Skip to main content

How can we help you?

Druva Documentation

Create backup proxy pool

Enterprise Workloads Editions: File:/tick.png Business File:/cross.png Enterprise File:/tick.png Elite

 

Overview

You can achieve backup proxy load balancing with backup proxy pools.

The backup proxy pool is a collection of backup proxies. Backup proxy pools eliminate the need to map the virtual machines to an individual backup proxy manually. All the backup requests from the virtual machines mapped to a pool are assigned to backup proxies within the pool based on the load balancing mechanism.

Druva assigns a backup request to a backup proxy within a pool based on the following parameters in the order of priority:

  • Backup Now: The Backup Now job is triggered by the VMware details page.
  • Aging: The number of failed backup jobs since the last successful backup.
  • Hot add or NBD: The Transport Modes to read the vmdk files. 

You must ensure that there is an optimum number of backup proxies with sufficient resources deployed in each pool.  If a backup proxy within a pool is disconnected, the backup or restore job is assigned to the next available backup proxy within the pool. For more information, see Resource Sizing for a backup proxy.

A default backup proxy pool is created for every registered vCenter/ESXi.  Any new backup proxy deployed in the registered vCenter/ESXi is added to the default proxy pool. You can create new pools within the registered vCenter/ESXi and move or add new backup proxies.

Note: You cannot rename or delete the default backup proxy pool.

Best practices for creating backup proxy pools

The following diagram illustrates the best practices for creating a backup proxy pool

Proxy_pool.gif

As illustrated in the diagram:

  • You must create the backup proxy pools with respect to a data center. Typically, data centers are associated with a geographical region.
    Example:  If you have a data center 1 that is created for Australia, and data center 2 that is created for North America, you must create exclusive backup proxy pools that are associated with the respective data center i.e. geographical region.
  • Within a data center, there can be geographically distributed clusters, in such cases, you can create a separate backup proxy pool for each cluster.
    Example:  A data center is dedicated to APAC. Within the APAC data center, there can be multiple clusters spread across geographies, for example, one in Australia, other in India. In such a case, create a separate backup proxy pool for Australia and India.
  • Ensure that the virtual machines that belong to a certain region are backed up by backup proxies deployed for the same region.
    Example:  If you are backing up virtual machines in the Australia region, ensure that they are backed up by backup proxies that are deployed in the backup proxy pool for Australia.
  • When you configure a virtual machine for backup, ensure that the virtual machine belonging to a specific data center is mapped to the backup proxy pool created for that data center. This helps to avoid the data from traveling over WAN across geographical regions.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the Management Console
  2. From the top menu bar, select your organization if organizations are enabled. 
  3. Click Protect > VMware
    The All vCenter/ESXi Hosts page appears that lists all the registered vCenter/hypervisors. 
  4. You can either select the registered vCenter/ESXi host from the card view or list view or select it from the vCenter/ESXi host list in the left navigation pane.
  5. In the left pane, click Backup Proxies
    Create Proxy Pool_1.png
  6. Click Create Proxy Pool
  7. Only  for vCenter server, select the datacenter and click Create New Pool.

Note: You can also create a new pool while deploying additional proxies.

​​

Field Description
Name Name of the new backup proxy pool.
Data Center

(Available only for vCenter) Select the data center to which the pool will belong to.

Note: Incase, you have not upgraded the backup proxies to version 4.8.13 and later, this field is not populated.

Country The country for which you have created the backup proxy pool.
Time Zone

The relevant time zone of the selected country.

The backup of virtual machines mapped to this pool is triggered in this time zone.