Deduplication appliances

In this section, we will distinguish between integrated and non-integrated deduplication appliances.

If the mentioned integration API is unavailable due to licensing restrictions, or if any other deduplication appliance is used, the appliance should be considered non-integrated.

In order to optimize throughput for deduplication appliances, please use the following configuration guidelines:

Job configuration

The following settings are configured in the backup job “Edit” wizard under Storage > Advanced. Options not defined in this table are optional and not related to backup repositories using deduplication storage.

Setting	Value
Tab: Backup
Backup mode	Incremental
Create synthetic full backups periodically	Enabled - if integrated
Create active full backups periodically	Enabled - if non-integrated
Tab: Maintenance
Perform backup file health check	Disabled
Defragment and compact full backup file	Disabled
Tab: Storage
Enable inline data deduplication	Disabled
Exclude swap file blocks	Enabled
Exclude deleted file blocks	Enabled
Compression level	Dedup-Friendly
Storage optimization	4MB
Enable backup file encryption	Disabled

Hardware assisted encryption is available for EMC DataDomain via DDBoost, but must be configured in the integration specific repository configuration. If enabled on the job level data reduction efficiency will be significantly degraded.

Repository configuration

The following settings are configured in the “Edit Repository” wizard under Repository > Advanced.

Setting	Value
Align backup file data blocks	Enabled - only if repository uses fixed block size deduplication (almost never true)
Decompress backup file data blocks before storing	Enabled
This repository is backed by rotated hard drives	Disabled
Use per-machine backup files	Enabled

Using deduplication appliance as a backup copy repository

When using non-integrated appliances, use the option of active fulls for backup copy jobs, which disables all synthetic operations on the chain. Because of “de-hydration”/”re-hydration” overhead at the end of the backup copy job cycle, I/O performance with synthetic full will suffer.

Using deduplication appliance as a Virtual Tape Library

If a deduplication appliance is used in Virtual Tape Library (VTL) mode, the repository used for staging should be configured with “Decompress before storing” advanced option enabled, which ensures any previously applied compression at the job level is ignored.

File-level recovery and Veeam Explorers

By design, Veeam Explorers perform a large amount of random read operations on the backup repository. To optimize for such operations on deduplication devices, following the job and repository configuration best practices (see above) is paramount. If the recommendations are not fully implemented, this may lead to significant waiting time when launching file-level recovery or Veeam Explorers.

To further reduce restore time, it is recommended to enable file-level indexing for backup jobs located on deduplication repositories. Indexing VMs will remove the waiting time for mounting a restore point when browsing contents via Enterprise Manager.