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NetBackup™ Deduplication Guide

Last Published: 2023-06-18

Product(s): NetBackup (10.2.0.1)

Introducing the NetBackup media server deduplication option
1. About the NetBackup deduplication options
Quick start
1. About client-side deduplication
2. About the media server deduplication (MSDP) node cloud tier
  1. Configuring the MSDP node cloud tier
3. About Auto Image Replication (A.I.R.)
Planning your deployment
1. Planning your MSDP deployment
2. NetBackup naming conventions
3. About MSDP deduplication nodes
4. About the NetBackup deduplication destinations
5. About MSDP storage capacity
6. About MSDP storage and connectivity requirements
  1. Fibre Channel and iSCSI comparison for MSDP
7. About NetBackup media server deduplication
8. About NetBackup Client Direct deduplication
  1. About MSDP client deduplication requirements and limitations
9. About MSDP remote office client deduplication
  1. About MSDP remote client data security
  2. About remote client backup scheduling
10. About the NetBackup Deduplication Engine credentials
11. About the network interface for MSDP
12. About MSDP port usage
13. About MSDP optimized synthetic backups
14. About MSDP and SAN Client
15. About MSDP optimized duplication and replication
16. About MSDP performance
  1. How file size may affect the MSDP deduplication rate
17. About MSDP stream handlers
  1. Oracle stream handler
  2. Microsoft SQL Server stream handler
18. MSDP deployment best practices
Provisioning the storage
1. About provisioning the storage for MSDP
2. Do not modify MSDP storage directories and files
3. About volume management for NetBackup MSDP
Licensing deduplication
1. About the MSDP license
2. Licensing NetBackup MSDP
Configuring deduplication
1. Configuring MSDP server-side deduplication
2. Configuring MSDP client-side deduplication
3. About the MSDP Deduplication Multi-Threaded Agent
4. Configuring the Deduplication Multi-Threaded Agent behavior
  1. MSDP mtstrm.conf file parameters
5. Configuring deduplication plug-in interaction with the Multi-Threaded Agent
6. About MSDP fingerprinting
7. About the MSDP fingerprint cache
8. Configuring the MSDP fingerprint cache behavior
  1. MSDP fingerprint cache behavior options
9. About seeding the MSDP fingerprint cache for remote client deduplication
10. Configuring MSDP fingerprint cache seeding on the client
11. Configuring MSDP fingerprint cache seeding on the storage server
  1. NetBackup seedutil options
12. About sampling and predictive cache
13. Enabling 400 TB support for MSDP
14. About MSDP Encryption using NetBackup KMS service
  1. Upgrading KMS for MSDP
  2. Enabled KMS encryption for Local LSU
15. About MSDP Encryption using external KMS server
16. Configuring a storage server for a Media Server Deduplication Pool
  1. MSDP storage path properties
  2. MSDP network interface properties
17. About disk pools for NetBackup deduplication
18. Configuring a disk pool for deduplication
  1. Media Server Deduplication Pool properties
19. Creating the data directories for 400 TB MSDP support
20. Adding volumes to a 400 TB Media Server Deduplication Pool
21. Configuring a Media Server Deduplication Pool storage unit
  1. Media Server Deduplication Pool storage unit properties
  2. MSDP storage unit recommendations
22. Configuring client attributes for MSDP client-side deduplication
23. Disabling MSDP client-side deduplication for a client
24. About MSDP compression
25. About MSDP encryption
26. MSDP compression and encryption settings matrix
27. Configuring encryption for MSDP backups
28. Configuring encryption for MSDP optimized duplication and replication
29. About the rolling data conversion mechanism for MSDP
30. Modes of rolling data conversion
31. MSDP encryption behavior and compatibilities
32. Configuring optimized synthetic backups for MSDP
33. About a separate network path for MSDP duplication and replication
34. Configuring a separate network path for MSDP duplication and replication
35. About MSDP optimized duplication within the same domain
  1. About the media servers for MSDP optimized duplication within the same domain
    1. About MSDP push duplication within the same domain
    2. About MSDP pull duplication within the same domain
36. Configuring MSDP optimized duplication within the same NetBackup domain
  1. Configuring NetBackup optimized duplication or replication behavior
    1. Setting NetBackup configuration options by using the command line
37. About MSDP replication to a different domain
38. Configuring MSDP replication to a different NetBackup domain
  1. About NetBackup Auto Image Replication
  2. About trusted primary servers for Auto Image Replication
  3. About the certificate to be used for adding a trusted primary server
  4. Adding a trusted primary server using a NetBackup CA-signed (host ID-based) certificate
  5. Adding a trusted primary server using external CA-signed certificate
  6. Removing a trusted primary server
  7. Enabling NetBackup clustered primary server inter-node authentication
  8. Configuring NetBackup CA and NetBackup host ID-based certificate for secure communication between the source and the target MSDP storage servers
  9. Configuring external CA for secure communication between the source MSDP storage server and the target MSDP storage server
  10. Configuring a target for MSDP replication to a remote domain
