PERFORMING MICROSOFT SQL ALWAYSON AVAILABILITY GROUP BACKUPS ON AMAZON WEB SERVER AND MICROSOFT AZURE WITH DELL EMC AVAMAR

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1 PERFORMING MICROSOFT SQL ALWAYSON AVAILABILITY GROUP BACKUPS ON AMAZON WEB SERVER AND MICROSOFT AZURE WITH DELL EMC AVAMAR November 2017 ABSTRACT This white paper describes how to configure a Microsoft SQL AlwaysOn Availability Group (AAG) listener client with DELL EMC Avamar Virtual Edition (AVE) and DELL EMC Data Domain Virtual Edition (DDVE), all of which resides on Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure. Avamar 7.5 and later version supports deployment of AVE in AWS and Azure which is reliable, scalable, and inexpensive cloud computing service. [ ] This document is not intended for audiences in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macao. WHITE PAPER

2 Copyright The information in this publication is provided as is. Dell Inc. makes no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to the information in this publication, and specifically disclaims implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Use, copying, and distribution of any software described in this publication requires an applicable software license. Copyright [Year or Years] Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved. Dell, EMC, Dell EMC and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. Intel, the Intel logo, the Intel Inside logo, and Xeon are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other trademarks may be the property of their respective owners. Published in the USA [November 2017] [] [ ]. Dell Inc. believes the information in this document is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice. 2 PERFORMING SQL ALWAYSON AVAILABILITY GROUP BACKUPS ON AMAZON WEB SERVER AND

3 Contents Contents Executive Summary... 4 Audience... 4 Solution Overview... 4 Deployment... 5 Installing the Avamar Client and Avamar SQL Plugin... 5 Configuring AAG Client with Avamar Server... 5 Conclusion... 7 References... 7 PERFORMING SQL ALWAYSON AVAILABILITY GROUP BACKUPS ON AMAZON WEB SERVER AND 3

4 Executive Summary Executive Summary Audience Solution Overview Microsoft SQL is one of the most popularly used application in both Amazon Web Server (AWS) and Microsoft Azure cloud profiles. The AlwaysOn Availability Group (AAG) usage of SQL Server is more dominant compared to standalone and failover cluster configurations. When using Avamar 7.5 and higher version, additional configuration steps are required for the Avamar SQL client for SQL AAG in AWS or Azure. This whitepaper provides details on how to configure SQL AAG listener client with DELL EMC Avamar Virtual Edition (AVE) and DELL EMC Data Domain Virtual Edition (DDVE). This white paper is intended for customers, prospective customers, Dell EMC partners, Dell EMC system engineers, and other technical planners or installers who are interested in understanding the feature, options, and best practices while considering or deploying Avamar SQL plugin in AWS or Azure to protect SQL AAG data. This section provides details about Avamar support for AVE and DDVE on AWS and Azure, AWS and Azure s capabilities of deploying SQL AAG, and SQL AAG Setup on AWS and Azure. AVE and DDVE on AWS and Azure SQL AAG on AWS and Azure SQL AAG Setup on AWS and Azure Avamar 7.5 provides support for Avamar Virtual Edition (AVE) and Data Domain Virtual Edition (DDVE) on AWS and Azure. The Avamar server runs as a virtual machine in both AWS and Azure environment. A customer who has systems or services running on any of these cloud services can protect their data anywhere and anytime by deploying and utilizing AVE and DDVE within the same environment. Both AWS and Azure have the capability to deploy and configure high availability of groups of SQL databases by using AAGs with SQL Server 2012, SQL Server 2014, and SQL Server With AAGs, the SQL Server is installed in a Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) but data is not stored on a shared drive. Instead, the data is stored on each node, and SQL server synchronizes the data from the primary to the secondary copies on other nodes. The setup of SQL AAG is not much different from the on-premise. There are differences on how a listener is configured (especially on Azure with internal load balancer) but the functionality remains the same. Avamar 7.5 enables the end user to protect such environments as shown in the deployment diagram. 4 PERFORMING SQL ALWAYSON AVAILABILITY GROUP BACKUPS ON AMAZON WEB SERVER AND

