Knowledge Base Article

Enterprise Vault FSA services in a VERITAS Cluster Server (VCS) setup overview

Introduction

VERITAS Cluster Server (VCS) has provided support for Enterprise File System Archiving since the release of EV version 6.0 and VCS 4.3 MP1.

What has however been challenging is deployment and configuration of this combination of technologies.  Until now documentation covering this topic was limited in scope.

 While not a complete replacement for each respective administration guide, it is the intention of this document to provide a single source of reference for the installation and configuration of this combined solution.  

The Challenges to establishing a Successful FSA Cluster Configuration with VCS

The VCS Administrator's Guide covers the concept of clusters in depth as well as includes a section for ‘Configuring File Shares’.  Comparatively, the EV guide for ‘Setting up File System Archiving (FSA)’ begins from the point where clustered File Shares have already been established and only makes mention of authenticating the Administration Console with VCS for a FSA cluster.

VCS has numerous options for executing the same tasks which invariably can be confusing for an EV administrator.  Additionally, EV has multiple policies and options for various supported targets that make it difficult to configure a clustered FSA target.

This document is designed to provide an overview of the complete configuration of a clustered FSA target with EV.

For further details in each stage, the aforementioned product document can be referred.

Stages of FSA Cluster Configuration with VCS and EV

1.Pre-requisites for VCS cluster:

  • For VCS, you need matching computers that contain the same or similar components along with additional network adapters.
  • Configure a storage unit that is physically connected to all the servers in the cluster.

2.Creating VCS Cluster

3.Creating VCS File Share

  • Refer to the ‘About configuring file shares’ section of the ‘Cluster Server Administrator’s Guide’ to create service group.
  • In the ‘File Share Configuration Wizard’, enter the Virtual computer name and IP that will be eventually added as a File server target in EV.
  • Verify the Virtual computer name and IP are registered in Active Directory (AD) and DNS.

4.Setting up EV FSA pre-requisites on VCS File Share

  • Refer to the ‘Configuring FSA with clustered file servers’ section of ‘Setting up File System Archiving (FSA)’ guide from Enterprise Vault.
  •  For EV10.x and EV 11.x, add the Vault Service account to the VCS cluster using the ‘Authenticating the Administration Console when SPAS is not used’ section of ‘Setting up File System Archiving (FSA)’.

5.Setting up authentication between EV and VCS for EV10.x and EV 11.x:

6.Adding VCS file share to EV

  • Refer to the ‘Adding the virtual file server as an FSA target’ section of ‘Setting up File System Archiving (FSA)’ guide to add the VCS File share as target file server for FSA.
  • After VCS File Share is added as File server, it needs to be configured for acting as FSA resource on cluster group.
  • For adding FSA resource on cluster group, Refer to the ‘Configuring or reconfiguring the FSA resource’ section of ‘Setting up File System Archiving (FSA)’ guide.

7.Start archiving files from VCS file share

8.Troubleshooting

  • For VCS related issues Refer to the section ‘Troubleshooting and recovery for VCS’ from the ‘Cluster Server Administrator’s Guide’.
  • For EV related issues refer to the section ‘Troubleshooting’ from ‘Administrators _Guide’ by Enterprise Vault.
  • For authentication related issues between EV and VCS, refer to the tech note in step 5 of this document.

 

Published 9 years ago
Version 1.0