    1. Target options for MSDP replication
    2. Configuring a NetBackup Deduplication Engine user with limited permissions for Auto Image Replication
39. About configuring MSDP optimized duplication and replication bandwidth
40. About performance tuning of optimized duplication and replication for MSDP cloud
41. About storage lifecycle policies
42. About the storage lifecycle policies required for Auto Image Replication
43. Creating a storage lifecycle policy
  1. Storage Lifecycle Policy dialog box settings
44. About MSDP backup policy configuration
45. Creating a backup policy
46. Resilient Network properties
  1. Resilient connection resource usage
47. Specifying resilient connections
48. Adding an MSDP load balancing server
49. About variable-length deduplication on NetBackup clients
50. Managing the variable-length deduplication using the cacontrol command-line utility
51. About the MSDP pd.conf configuration file
52. Editing the MSDP pd.conf file
  1. MSDP pd.conf file parameters
53. About the MSDP contentrouter.cfg file
54. About saving the MSDP storage server configuration
55. Saving the MSDP storage server configuration
56. Editing an MSDP storage server configuration file
57. Setting the MSDP storage server configuration
58. About the MSDP host configuration file
59. Deleting an MSDP host configuration file
60. Resetting the MSDP registry
61. About protecting the MSDP catalog
  1. About the MSDP shadow catalog
  2. About the MSDP catalog backup policy
62. Changing the MSDP shadow catalog path
63. Changing the MSDP shadow catalog schedule
64. Changing the number of MSDP catalog shadow copies
65. Configuring an MSDP catalog backup
  1. MSDP drcontrol options
66. Updating an MSDP catalog backup policy
67. About MSDP FIPS compliance
68. Configuring the NetBackup client-side deduplication to support multiple interfaces of MSDP
69. About MSDP multi-domain support
70. About MSDP application user support
71. About MSDP mutli-domain VLAN Support
72. About NetBackup WORM storage support for immutable and indelible data
  1. About the NetBackup command line options to configure immutable and indelible data
MSDP cloud support
1. About MSDP cloud support
  1. Operating system requirement for configuration
  2. Limitations
2. Create a Media Server Deduplication Pool (MSDP) storage server in the NetBackup web UI
3. Creating a cloud storage unit
4. Updating cloud credentials for a cloud LSU
5. Updating encryption configurations for a cloud LSU
6. Deleting a cloud LSU
7. Backup data to cloud by using cloud LSU
8. Duplicate data cloud by using cloud LSU
9. Configuring AIR to use cloud LSU
10. About backward compatibility support
11. About the configuration items in cloud.json, contentrouter.cfg, and spa.cfg
12. Cloud space reclamation
  1. Configuring the container aging
  2. Configuring the cloud compaction
13. About the tool updates for cloud support
14. About the disaster recovery for cloud LSU
  1. Common disaster recovery steps
  2. Disaster recovery for cloud LSU in Flex Scale
15. About Image Sharing using MSDP cloud
  1. Things to consider before you use image sharing to convert VM image to VHD in Azure
  2. Converting the VM image to VHD in Azure
16. About restore from a backup in Microsoft Azure Archive
17. About Veritas Alta Recovery Vault Azure
18. Configuring Veritas Alta Recovery Vault Azure and Azure Government
19. Configuring Veritas Alta Recovery Vault Azure and Azure Government using the CLI
20. Migrating from standard authentication to token-based authentication for Recovery Vault
21. About MSDP cloud immutable (WORM) storage support
  1. About MSDP cloud admin tool
  2. About immutable object support for AWS S3
  3. About immutable object support for AWS S3 compatible platforms
  4. About immutable storage support for Azure blob storage
    1. Creating an Azure cloud immutable storage unit using the Web UI
    2. Managing an Azure cloud immutable volume using msdpcldutil tool
  5. About immutable storage support for Google Cloud Storage
    1. Creating a Google cloud immutable storage using the Web UI
    2. Managing a Google cloud immutable storage using msdpcldutil tool
  6. About using the cloud immutable storage in a cluster environment
  7. Troubleshooting the error when the bucket is created without msdpcldutil
  8. Deleting the immutable image with the enterprise mode
  9. Refreshing the immutable cloud volume retention range value in the web UI
  10. Deleting the S3 object permanently
22. About instant access for object storage in cloud
S3 Interface for MSDP
1. About S3 interface for MSDP
2. Prerequisites for MSDP build-your-own (BYO) server
3. Configuring S3 interface for MSDP on MSDP build-your-own (BYO) server
  1. Changing the certificate in S3 server
4. Identity and Access Management (IAM) for S3 interface for MSDP
5. S3 APIs for S3 interface for MSDP
6. Disaster recovery in S3 interface for MSDP
7. Limitations in S3 interface for MSDP
8. Logging and troubleshooting
9. Best practices
Monitoring deduplication activity
1. Monitoring the MSDP deduplication and compression rates
2. Viewing MSDP job details
  1. MSDP job details
3. About MSDP storage capacity and usage reporting
4. About MSDP container files
5. Viewing storage usage within MSDP container files
6. About monitoring MSDP processes
7. Reporting on Auto Image Replication jobs
Managing deduplication
