Category: Backup

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Nakivo request support

The Nakivo backup software license allows you to use Nakivo technicians to resolve any problems. To contact the technicians, in the left menu click on “Help” and then on “Request support”. A new screen will open where you will have to push “Create new bundle”. A new form opens for generating the bundle that will be sent to Nakivo. In the Nakivo software there is the possibility of setting the various tasks or devices to record a verbose log. This may be useful to Nakivo technicians to help you solve your problem.

Job Verbose Log

To enable verbose logging in a job, in the “Options” section you must select “Bottleneck detection”.

Transporter Verbose Log

To enable verbose logging in the transporters (Source and Target) used in a job, select the individual transporter and select “Enable debug logging for this node”.

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Updating Nakivo Appliance in environment with Qnap nas

Nakivo Environment

In this environment we have a Nakivo Appliance and a Qnap nas, used as Nakivo backup repository. We need to update the Nakivo appliance that currently is at 10.6 version.

Updating Nakivo using web console

Enter in your Nakivo web interface, navigate to “Seetings” – “Software Update”. The procedure proposes to you the 10.7 version. Proceed. You’ll reice a warning that “remote transporters will not be updated automatically”. After this procedure the Nakivo will be at 10.7 version and not other updates will be avalaible. Indeed the web console signals that your qnap transporter is “out of the date”. So you need to update it to use it. And here there is the problem: we’ll sew that, using nakivo qnap site , you’ll be able to install only the version 10.9 of qnap trasporter that is newer than the currently Nakivo appliance version. So you first need to install the 10.9 version on your Nakivo appliance, but you need to do it manually

Updating Nakivo manually

Using Nakivo upadte site you have to download the “Virtual Appliance”. You”ll download the file

NAKIVO_Backup_Replication_v10.9.0.76010_Updater.sh

Using the application Winscp connect to your Nakivo appliance via ssh. Upload the sh file in the folder /opt/nakivo/updates.

To enter via ssh in a nakivo appliance the default credential are :

  • username : root
  • password : QExS-6b%3D

Now you have to follow this instruction to update the application : Nakivo manual.

Updating Nakivo Transporter in Qnap

In our environment , the Qnap has a Nakivo Transporter App version 10.6.0, compatible with the starting version of our Nakivo appliance. It’s not possible to update this version automatically via qnap, you need to downnload from Nakivo site the new transporter and update it via Qnap web console.

In Nakivo site , you have to choose between the intel or arm transporter package. You’ll download a opkg file.

So, enter in qnap web console and install it manually :

Unable to install Qnap Transporter because the digital sign is invalid

If you are unabled to install the Nakivo Trasporter package because you recive an error that report that the digital sign is invalid , yoiu need to allow installation of applications without a valid digital signature. Click the Settings icon in the top-right corner of the App Center. On the General tab, check the option “Allow installation of applications without a valid digital signature”.

Issue with Nakivo web interface 10.9 in web browser

Even if Nakivo siuggests to use chrome or Firefox to use properly its web interface, we had problem using Chrome. We solved it using Microsoft Edge.

Links

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Speed of a remote backup

To build a backup environment it is recommended to follow the 3-2-1 rule.

  • Make 3 backups
  • Make 2 backups on different media
  • Make 1 backup in another location than the source data

To carry out the third tip, we very often think of the Cloud; it’s a great solution but the costs are still quite high if we need to move TB. If, on the other hand, we have to save some GB, the solution is attractive.

For companies that need to move TB of data, a solution can be backup to a remote location, for example connected with a vpn. The costs of saving the data will therefore be absorbed by the purchase costs of a fairly large NAS unit.

Let us try to detail such a solution.

Backup speed in vpn

The speed of the backup will be determined by the slowest internet connection speed between the 2 locations. Let’s suppose that the 2 offices are able to communicate at the speed of 300 Mb / s.

300 Mb / s = 300,000,000 b / s

300,000,000 b / s / 8 = 37,500,000 b / s = 37.5 MB / s

To move 1GB of data over a 300 Mb / s network, it will take 1,000 / 37.5 = 26.7 seconds

To move 1GB of data over a 100 Mb / s network, it will take 1,000 / 12.5 = 80 seconds

Backup software all have the ability to perform incremental backups but the first backup that is performed will inevitably be very long. So it needs to be planned carefully.

If we want to move a 20GB virtual machine across a 300 Mb / s network, it will take about 27 minutes. It will take us 2 hours and 15 minutes for a 1TB virtual machine. The incremental backups of the various software on the market, in “normal” conditions of server activity, allow subsequent backups to arrive at times equal to 20% of the first backup.

Choice of Backup NAS

The source site data is stored on Nas at the destination site. It is clear that choosing a NAS equipped with a 10Gb / S ethernet card does not improve our remote backup since the transfer speed of the vpn is less than 1Gb / s.

Could the NAS disks further decrease the copy speed? To answer this, let’s take a look at a table that tries to give a value to the write speeds of the various disk systems. We took the data from the wikipedia site and then processed it.

Drive

(Type / RPM )

 MB/s

(64KB block, random)

 MB/s

(512KB block, random)

 MB/s random

average

 MB/s

(large block, sequential)

 MB/s sequenzial

average
FC / 15 K 9.7 – 10.8 49.7 – 63.1 33,3 73.5 – 127.5 100,5
SAS / 15 K 11.2 – 12.3 58.9 – 68.9 37,8 91.5 – 126.3 108,9
FC / 10 K 8.3 – 9.2 40.9 – 53.1 27,9 58.1 – 107.2 82,65
SAS / 10 K 8.3 – 9.2 40.9 – 53.1 27,9 58.1 – 107.2 82,65
SAS/SATA / 7200 4.4 – 4.9 24.3 – 32.1 16,4 43.4 – 97.8 70,6
SATA / 5400 3.5 22.6 13,05 47,1 (estimate)
SSD 520 520

Backup software normally writes disks sequentially, so numbers in hand, even a sata 5400 hard drive could be useful in our scenario. Buying hard drives above 7200 rpm, on the other hand, would not lead to an improvement.