Dell PowerVault DR4100 Instructions for use

A Dell Technical White Paper
DR4100 Best Practice Guide
Part 1: Setup, Replication and Networking
Dell Data Protection Group
April 2014

2 DR4100 Best Practice Guide | April 2014
Revisions
Date
Description
April 2014
Initial release
THIS WHITE PAPER IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY, AND MAY CONTAIN TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS
AND TECHNICAL INACCURACIES. THE CONTENT IS PROVIDED AS IS, WITHOUT EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND.
© 2014 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this material in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission
of Dell Inc. is strictly forbidden. For more information, contact Dell.
PRODUCT WARRANTIES APPLICABLE TO THE DELL PRODUCTS DESCRIBED IN THIS DOCUMENT MAY BE FOUND
AT: http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/19/terms-of-sale-commercial-and-public-sector Performance of network reference architectures
discussed in this document may vary with differing deployment conditions, network loads, and the like. Third party products may be
included in reference architectures for the convenience of the reader. Inclusion of such third party products does not necessarily
constitute Dell’s recommendation of those products. Please consult your Dell representative for additional information.
Trademarks used in this text:
Dell™, the Dell logo, Dell Boomi™, Dell Precision™ ,OptiPlex™, Latitude™, PowerEdge™, PowerVault™, PowerConnect™,
OpenManage™, EqualLogic™, Compellent™, KACE™, FlexAddress™, Force10™ and Vostro™ are trademarks of Dell Inc. Other
Dell trademarks may be used in this document. Cisco Nexus®, Cisco MDS®, Cisco NX-0S®, and other Cisco Catalyst®are registered
trademarks of Cisco System Inc. EMC VNX®, and EMC Unisphere®are registered trademarks of EMC Corporation. Intel®, Pentium®,
Xeon®, Core®and Celeron®are registered trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. AMD®is a registered
trademark and AMD Opteron™, AMD Phenom™ and AMD Sempron™ are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Microsoft®,
Windows®, Windows Server®, Internet Explorer®, MS-DOS®, Windows Vista®and Active Directory®are either trademarks or
registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Red Hat®and Red Hat®Enterprise Linux®
are registered trademarks of Red Hat, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Novell®and SUSE®are registered trademarks of
Novell Inc. in the United States and other countries. Oracle®is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates.
Citrix®, Xen®, XenServer®and XenMotion®are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc. in the United States
and/or other countries. VMware®, Virtual SMP®, vMotion®, vCenter®and vSphere®are registered trademarks or trademarks of
VMware, Inc. in the United States or other countries. IBM®is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation.
Broadcom®and NetXtreme®are registered trademarks of Broadcom Corporation. Qlogic is a registered trademark of QLogic
Corporation. Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and/or
names or their products and are the property of their respective owners. Dell disclaims proprietary interest in the marks and names of
others.

3 DR4100 Best Practice Guide | April 2014
Table of contents
Revisions ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 2!
Executive summary ............................................................................................................................................................................... 4!
1!Administration guides..................................................................................................................................................................... 5!
2!Best practice guides ........................................................................................................................................................................ 6!
3!Case studies .................................................................................................................................................................................... 7!
4!System setup ................................................................................................................................................................................... 8!
4.1!Hardware .............................................................................................................................................................................. 8!
4.2!Expansion Shelves................................................................................................................................................................ 8!
4.3!Initial out of the box setup.................................................................................................................................................... 8!
4.4!Container creation ................................................................................................................................................................ 9!
4.4.1!Container limit..................................................................................................................................................................... 9!
4.4.2!Access Protocols................................................................................................................................................................ 10!
4.4.3!Marker Support.................................................................................................................................................................. 11!
5!Replication setup and planning..................................................................................................................................................... 12!
5.1!Replication considerations.................................................................................................................................................. 12!
5.2!Replicating Containers ....................................................................................................................................................... 12!
5.3!Calculate Replication Interval ............................................................................................................................................ 12!
5.4!Bandwidth Optimization .................................................................................................................................................... 13!
5.5!Replication Encryption....................................................................................................................................................... 14!
5.6!Addressing Packet Loss...................................................................................................................................................... 14!
5.7!Replication Tuning ............................................................................................................................................................. 14!
5.7.1!High Bandwidth Conditions .............................................................................................................................................. 14!
5.7.2!Reducing Bandwidth Concerns ......................................................................................................................................... 14!
5.8!Domain Access................................................................................................................................................................... 15!
6!Networking ................................................................................................................................................................................... 16!
6.1!Supported Network Cards .................................................................................................................................................. 16!
6.2!Network Interface Card Bonding ....................................................................................................................................... 17!
6.3!Secure Network Separation ................................................................................................................................................ 19!
6.4!Troubleshooting.................................................................................................................................................................. 40!
A!Resources ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 41!

4 DR4100 Best Practice Guide | April 2014
Executive summary
This document contains some of the best practices for deploying, configuring, and maintaining a Dell DR 4x00 backup
and deduplication appliance in a production environment. Following these best practices can help ensure the product is
optimally configured for a given environment.
Note:this guide is not a replacement for the administrator’s guide. In most cases, this guide provides only a high level
description of the problem and solution. Please refer to the administrator guide for the specific options and steps
required to implement the recommended actions.
Please consider the administrator’s guide as a pre-requisite for this paper, or at least as a reference guide on how to
complete the tasks listed here in this guide. The administrator’s guide for 2.1 can be found in the list of links below.
In addition to this document, we recommend the following documents for the advanced reader.

5 DR4100 Best Practice Guide | April 2014
1Administration guides
Dell DR Series System Administrator Guide
Dell DR4100 Systems Owner’s Manual
Dell DR Series System Command Line Reference Guide