1. Managing MSDP servers
2. Managing NetBackup Deduplication Engine credentials
3. Managing Media Server Deduplication Pools
4. Deleting backup images
5. About MSDP queue processing
6. Processing the MSDP transaction queue manually
7. About MSDP data integrity checking
8. Configuring MSDP data integrity checking behavior
  1. MSDP data integrity checking configuration parameters
9. About managing MSDP storage read performance
10. About MSDP storage rebasing
  1. MSDP server-side rebasing parameters
11. About the MSDP data removal process
12. Resizing the MSDP storage partition
13. How MSDP restores work
14. Configuring MSDP restores directly to a client
15. About restoring files at a remote site
16. About restoring from a backup at a target primary domain
17. Specifying the restore server
Recovering MSDP
1. About recovering the MSDP catalog
2. Restoring the MSDP catalog from a shadow copy
3. Recovering from an MSDP storage server disk failure
4. Recovering from an MSDP storage server failure
5. Recovering the MSDP storage server after NetBackup catalog recovery
Replacing MSDP hosts
1. Replacing the MSDP storage server host computer
Uninstalling MSDP
1. About uninstalling MSDP
2. Deactivating MSDP
Deduplication architecture
1. MSDP server components
2. Media server deduplication backup process
3. MSDP client components
4. MSDP client - side deduplication backup process
Configuring and using universal shares
1. About universal shares
2. Configuring and using an MSDP build-your-own (BYO) server for universal shares
3. MSDP build-your-own (BYO) server prerequisites and hardware requirements to configure universal shares
4. Configuring universal share user authentication
5. Mounting a universal share created from the NetBackup web UI
6. About universal share self-service recovery
7. Performing a universal share self-service recovery
8. Using the ingest mode
  1. Using the ingest mode to take a snapshot over NFS or SMB
  2. Using the ingest mode to run a policy using NFS or SMB
9. About universal shares with object store
10. Enabling a universal share with object store
  1. Enabling instant access with object storage
11. Disaster recovery for a universal share
12. Changing the number of vpfsd instances
13. Enabling variable-length deduplication (VLD) algorithm for universal shares
14. Upgrading to NetBackup 10.2.0.1
Configuring isolated recovery environment (IRE)
1. Requirements
2. Configuring the network isolation
3. Configuring an isolated recovery environment on a NetBackup BYO media server
4. Managing an isolated recovery environment on a NetBackup BYO media server
5. Configuring AIR for replicating backup images from production environment to IRE BYO environment
6. Configuring an isolated recovery environment on a WORM storage server
7. Managing an isolated recovery environment on a WORM storage server
8. Configuring data transmission between a production environment and an IRE WORM storage server
Using the NetBackup Deduplication Shell
1. About the NetBackup Deduplication Shell
2. Managing users from the deduplication shell
3. Managing VLAN interfaces from the deduplication shell
4. Managing the retention policy on a WORM storage server
5. Managing images with a retention lock on a WORM storage server
6. Auditing WORM retention changes
7. Protecting the NetBackup catalog from the deduplication shell
8. Managing certificates from the deduplication shell
9. Managing FIPS mode from the deduplication shell
10. Encrypting backups from the deduplication shell
11. Tuning the MSDP configuration from the deduplication shell
12. Setting the MSDP log level from the deduplication shell
13. Managing NetBackup services from the deduplication shell
14. Monitoring and troubleshooting NetBackup services from the deduplication shell
15. Managing S3 service from the deduplication shell
Troubleshooting
1. About unified logging
  1. About using the vxlogview command to view unified logs
  2. Examples of using vxlogview to view unified logs
2. About legacy logging
  1. Creating NetBackup log file directories for MSDP
3. NetBackup MSDP log files
4. Troubleshooting MSDP installation issues
  1. MSDP installation on SUSE Linux fails
5. Troubleshooting MSDP configuration issues
6. Troubleshooting MSDP operational issues
7. Viewing MSDP disk errors and events
8. MSDP event codes and messages
9. Unable to obtain the administrator password to use an AWS EC2 instance that has a Windows OS
10. Trouble shooting multi-domain issues
11. Troubleshooting the cloud compaction error messages
Appendix A. Migrating to MSDP storage
1. Migrating from another storage type to MSDP
Appendix B. Migrating from Cloud Catalyst to MSDP direct cloud tiering
1. About migration from Cloud Catalyst to MSDP direct cloud tiering
2. About Cloud Catalyst migration strategies
3. About direct migration from Cloud Catalyst to MSDP direct cloud tiering
4. About postmigration configuration and cleanup
5. About the Cloud Catalyst migration -dryrun option
6. About Cloud Catalyst migration cacontrol options
7. Reverting back to Cloud Catalyst from a successful migration
8. Reverting back to Cloud Catalyst from a failed migration
Appendix C. Encryption Crawler
1. About the Encryption Crawler
2. About the two modes of the Encryption Crawler
3. Managing the Encryption Crawler
4. Advanced options
5. Tuning options
6. Encrypting the data
7. Command usage example outputs
Index