5 Deployment Deployment Installing the Avamar Client and Avamar SQL Plugin On each node of SQL AAG, install the following: Avamar client for Windows Avamar plug-in for SQL Server Configuring AAG Client with Avamar Server After performing the steps in the following table, a customer is able to perform browse, backup, and restore of SQL AAG environment. PERFORMING SQL ALWAYSON AVAILABILITY GROUP BACKUPS ON AMAZON WEB SERVER AND 5

6 Configuring AAG Client with Avamar Server Table 1. Perform browse, backup, and restore of SQL AAG environment Step number Node 1. Primary SQL Node 1. Start the Windows Cluster Configuration Tool (WCCT). 2. On the Welcome page, click Next. 3. On the Plugins page: a. Select SQL AkwaysOn. b. Click Next. 2. On the Cluster Nodes page, click Next. 3. On the Operations page: a. Configure a new cluster client for all the nodes. b. Click Next. 4. On the Prerequisites page, click Next. 5. On the SQL AlwaysOn Settings page: a. Select the Cluster Role for cluster client (pre populated). b. Uncheck the Bring Avamar cluster client online and register with Avamar server option. c. Click Next. 6. On the Server Settings page: a. Enter the Avamar server details. b. Click Next. 7. On the Client settings page: a. Enter the cluster client s var directory such as C\Program Files\avs\AAG\var (or any local folder). b. Enter the cluster client s SYSDIR directory as any shared folder. For example, \\ \AVShare\etc. 8. Click Next. 9. On the Summary page, select Configure. 10. Click Finish. 6 PERFORMING SQL ALWAYSON AVAILABILITY GROUP BACKUPS ON AMAZON WEB SERVER AND

7 Conclusion Step number Node 2. Primary SQL Node 1. Start Failover Cluster Manager. 2. Select the Cluster instance > Roles > AAG group under Configuration > Resources > EMC Avamar Backup Agent resource for XXX. 3. Right click Properties > Startup parameters. 4. Remove the flag --netbind=. 5. Edit the flag --sysdir= C:\Program Files\avs\aag\etc (or any local folder which exists). 6. Save and close. 7. Ensure the SYSDIR folder exists. 3. On all SQL Nodes 1. Ensure the SYSDIR folder is created/exists on all nodes. 2. On each SQL AAG node, create avagent.cmd file in var folder ( C:\Program Files\avs\AAG\var ) with --netbind=<localhostip> 4. Primary SQL Node From Failover Cluster Manager, bring the resource EMC Avamar Backup Agent resource for XXX online. 5. All Secondary SQL Nodes Copy the cid.bin from primary var folder ( C:\Program Files\avs\AAG\var ) to all the secondary nodes var folder. NOTE: In the above table, Step 1 > 7 b and c, Step 2, Step 3, Step 4, and Step 5 are additional steps that must be performed to configure the SQL AAG client with Avamar server. Conclusion Public clouds are becoming more and more popular as it saves deployment tasks, management, and also comes at flexible prices. Avamar continues to provide data protection of environments in AWS and Azure cloud. Avamar is one of the best solutions to protect system and data on public cloud its ease of deployment ensures simplicity with robustness. SQL AAG is the most popular configuration used in both AWS and Azure cloud environments. With this whitepaper, customers can quickly protect SQL AAG environment with Avamar. Future releases of Avamar will continue to focus on automating the steps involved in configuring the backup client for SQL AAG. References Avamar for SQL server User Guide Avamar Virtual Edition for Azure Avamar Virtual Edition for Amazon Web Services Installation Guide PERFORMING SQL ALWAYSON AVAILABILITY GROUP BACKUPS ON AMAZON WEB SERVER AND 7