Best Practices - EMC Avamar 6.1 User Manual

Best practices

EMC Avamar Compatibility and Interoperability Matrix
Use 64-bit VMware vCenter
Verify ESX and vCenter certificates
Use fully-qualified ESX server hostnames
Recommendations for high change-rate clients
Changed block tracking recomendations
Use throttling parameters for group guest backups
The following topics describe best practices to follow when configuring and using Avamar
for VMware image backup and restore.
Before upgrading the vCenter infrastructure, refer to the
Interoperability Matrix
to ensure that Avamar supports that version.
For best resuts, use 64-bit VMware vCenter whenever possible.
Use properly registered certificates from a trusted provider that matches DNS names for
ESX and vCenter.
When adding new ESX servers to your vCenter environments, you should adhere to the
VMware recommended practice of naming your ESX servers with fully-qualified hostnames
(not an IP address, or simple hostname). Using anything other than a fully-qualified
hostname can result in network connection failures due to incorrect SSL certificate
handling.
Use the guest backup or Data Domain backend for high change-rate clients.
If a virtual machine contains over 10,000 changed blocks, it is generally faster to back up
that client with changed block tracking disabled.
When performing scheduled guest backups of virtual machines on the same ESX server,
add throttling parameters to the Avamar dataset. The reason for doing this is that Avamar
tries to initiate as many backups as possible, subject to certain load restrictions on the
Avamar MCS. However, if multiple guest backups are attempted on virtual machines on
the same ESX server, this can spike CPU usage, which will have an adverse effect on
overall ESX server performance.
Edit the dataset as follows:
1. Start Avamar Administrator.
2. Select Tools > Manage Datasets...
The Manage All Datasets window appears.
3. Select a dataset from the list and click Edit.
The Edit Dataset dialog box appears.
4. Click the Options tab.
5. Click Show Advanced Options.
Administration
EMC Avamar Compatibility and

Best practices

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