About variable-length deduplication on NetBackup clients

Currently, NetBackup deduplication follows a fixed-length deduplication method where the data streams are chunked into fixed-length segments (128 KB) and then processed for deduplication. Fixed-length deduplication has the advantage of being a swift method and it consumes less computing resources. Fixed-length deduplication handles most kinds of data streams efficiently. However, there can be cases where fixed-length deduplication might result in low deduplication ratios.

If your data was modified in a shifting mode, that is, if some data was inserted in the middle of a file, then variable-length deduplication enables you to get higher deduplication ratios when you back up the data. Variable-length deduplication reduces backup storage, improves the backup performance, and lowers the overall cost that is spent on data protection.

Note:

Use variable-length deduplication for data types that do not show a good deduplication ratio with the current MSDP intelligent deduplication algorithm and affiliated streamers. Enabling Variable-length deduplication might improve the deduplication ratio, but consider that the CPU performance might get affected.

In variable-length deduplication, every segment has a variable size with configurable size boundaries. The NetBackup client examines and applies a secure hash algorithm (SHA-2) to the variable-length segments of the data. Each data segment is assigned a unique ID and NetBackup evaluates if any data segment with the same ID exists in the backup. If the data segment already exists, then the segment data is not stored again.

Warning:

If you enable compression for the backup policy, variable-length deduplication does not work even when you configure it.

The following table describes the effect of variable-length deduplication on the data backup:

Table: Effect of variable-length deduplication

Effect on the deduplication ratio	Variable-length deduplication is beneficial if the data file is modified in a shifting mode, that is when data is inserted, removed, or modified at a binary level. When such modified data is backed up again, variable-length deduplication achieves a higher deduplication ratio. Thus, the second or subsequent backups have higher deduplication ratios.
Effect on the CPU	Variable-length deduplication can be a bit more resource-intensive than fixed-length deduplication to achieve a better deduplication ratio. Variable-length deduplication needs more CPU cycles to compute segment boundaries and the backup time might be more than the fixed-length deduplication method.
Effect on data restore	Variable-length deduplication does not affect the data restore process.

Configure variable-length deduplication

By default, the variable-length deduplication is disabled on a NetBackup client. From NetBackup 10.2 onwards, you can enable variable-length deduplication by using cacontrol command-line utility. In the previous versions of NetBackup, you can enable it by adding parameters in the pd.conf file. To enable the same settings for all NetBackup clients or policies, you must specify all the clients or policies in the pd.conf file.

From NetBackup 10.2 onwards, the default version of the variable-length deduplication is VLD v2. If you have enabled variable-length deduplication in pd.conf file and image backups do not exists in the storage, VLD v2 is used by default. If image backups already exist in the storage, NetBackup continues to use VLD v1.

In a deduplication load balancing scenario, you must upgrade the media servers to NetBackup 8.1.1 or later and modify the pd.conf file on all the media servers. If a backup job selects an older media server (earlier than NetBackup 8.1.1) for the load balancing pool, fixed-length deduplication is used instead of variable-length deduplication. Avoid configuring media servers with different NetBackup versions in a load balancing scenario. The data segments generated from variable-length deduplication are different from the data segments generated from fixed-length deduplication. Therefore, load balancing media servers with different NetBackup versions results in a low deduplication ratio.

See Managing the variable-length deduplication using the cacontrol command-line utility.

See About the MSDP pd.conf configuration file.

More Information

Editing the MSDP pd.conf file

MSDP pd.conf file parameters