Cohesity DataProtect is a high-performance, secure backup and recovery solution. Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale is validated to be used as an External Target for Cohesity DataProtect. The procedures in this article detail the steps to add a Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale bucket as an External Target.
Requirements
Active Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale account.
Access & secret key pair.
Cohesity DataProtect is installed and licensed. This solution was most recently tested with version 7.3.1.
A VMware vCenter or another hypervisor is added as a source. A source is an object in your organization that you want to protect, such as a VM, physical server, MS SQL Server, or NAS. Refer to Register or Edit a Hypervisor Source on Cohesity documentation for details on how to add a source or an asset for data protection. This article provides an example to protect a virtual machine on VMware vCenter, which was added as a source.
The data restoration process is handled by your specific backup software application. As there are many potential variables that will affect your unique environment, it is strongly recommended that you seek the guidance of your backup software's technical support team in the event that you encounter difficulty, or have application-specific inquiries.
Creating a Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale Bucket
Follow the steps outlined in 2—Creating a Bucket for Wasabi With Dell ObjectScale to create a standard or Object Lock (immutable) bucket. We will use this bucket to create an External Target on Cohesity to write backups to Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale.
Adding Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale as an External Target
Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale can be added as an External Target to be used for Archival or Tiering.
Log in to your Cohesity System web portal.
Select Infrastructure and then External Targets. Click Add External Target on the top right.
Click the checkbox to select Archival and S3Compatible from the drop-down.
This example uses Archival type for External Target. Cohesity has two external Target types.
Cloud Archival—Archive's benefits include long-term data retention on low-cost storage to meet compliance and retention requirements. Cohesity archive automatically copies an existing Snapshot created by Protection Groups located in a Cohesity cluster and stores it on a registered External Target.
Cloud Tier—Cohesity Cloud Tier enables an additional storage tier where cold data can be stored. You can enable Cloud Tier to move rarely used and inactive data to the cloud when HDD used capacity exceeds a set threshold.
Per Cohesity, the Incremental Forever archival format is the only option available. Incremental with Periodic Full archival format is no longer supported.
With an incremental forever archival format, the Cohesity cluster will download a portion of the data from the S3-compatible Standard tier external target for the space reclamation process and re-upload it after compaction. This leads to increased network bandwidth usage. Before creating an Incremental Forever External Target for Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale, Cohesity recommends having sufficient network bandwidth between the cluster and the external target. If you need help in determining if your Network speed is sufficient, reach out to Cohesity Support to consult with them about your environment.
In addition to supporting daily archiving, the network should be able to additionally support the daily transfer of data that will get garbage collected. This is roughly equal to Daily Change Rate (DCR), for example, for a 1 PB Archive with 2% DCR, up to 20 TBs will be downloaded from the archive to the cluster every day and then uploaded back.
Enable this option to perform a first full archival and then an incremental forever archival of data from the Cohesity cluster to an external target. Incremental forever archival eliminates the need for periodic full archive and supports global deduplication, thereby improving the storage utilization of the target.
Enter the following details and scroll down.
Bucket Name—Name of the Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale bucket created earlier
Access Key ID—Access key for the Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale user
Secret Access Key—Secret key for the Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale user
Endpoint—This will vary depending on your bucket’s chosen region
Port—9021
Once the above details are added, give the target a name and click Register to add the external target. Using encryption is optional.
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This example uses Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale’s’ 'us-east-1-dell-obs' storage region. To use other Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale storage regions, use the appropriate service URL as described in Wasabi With Dell ObjectScale Service URL Endpoints. Use the region your bucket is located in.
The newly created external target can be viewed by clicking Infrastructure and then External Targets.
Creating a Protection Policy
A protection policy is a collection of reusable settings that define how and when sources are protected and archived. Follow the steps below to create a protection policy to archive backups to Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale.
Cloud Archive—Cloud Archive sends a copy of the backup data (it contains the backup data, metadata, dedupe fingerprint, and index) stored on the Cohesity Cluster to any registered external target. To perform Cloud Archive, at least one full copy of the primary data needs to be stored on the cluster.
