets in logical groups (such as business unit or geography),
greatly enhancing readability, and giving the user the ability to perform advanced reporting,
troubleshooting, performance management, and capacity planning operations. Through heterogeneous
support, DPA reduces the cost and risk to manage a data protection environment, enabling our customers to
get more from their existing investments.

References
The following can provide additional information and can be found on Powerlink ®, EMC’s password-
protected customer- and partner-only extranet.
EMC Data Protection Advisor Version 5.6 Architecture Overview
EMC Data Protection Advisor Version 5.6 Compatibility Matrix
EMC Data Protection Advisor Version 5.6 Installation Guide
EMC Data Protection Advisor Version 5.6 Administration Guide
EMC Data Protection Advisor Version 5.6 Reference Guide
EMC Data Protection Advisor Version 5.6 Release Notes
EMC Data Protection Advisor Version 5.6 User Guide

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