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SCS KB 1073: Large Environments

Last Updated

Use Case:

Environments that comprise of hundreds of machines that need to be backed up with dedicated infrastructure for backup.

 

The key takeaway for these environments is that a simultaneous backup of hundreds of machines will overload any network and slow it to a crawl. In order to avoid this, the management components must be installed on proper dedicated hardware and the protection plans must be carefully managed in terms of backup schedules.

Recommended Software:

The list below contains supported operating systems for installing the Management Server in a large environment. For predominantly Windows environments we recommend installing the Management Server on Windows Server 2012 R2 or higher.

Also note, it's not possible to create administrative units under Linux.

Windows

  • Windows Server 2008 – Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter, and Foundation editions (x86, x64)
  • Windows Small Business Server 2008 Windows 7 – all editions (x86, x64)
  • Windows Server 2008 R2 – Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter, and Foundation editions Windows Home Server 2011
  • Windows MultiPoint Server 2010/2011/2012
  • Windows Small Business Server 2011 – all editions
  • Windows 8/8.1 – all editions (x86, x64), except for the Windows RT editions
  • Windows Server 2012/2012 R2 – all editions
  • Windows Storage Server 2008/2008 R2/2012/2012 R2/2016
  • Windows 10 – Home, Pro, Education, Enterprise, and IoT Enterprise editions
  • Windows Server 2016 – all installation options, except for Nano Server
  • Windows Server 2019 – all installation options, except for Nano Server

Although there is no strict requirement to use a Windows Server OS, this is generally recommended for large environments due to scalability, security, and stability reasons.

Linux

Linux with kernel from 2.6.23 to 5.1 and glibc 2.3.4 or later, including the following x86 and x86_64 distributions:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.x, 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, 7.5, 7.6, 7.7, .8.0*, 8.1*, 8.2*, 8.3*

Ubuntu 9.10, 10.04, 10.10, 11.04, 11.10, 12.04, 12.10, 13.04, 13.10, 14.04, 14.10, 15.04, 15.10, 16.04, 16.10, 17.04, 17.10, 18.04, 18.10, 19.04, 19.10, 20.04

Fedora 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11, 12

Debian 5.x, 6.x, 7.0, 7.2, 7.4, 7.5, 7.6, 7.7, 8.0, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, 8.5, 8.6, 8.7, 8.8, 8.11, 9.0, 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, 9.4, 9.5, 9.6, 9.7, 9.8, 10

CentOS 6.x, 7, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, 7.5, 7.6, 8.0, 8.1 Oracle Linux 6.x, 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, 7.5, 7.6, 8.0, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3 – both Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel and Red Hat Compatible Kernel

CloudLinux 6.x, 7, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, 7.5, 7.6, 7.7

ALT Linux 7.0

* Configurations with Stratis are not supported.

Management Server database

By default, Acronis Management Server uses an SQLite database backend for storing its data in both Windows and Linux environments.

For large environments, it is recommended to avoid the default SQLite database and to use a more robust and secure solution instead.

  • For Windows, we recommend selecting an MS SQL database during installation
  • For Linux, we recommend using a PostgreSQL database.

MS SQL database recommendations

When running thousands of agents on an MS SQL backend for the database, we recommend the following configuration:

HardwareMinimumRecommended
CPU8 Core / 1.7ghz12 Core / 2ghz+
RAM16GB32GB
Disk250GB SSD500GB SSD

For maximum performance, the MS SQL instance should be running on the same server as the Management Server component and use SSPI for authentication.

Hardware requirements and sizing

The hardware requirements for most peripheral Acronis SCS Cyber Backup 12.5 Hardened Edition components (including backup agents) do not change with scale. No matter how many individual agents are installed, the individual requirements for each agent depend on the data size being backed up on each specific machine regardless of the total number of agents.

Hardware requirements for the centralized management components scale with the number of devices being managed, especially for environments with over 200 machines.

Since the Management Server is not overly CPU or RAM-dependent, the key requirement for these larger environments is the I/O throughput of the storage subsystem used by the different databases of the Management Server services. This is because backups in large environments generate a lot (hundreds to thousands) of IOPS, which could be a severe bottleneck on a standard HDD.

It is recommended to use high-IOPS disks for the Management Server of larger environments, such as an SSD.

Specific recommendations on the hardware required to run your backup infrastructure can be estimated by sales and support.

Deployment type

Acronis SCS Cyber Backup 12.5 Hardened Edition Management Server can be deployed as a physical server, a virtual machine, or an Acronis Cyber Backup appliance.

For large environments, it is generally recommended to use a physical server due to the hardware requirements and IOPS load on the disk subsystem.

Post-deployment optimization for large environments

Refresh interval

By default, the activities log is retained for 1 year. In large environments with thousands of machines, this log often becomes too large to be handled effectively, leading to a less responsive activity view UI.

We recommend lowering the default activity retention to 6 months by doing the following:

  1. Open the Task Manager service configuration file at C:\Program Files\Acronis\TaskManager\task_manager.json.
  2. Find the "taskRetention" and "activityRetention" settings:
    1. "taskRetention" : { 
      "time" : 
      { "years" : 1, 
      "months" : 0, 
      "days" : 0 } 
      } 
      "activityRetention" : { 
      "time" : 
      { "years" : 1, 
      "months" : 0, 
      "days" : 0 } 
      },
  3. Change the setting from 1 year to six months.
    1. "taskRetention" : { 
      "time" : 
      { "years" : 0,
       "months" : 6, 
      "days" : 0 } 

      "activityRetention" : { 
      "time" : { 
      "years" : 0, 
      "months" : 6, 
      "days" : 0 }
  4. Save changes to the file and restart Acronis Management Server service.

Activity retention

If you plan to add more than 1000 resources, we recommend tuning the reporting data refresh interval to decrease a major source of resource usage on the Management Server.

This interval controls how often widget data such as storage, group membership and license usage is updated. This is a tradeoff between the CPU-load and reporting data refresh interval.

For 2000+ protected resources, the recommendation is to set a 1 hour interval. You can do this by doing the following:

  1. Open the monitoring service configuration file.
    1. In Windows: %PROGRAMDATA%\Acronis\MonitoringServer\config.ini
    2. In Linux: /var/lib/Acronis/MonitoringServer/config.ini
  2. Find the lines below: ; Interval for collecting metrics for vaults in seconds (1 minute by default)
    1. ; vault_collection_interval = 60
      ; Interval for collecting metrics for groups in seconds (1 minute by default)
      ; group_collection_interval = 60
      ; Interval for collecting metrics for vaults in seconds (1 minute by default)
      ; license_collection_interval = 60
  3. Uncomment and set the actual values to 3600 (1 hour in seconds)
    1. ; Interval for collecting metrics for vaults in seconds (1 minute by default)
      vault_collection_interval = 3600
      ; Interval for collecting metrics for groups in seconds (1 minute by default)
      group_collection_interval = 3600
      ; Interval for collecting metrics for vaults in seconds (1 minute by default)
      license_collection_interval = 3600

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