Cloud Archive Direct—If you are running 7.1.2_u2 LTS or above and you created an external target with Incremental Forever archival format you can now archive directly to your Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale bucket using a Cloud Archive Direct (CAD) policy. CAD copies the data from any NAS or VMware directly to any registered external target such as Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale to reduce storage costs and eliminate the need to store a full backup copy on-premises.
Creating a Cloud Archive Policy
Click Data Protection and Policies. Then click Create Policy.
Input the Policy Name and configure the number of days/weeks to run backups and the retention period as per requirements. Click More Options.
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Click Add Archive to add the external target pointing to Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale as an archive.
Select the Archive target that was created above from the pull-down list under Archive to. Configure the retention period. Then click Create to create the protection policy.
Creating a Cloud Archive Direct Policy
Click Data Protection and then Policies. Then click Create Policy.
Input the Policy Name and configure the number of days/weeks to run backups.
Select your Incremental Forever Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale target.
Set your retention period as per requirements.
Click Create.
Creating a Backup
Click Data Protection, Protection, and Protect.
In this example, we are protecting Virtual Machines. Refer to the Cohesity documentation for protecting other sources.
Click Virtual Machines.
Click Add Objects to add the Virtual Machines for protection.
Select the Registered Source from the drop-down list and add the VMs to be protected by selecting the checkbox next to them. Input the name of the Protection Group, then click Policy and select the previously created policy. Select the storage domain (we selected the default), then click Protect.
In this example, the source VMs are already discovered on Cohesity. Refer to Register or Edit a Hypervisor Source page on Cohesity documentation.
The Protection will now be added and can be viewed on the Protection page. A backup will automatically start, followed by the archive to Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale. If Cloud Archive Direct was chosen, the backup will go directly to Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale without a local backup. You may need to refresh the page to see the progress.
For Cloud Archive, there should be three green checkmarks after the backup and archive are complete - one for the SLA, one for the local backup, and one for the cloud archive. There should be two green checkmarks for Cloud Archive Direct.
Recovering a VM From a Backup
This example details steps to recover a VM from a backup.
Click Data Protection and then Recoveries to open the Recoveries page. To start recovery of VMs, click Recover, then click Virtual Machines and VMs. To learn about other recovery types, refer to Cohesity documentation.
On the Virtual Machines window, search the virtual machine if you know the name or type "*" to list all VMs that are backed up. Then, select the VM you want to recover by checking the checkbox next to the VM. Click the pencil icon to change from Local to your Cloud Archive.
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Click the cloud icon next to your selected snapshot time. Click Start Recovery Point.
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Click Next: Recover Options to go to the next window.
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Select the recover to location, recovery method, and existing VM handling options based on your requirement. Scroll down.
Recover to the Original Location—Recover the VM files (such as the VMDK files) to their original datastores and create new instances of the VMs in the original Resource Pool available in the original Source.
Recover to a New Location—Recover the VM files (such as the VMDK files) to an alternate datastore and create new instances of the VMs in an alternate Resource Pool of a registered Source.
Select the appropriate recovery method.
It is recommended to leave the network unattached so as to avoid IP address conflicts with the original VM. Configure the appropriate prefix or suffix for the renamed VM. Click Recover to start the recovery.
Click Start Recovery.
Progress of the recovery can be monitored from the Recoveries page.
Configuring Immutability (Object Lock)
You can now use Object Lock enabled buckets with Cohesity 7.2.1 and above.
By default when creating an Archive Object Lock enabled External Target the mode will be set to Governance that allows users with sufficient permissions to delete objects. If you want to use Compliance mode that does not allow object deletion, you will need to contact Cohesity Support and open a case. They will make Cluster Config modifications to enable Compliance mode on the External Target you create.
Repeat the Adding Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale as an External Target section above. In step 6, enable “Archive Object Lock”.
Continue with the Adding Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale as an External Target section above.