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  1. Home
  2. Veritas NetBackup™ Deduplication Guide
  3. Deduplication architecture
  4. MSDP server components
Veritas NetBackup™ Deduplication Guide

MSDP server components

Figure: MSDP server components is a diagram of the storage server components.

Figure: MSDP server components

MSDP server components

Table: NetBackup MSDP server components describes the MSDP server components.

Table: NetBackup MSDP server components

Component

Description

Deduplication plug-in

The deduplication plug-in does the following:

  • Separates the file's metadata from the file's content.

  • Deduplicates the content (separates files into segments).

  • If required, compresses the data for backups and decompresses the backups for restores.

  • If required, encrypts the data for backups and decrypts the backups for restores.

  • If required, compresses the data for duplication and replication transfer.

  • If required, encrypts the data for duplication and replication transfer.

The plug-in runs on the deduplication storage server and on load balancing servers.

Multi-Threaded Agent

The NetBackup Deduplication Multi-Threaded Agent uses multiple threads for asynchronous network I/O and CPU core calculations. The agent runs on the storage server, load balancing servers, and clients that deduplication their own data.

See About the MSDP Deduplication Multi-Threaded Agent.

NetBackup Deduplication Engine

The NetBackup Deduplication Engine is one of the storage server core components. It provides many of the deduplication functions, which are described in Table: NetBackup Deduplication Engine components and functions.

The binary file name is spoold, which is short for storage pool daemon; do not confuse it with a print spooler daemon. The spoold process appears as the NetBackup Deduplication Engine in the NetBackup Administration Console.

NetBackup Deduplication Manager

The deduplication manager is one of the storage server core components. The deduplication manager maintains the configuration and controls internal processes, optimized duplication, security, and event escalation.

The deduplication manager binary file name is spad. The spad process appears as the NetBackup Deduplication Manager in the NetBackup Administration Console.

Proxy plug-in

The proxy plug-in manages control communication with the clients that back up their own data. It communicates with the OpenStorage proxy server (nbostpxy) on the client.

Reference database

The reference database stores the references that point to every data segment of which a file is composed. Unique fingerprints identify data segments. The reference database is partitioned into multiple small reference database files to improve scalability and performance.

The reference database is separate from the NetBackup catalog. The NetBackup catalog maintains the usual NetBackup backup image information.

Table: NetBackup Deduplication Engine components and functions describes the components and functions within the NetBackup Deduplication Engine.

Table: NetBackup Deduplication Engine components and functions

Component

Description

Connection and Task Manager

The Connection and Task Manager manages all of the connections from the load balancing servers and the clients that deduplicate their own data. The Connection and Task Manager is a set of functions and threads that does the following:

  • Provides a thread pool to serve all clients.

  • Maintains a task for each client connection.

  • Manages the mode of the Deduplication Engine based on the operation. Operations are backups, restores, queue processing, and so on.

Data integrity checking

The NetBackup Deduplication Engine checks the integrity of the data and resolves integrity problems.

See About MSDP data integrity checking.

Data Store Manager

The Data Store Manager manages all of the data container files. The datastore Manager is a set of functions and threads that provides the following:

  • A transaction mechanism to back up data into the datastore.

  • A mechanism to read data from the datastore.

  • A transaction mechanism to reclaim space in the datastore (that is, compact containers and remove containers).

    Container IDs are unique. The Data Store Manager increments the container number with each new container created. The data in a container is never overwritten, and a container ID is never reused.

See About MSDP container files.

Index Cache Manager

The Index Cache Manager manages the fingerprint cache. The cache improves fingerprint lookup speed.

See About the MSDP fingerprint cache.

Queue processing

The NetBackup Deduplication Engine processes the transaction queue.

See About MSDP queue processing.

Reference Database Engine

The Reference Database Engine stores the references that point to the data segments, such as read-from or write-to references. It manipulates a single database file at a time.

Reference Database Manager

The Reference Database Manager manages all of the container references. It provides a transaction mechanism to manipulate a single database file.

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