cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Centra and Safety Copies best option

SolarP
Level 6
Partner Accredited

Can someone explain how safety copies are supposed to work with a Centera

I have two centeras replicating in non compliance mode that were setup by EMC with EV2007 SP3 and we are in the testing phase.

We have the Retention set to Never on the centra Vault store partition at the moment so that we can delete the test archives etc but will set this later to be set by EV.

We are creating shortcuts in the mailbox

 

Initial tests were run with the Remove safety copies After Backup set on the Vault store and these safety copies do not get removed becasuse we do not backup the centera in this configuration ie the vault.

Second archive test was done with the Remove safety copies imediaitely and with these archived items the shortcuts were created.

How do we get the saftey copies from the fisrt run to change to shortcuts

 

I have read somewhere that the safety copies should be removed after the data has been replicated to the other Centera, is this true.

Or is it best to remove them after the archive and if so is this safe.

This is the first time I have used a centera with EV and the normal EV rules about backups clearing saftey copies and do not seem to apply. Documentation on Centeras and safety copy configuration seems to be very light

 

Any help would be appreciated

Thanks

 

J

15 REPLIES 15

MichelZ
Level 6
Partner Accredited Certified

Hi

 

Safety copies will be removed once the object was replicated by the Centera.

Maybe there is some configuration fault here.

 

You will have to reference both of your centeras in the PEA file, I think.

 

/Michel


cloudficient - EV Migration, creators of EVComplete.

MichelZ
Level 6
Partner Accredited Certified

Between, you can find an "official" statement here:

 

---

Note: If you are storing to an EMC Centera and the Vault Store is set to "Remove Safety Copies After Backup", then check that data is being moved from the Primary Centera Access Nodes to the Replica Nodes, as the Savesets will not be considered backed up until they are copied to the Replica Node.
---

 


cloudficient - EV Migration, creators of EVComplete.

SolarP
Level 6
Partner Accredited

Thanks

I will have a look at the PEA file and have a word with the EMC guy and see if he can confirm they are replicating and get back with the result

 

J

SolarP
Level 6
Partner Accredited

It appears that the centeras were not replicating or replication was paused.

Using Show Replication Detail command on the Centera command line showed this and resuming it did not work it just fails again so EMC are going to have to come in and sort it by the looks of it.

All we had was a concatenated PEA file for the access to both centeras from EV and it looks like we need seaparate files for the replication according to an EMC consultant.

 

At least it explains the safety copies not being removed

 

Thanks for the comments and replies

 

J

 

 

 

Grog
Level 3

We had the same issues on a set of Gen4 Centera's that were set to replicate, we had the appropriate PEA file for access via Enterprise Vault, however they did not have the PEA file that is used for replication between the storage pools on the Centera.

 

Another tidbit of information.... that "show replication detail" command you referenced is something you want to do on a daily basis.  If replication is not running between the Centera frames, then you also will not be able to delete.  When EV issues a delete command on the primary Centera, that Centera then issues a delete to the remote Centera and waits till it finishes the remote delete before it issues the local delete.  You will see these queue up in the "Replication Deletes" section of Centera Viewer.

SolarP
Level 6
Partner Accredited

Ok

We had EMC come in and reconfigure replication and got a new PEA file and did another test archive

This worked and can see them using Search archives etc

However in the email mailbox the safety copies are still there

When do they get removed? 

I have seen the centeras replicate the data across but the safety copies are not removed

Do I need to perform a backup of the EV server indexes etc in order to force this or how are there any

Remember that this is still in test / pre pilot at the moment and just using test mailboxes so no live data.. yet

 

Thanks in advance

J

MichelZ
Level 6
Partner Accredited Certified

SolarP

 

Make sure the archiving task is running.

The Safety copies should get removed immediately after replication.

 

 /Michel


cloudficient - EV Migration, creators of EVComplete.

