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Create VMware Backup Job Proxies

In ECX, running VMware Backup jobs through VADP can be taxing on your system resources. By creating VMware Backup job proxies, you enable load sharing and load balancing for those jobs in Linux environments.

Note that the first time a given job is run, the proxies do not take effect because VM clone technology is used. But the second and subsequent times the job is run, change block tracking technology is used and the proxies are employed.

If proxies exist, the entire processing load is shifted off the ECX host machine and onto the proxies, else the entire load stays on the ECX host. Within a Backup job, the processing load for any single VM is shifted to a single proxy machine; multiple VMs are shifted to multiple proxies if available.

If a proxy server goes down or is otherwise disabled before the start of the job, the other proxies (or if there are no other proxies, the ECX host) take over and the job completes. If a proxy server becomes disabled during the running of a job, there is a possibility that the job will fail.

BEFORE YOU BEGIN:

Determine how many proxies to create; the more proxies, the faster the jobs run. Each proxy is used merely to process data, and the results are returned through the host ECX server. The only impact seen by the user is the improvement in performance when running the job.

System Requirements:

This feature has been tested only for Ubuntu, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, and Red Hat environments. It is supported only in x64 configurations with a minimum kernel of 2.6.32.

A minimum of 8 GB of RAM is required (16 GB recommenced), along with 60 GB of disk space.

Each proxy must have a fully qualified domain name.

Installer Notes:

The ECX 2.6+ version of the VADP Proxy installer includes Virtual Disk Development Kit (VDDK) version 5.5.5. This version of the VADP proxy installer provides the following functionality:

External VADP Proxy support with vSphere 6.5
External VADP Proxy support for Hot Add operations, which provides higher performance for VADP Backups.

To create a proxy:

For each proxy:

Power up a physical or virtual Linux machine that meets the system requirements defined above, and is on the same network as the host ECX machine.
Copy the VADP Proxy installation program to the local proxy machine. This can be attained from the ECX Marketplace.
Log in to the proxy machine as root, or as a user capable of running “sudo” commands.
On the proxy machine, open a terminal. Enter the following command to install the proxy server software:
./vmdkbackup-1.0-installer.bin
The Setup wizard opens.
Note:Alternatively you can run the installer using command line protocol by entering the following command: ./vmdkbackup-1.0-installer.bin --mode text
Follow the steps in the Setup wizard to configure your proxy server and connect to the ECX host.

When prompted for the installation directory, select /opt/ECX.
When prompted for the ECX Discovery Server IP, enter the IP Address of the ECX host.
When prompted for the ECX Site String, set it to “default”.
When prompted for Performance Optimization, set it to “unknown”.

Click Finish when the Setup wizard indicates it has completed. After installation, note that your new installation directory includes a subdirectory called /log, which is the job log location.

After successful installation, the service ecxvadp is started on the proxy machine. A log file ecxvadp.log is generated in /opt/ECX/logs directory.

Repeat the previous steps for each proxy you want to create.

To confirm proxy server connections:

Start the ECX management console.
In the ECX management console, click the arrow next to the Support icon, then choose View Edge Services Status. The ECX host machine and each operational proxy server are displayed.

NEXT STEPS:

Run the VMware Backup job. The use of the proxies are indicated in the job log by a log message similar to the following:

Run remote vmdkbackup of MicroService: http://<proxy node name>, IP:<proxy IP address>

Uninstall the proxies when you cease running the VMware Backup jobs. To uninstall a proxy, on your host machine, run the following command from the uninstall subdirectory of the installation directory (default installation directory is /opt/ECX):

./uninstall_vmdkbackup

The installation directory is removed.