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Druva Documentation

CloudCache FAQs

This FAQs topic contains the following sections: 

Overview FAQs

► What is CloudCache? 
CloudCache is an optional component that stores backups locally up to 30 days to enable quick local restores. The CloudCache then periodically synchronizes this data to the Druva Cloud. Because the Hybrid Workloads agents can communicate with the CloudCache on a local network, the speed of the backups and restores increases significantly. Moreover, administrators can schedule synchronization operations from the CloudCache to the Druva Cloud during the off-peak hours, thus ensuring an optimized utilization of the WAN bandwidth.

► What difference will deploying CloudCache make? 
The following are the major differences that deploying CloudCache will make in your environment:
  • Optimized WAN bandwidth consumption: With CloudCache, you do not have to worry about the availability of the WAN bandwidth at your organization for the scheduled server backups. Administrators can schedule synchronization operations from the CloudCache to the Druva Cloud during off-peak hours, thus ensuring an optimized utilization of the WAN bandwidth.
  • Reduced backup time: Hybrid Workloads agents can back up large volumes of data to the CloudCache through LAN ensuring a significant reduction in the backup time while backing up servers and virtual machines.
  • Faster restores: You can restore the data residing on the CloudCache during the predefined retention period. It also reduces the demand for the WAN bandwidth.

► What extra firewall configuration/ports do I need to open for the CloudCache? 
CloudCache uses the default 443 port and TLS protocol for all communications. For more information, see Ports and Communication Protocols for CloudCache.

► How is the CloudCache priced? 
CloudCache does not have any associated cost component. For licensing information, contact Support.

► What does the CloudCache license depend on? 
CloudCache feature is available free of cost as a part of the Enterprise and Elite Druva license. For more information about the licensing details, refer to Druva Plans and Pricing.
For more information about licensing, contact your account executive or Support.

► How long does the CloudCache hold my data?
You can configure the number of days for which you want the CloudCache to hold your data. At the most, you can set a retention period of 30 days for your data. For more information, see Configure CloudCache

► What workloads support CloudCache deployments?
CloudCache supports File Servers, NAS, SQL, Oracle Direct to Cloud (DTC), Hyper-V, Nutanix AHV, and VMware workloads.
File Servers and NAS devices that contain a large number of small files may affect the CloudCache performance because of intensive I/O operations. For other workloads, the backup and restore operations contain extensive block size data that does not impact performance.

► What is the difference between CloudCache R1 & R3?
CloudCache R3 is built on a new architecture that supports the File Servers, NAS, SQL, Oracle Direct to Cloud (DTC), Hyper-V, VMware, and Nutanix AHV workloads on Linux only. The existing CloudCache, labeled R1, continues to support other workloads, that is, File Servers, NAS, SQL, Oracle Direct to Cloud (DTC), Hyper-V, and VMware on Windows and Linux. Instant Restore of VMware virtual machines is not supported on CloudCache R3.

Configuration FAQs



► Are there any best practices for installing CC on Physical server? 
CloudCache R1 for Linux is an OVA package and cannot be installed on Physical servers currently. For CloudCache R2, it is recommended to use the Debian package for installing on Physical servers running Ubuntu 20.0.4.

► What is the default configuration of CloudCache?
CloudCache R1 for Linux has 1 Disk with LVM volume of 1TB, by default. The CloudCache R2 OVA and QCOW2 packages for Linux have two disks for OS and Data with size 60GB and 1TB, respectively, by default.

► What is the OS on the CloudCache OVA image file?
Both versions of CloudCache OVA package come with Ubuntu version 20.0.4.

► What is the sizing and setup (number of CloudCache) considerations for the CloudCache? 
To ensure that the CloudCache can handle multiple backup and restore requests, you must set an optimum size for the CloudCache. You must also plan for the number of the CloudCache instances that you require at your remote office locations.
The size of CloudCache and the number of CloudCache installations that you require depend on the factors, such as:
  • The number of resources that you want to back up
  • The type of data backed up
  • The size of the backup data including the incremental backups

    For more information about deployment considerations, contact Support. 

► Where can I check the CloudCache usage on the Management Console? 
 The Cache Used/Allocated field on the CloudCache details page provides the consumed CloudCache storage details.

► What are the packages via which CloudCache is offered? 
 CloudCache R1 for Windows is offered as an MSI and for Linux it is offered as an OVA for vCenter. CloudCache R2 is for Linux only and offered as OVA, QCOW2, and .deb packages.