SolarP
Level 6
Partner Accredited

Yep Archiving Task is running and just restarted

Configuration as below

Under the Vault Store I have Remove Safety Copies after backup set

Under Vault store partition I have the Share Archive settings set. Collections not enabled and Retention set to never at the moment as we are using test data  

 

Is there anywhere I can check to see what it is doing

 

J

MarkB_2
Level 4

J

 

This Technote isn't pertaining to your issue but gives a list of what permissions we need when working with Centera and replica's - http://support.veritas.com/docs/296186.

 

The safety copy should be removed once the primary has replicated, and we then check the replica using the "Clip Exists" and get this clip info from the StorageFileWatch table. Once the clip is checked, and is there, this should then place a request on the A1 MSMQ for the associated Exchange server, and the Archiving Task should then pick this up and post-process it.

 

Your PEA file should have Read, Write, Delete and Clip Exists FOR BOTH PRIMARY AND REPLICAS. There is also a registry key which you could set:-

 

FileWatchEMCCenteraScanInterval


HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
\SOFTWARE
\KVS
\Enterprise Vault
\Storage

 

DWORD value with a value set to a number of minutes.
If the value is set to 0, no rescanning is performed. If the value does not exist, the rescan is done every 60 minutes. Storage Service is started, the StorageFileWatch process scans the entera clips to check that they have been replicated from a primary entera to a replica Centera. This registry key sets the frequency with which these scans occur.

 

You may also want to use collections as this will improve the rate that data is replicated.

Junior_B
Level 4

J,

 

When the Archiving task runs and you have "Remove Safety Copies After Backup" selected on the Vault Store, the file is replicated to your secondary Centera about 2.5 minutes after hitting your Primary. You should be able to see files flowing through in the "Show Replication Detail" command on your Primary Centera. 

 

You can run "Show Pool Detail <YOUR_POOL_NAME>" on both the Primary and Secondary Centera's to see the size and number of clips increasing. 

 

Once the file has been replicated, the EV API should be getting return info from the Centera to indicate replication is succesful.

 

The next time you run the Archiving task, EV will remove the safety copy for files that have been replicated.

 

If this is not working, your replication may not have been configured correctly. One thing you can check is when you run the "Show Pool Detail <YOUR_POOL_NAME>" command, you should see at least 2 profiles listed, one for the profile EV is using via the PEA file, and a Replicate (or similar name) pool that is used for replication.

 

You can also run the Centera Verify app, using your concatenated PEA file, this has the option of testing replica's. When it runs, it will take about 3 minutes to find and delete the replica, so be patient.

 

Having said all that, we are not using safety copies for email archiving but it is working as above for our FSA archiving.

 

HTH

SolarP
Level 6
Partner Accredited

Hi

Thanks for the replys

I have calls in with EMC and Symantec on this and will update when resolved. Have got centeras replicating but safety copies not being removed

 

J

DanBlack
Not applicable

Hi SolarP

 

How did you go? I am having the same issue.

 

Dan

SolarP
Level 6
Partner Accredited

Hi Dan

Appologies for not updating, just been so busy and on Hols

Basically because EMC had stopped replication and not paused it and removed some clips out of queues, even when replication resumes EV still looks for the clips on the replica centera before removing the safety copies. Until it sees the Clip it wants replicated, it will not go on to check the next and subsequent clips until the first one is replicated.

So we had to get EMC to manually replicate the missing clips to the replica centera and then EV processed all of the clips / safety copies.

Get EMC to do a comparison of the two centeras and see what is missing

 

Julian

MarkB_2
Level 4

It is nearly always an issue with replication when Centera is involved and safety copies. Another thing to be aware of is making sure that the "Exists" permission is setup on the Replicas as without this the post-process will not complete too.

 

A good way to check things are working is to use Centera Verify which ships with EV....

SHI-CRO
Level 6
Partner Accredited Certified
I am seeing the same type of problem.  We know the centeras are replicated, but EV isn't removing safety copies.  When we restart the storage service the safety copies are removed immediately.  Any idea why restarting the storage service would cause this?