CommVault Galaxy 3.1
Galaxy arrived in two boxes that contained four CD-ROMs and individualized manuals for the software components that I needed in my environment. Galaxy is a complex product that takes time and planning to install and configure.
CommVault refers to three components—CommServe StorageManager, MediaAgent, and iDataAgents—as its Galaxy product suite. A configured installation of these elements comprises a CommCell. The CommServe StorageManager component is the central director for all CommCell activities, MediaAgents transfer data between the client and the backup media, and iDataAgents enable backup and restoration of data types on the client. To accommodate Galaxy, I needed to make one adjustment to my environment: Because the CommServe StorageManager shouldn't reside on an existing SQL Server computer, I added a dedicated computer to the test bed to host this component.
After I installed the MediaAgent, the software automatically launched the Galaxy Library and Drive Configuration program. I clicked Detect Devices, and Galaxy found and configured devices for Galaxy's use and accurately assigned the LTO drives' drive type.
Galaxy's extensive list of iDataAgents lets you support a wide range of hardware and software environments. I installed iDataAgents for SQL Server, Windows NT File System, and Windows 2000 File System on the appropriate machines in my environment. To install the iDataAgents on Windows computers, you run the setup program from the local CD-ROM drive and answer a few questions about each system's environment.
The CommCell Console
The CommCell Console is the interface you use to control and manage a Galaxy CommCell. You can launch the console as a standalone Java application, a Web-based Java applet, or a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in. I worked in the Web-based Java applet, which Figure 3 shows. Most of the product's action takes place in the CommCell Browser window. This browser's treeview of client computers, storage resources, and storage policies is intuitive and easy to navigate.
Tape Library and Media Control
Galaxy detected and managed the attached tape library and media without requiring any intervention. To manually move several tapes out of the scratch media pool and move the cleaning tape to the cleaning media pool, I could simply drag icons. Galaxy uses storage policies to map backup data to physical media. In my environment, I created several storage policies and organized them logically according to platform type. Backup tasks specify a storage policy that controls how the software writes a backup to media. To facilitate redundant or archival media copies, you can copy and configure storage policies with alternative parameters. Galaxy's granular approach to library and media management provides great flexibility without making the process overly complex.
Backup
Galaxy's unique backup approach is to let subclients control backups of different data sets*either separately or in parallel. For example, one subclient might be responsible for backing up OS files and another subclient might focus on data. These subclients can target separate storage policies or the same storage policy. When you create a backup set, you specify the subclients and resulting storage policies that the software will use to accomplish the backup task. When you install the iDataAgent, the software enables a default subclient for backing up all fixed disks on the client. In my testing, I used the default subclient for creating backup jobs but created a multiple subclient job for testing.
After you create backup sets, you can launch them manually or use CommVault's Scheduler tool to schedule them. The manual methods for creating and scheduling jobs are fairly straightforward, but new administrators might want to use the product's built-in wizards.
Data Recovery
A wizard lets you easily configure and launch restore processes. The wizard prompts you to select the client, the iDataAgent that backed up the data, the backup set that contains the data to restore, and the objects you want to restore. The wizard then lets you specify alternative path, file-permission, and overwrite options. Galaxy supports full point-in-time restores of SQL Server 2000 and 7.0 databases. Although the product doesn't support individual-table restores, the iDataAgents provide much flexibility and precision when you're restoring file systems and SQL Server databases.
Performance
In addition to the parallelism that running multiple jobs simultaneously affords, Galaxy's subclients let you throttle a job so that it fits into a smaller time window. Although I didn't use this throttling feature in my tests, the throughput that I achieved using the default client configuration shows that Galaxy offers reasonable performance out of the box.
Ready for Large Enterprise
My overall impression of Galaxy was positive. CommVault's technical support group, which I worked with to resolve a few minor difficulties, is knowledgeable and helpful. Galaxy offers much power and flexibility and, at the same time, maintains ease of use and minimizes complexity. Galaxy's component-based architecture ensures that the product will scale gracefully, and the Java-based interface to the CommServe StorageManager bolsters enterprise-level usability. However, the high price per backed-up server might prove too costly for some large organizations.
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