► Will Druva notify about the CloudCache storage when the storage is consumed beyond a certain threshold?
When the CloudCache storage is consumed, Druva notifies you with the following alerts:
  • CloudCache Storage Space Low (Usage: >80%)
  • CloudCache Storage Space Full

► What happens if the CloudCache is configured but it is not available when a server triggers backup? 
While configuring CloudCache or editing the CloudCache details, if the Backup to Cloud if unable to backup to Cache option is selected, the Hybrid Workloads agent backs up the data directly to the Druva Cloud. Otherwise, the backup operation fails. 

► Does the CloudCache disk space become free when the data is synchronized from the CloudCache to the Druva Cloud? 
No. The disk space becomes free according to the retention period configured for the mapped backup set. 

► Can customers increase/decrease compute (RAM, vCPU) or disk size?
Yes, customers can increase the compute & disk size. CloudCache R1 and R3 for Linux is an OVA package that offers LVM partition the size of which can be increased directly. Similarly, for Windows, new volumes can be configured to increase the size.

► What happens if the CloudCache is configured but it is not available when the server triggers the restore operation?
Consider the following scenarios:
  • The CloudCache server has completed the synchronization of the data with the Druva Cloud
    • Druva will try to connect to the CloudCache server to perform the restore. If no connection to the CloudCache server can be established within 10 minutes, Druva will switch back to the Druva Cloud to complete the restoration of the data.
  • CloudCache has not completed the synchronization of the data with the Druva Cloud:
    • If the CloudCache is completely down, the restore operation fails.
    • If the CloudCache and the Druva Cloud are still connected, then the Druva Cloud fetches data from the CloudCache and the data is restored directly from the Druva Cloud.

► Can I exclude some of my virtual machines from moving the data to the cloud? 
No, this functionality is not yet supported by Druva. 

Backup and restore FAQs


► Will the backup continues to the cloud if the CloudCache storage is full and the Backup to Cloud if unable to backup to Cache option is enabled? 
 Yes, the data backup will continue to the cloud.

► My CloudCache decommission is taking a long time, what can I do to make it run quicker? 

The following are the stages of decommissioning the CloudCache:

  1. Backup sets are unmapped from the CloudCache.
  2. Backups and restores to and from the CloudCache stop.
  3. CloudCache waits for the next scheduled synchronization operation to flush the unsync data from the CloudCache to the Druva Cloud.
  4. Druva removes the data blocks from CloudCache Store.
  5.  Druva removes the cache entries from the Management Console and database.
  • In order to expedite the process, configure the CloudCache synchronization schedule for 24 hours for 7 days and ensure that you select the Max Available Bandwidth in your environment.
    Note: The bandwidth is defined in megabits per second.

► How can I ensure that all my hot data is present on the CloudCache so that during restore all data is readily available on the CloudCache?
While configuring CloudCache or editing the CloudCache details, we recommend that you do not select the Backup to Cloud if unable to backup to Cache option.

► Does my backup/restore tasks fail if the CloudCache is decommissioned or it is in decommissioning mode? 
When the decommission operation is initialized, the CloudCache first removes the mapping of all the backup sets from the CloudCache and then synchronizes all data to the Druva Cloud. After that, the backup and restore tasks are performed directly from the Druva Cloud.

► What happens to the backup job if the connection to the CloudCache is interrupted at the time of the job? 
If the connection to CloudCache is interrupted at the time of a backup, the Hybrid Workloads agent backs up data directly to the Druva Cloud. Since the deduplication data is available on the Druva Cloud, Hybrid Workloads agent requires a connection to Druva Cloud and CloudCache to restore data. Ensure that the Hybrid Workloads agent can connect to Druva Cloud and CloudCache. 

► If the connection to CloudCache was interrupted during the backup job, would a restore operation from the associated warm snapshot succeed? 
During a CloudCache disconnection, if a few data blocks remain in CloudCache and are not fully transferred/flushed to the Cloud, any attempts to restore a warm snapshot will fail. 
 
► What happens if retention period/policy is changed?
If you increase the number of days of retention, say from 5 to 10, we will start retaining the data for days 6-10 incrementally and will subsequently have data for all required 10 days from day 11 onward. However, if this count is reduced from 5 to 3, the excess 2 recovery points will be compacted as per the schedule. 
 
► Why does some of my data take more time to restore? 
If you request restore of data for the days for which data is already in cache, it will be quick and seamlessly restored. In case data that has been flushed from the cache to the cloud is required to be restored, the data which is present in the cache will be restored faster and the restore of data from the cloud will take slightly longer. 

 

 

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