Planning for CommServe LiveSync in a Windows Environment

You must have the necessary hardware for setting up the CommServe server on the production host and the standby hosts.

For more information on the hardware specification for the CommServe server, see Hardware Specifications for the CommServe Server.

High Availability CommServe Host can be set up on all operating systems supported by the CommServe server in the Windows environment.

For more information on the supported operating systems, see CommServe Server: System Requirements.

• CommServe Server

  No special licenses are required for setting up the CommServe server.

• SQL Server Agent

  You must have two Microsoft SQL Server agent licenses, one for the production CommServe host and the other for the standby CommServe host.

For information about licensing, see the Commvault Licensing Program Guide.

The following Commvault installation packages are required for setting up the production and standby CommServe hosts:*

• CommServe

  Additional packages are installed by default during the CommServe installation. For more information, see the Additional Packages Installed with the CommServe section in Preinstallation Checklist for the CommServe.

• CommServe Failover

  The SQL Server agent and the CommServe Failover package are automatically installed in a new instance. (No additional user intervention is needed.)

• MediaAgent

  Create a dedicated, non deduplicated storage policy for the LiveSync operation. Create the storage policy using a MediaAgent available in the standby site.

  If the MediaAgents must be available on the CommServe, then it must be installed in the instance in which the SQL Server agent and the CommServe Failover packages are installed. The MediaAgent version must be the same or higher than the production and standby CommServe hosts.

  Avoid hosting LiveSync storage in the cloud because the running time of backup and restore jobs will be more than usual.

  Note

  It is not recommended to install the MediaAgent on the CommServe, when the CommServe is setup with LiveSync. (MediaAgents needs persistent storage for the Deduplication Database (DDB) and Index Cache, which are local to the specific machine and hence not synchronized as part of the LiveSync operation.)

By default, this solution requires that all clients communicate with the CommServe server using a proxy. (By default, the SQL Clients installed in the CommServe hosts is used as the proxy.)

To facilitate communication between the clients and the CommServe, verify the following conditions:

• Both the active host and the passive CommServe hosts can reach the tunnel ports that are associated with the SQL clients in both the active host and the passive CommServe hosts.

• If the SQL clients are used as the proxy, verify that all the clients in the CommCell environment can communicate with the port and hostname of the SQL clients in both the active host and the passive CommServe hosts.

• If a dedicated proxy is already set up and available in your environment, use this dedicated proxy to communicate with the CommServe server.

  Note

  A dedicated proxy is recommended in environments with a large number of clients. (5000 or more approximately.)

• To failover to a CommServe hosted in the cloud, or if there is a firewall between the active host and the passive CommServe hosts, see Setting Up a Standby CommServe Using Port Forwarding Gateway Configuration.

  See Also: Network TCP Port Requirements.

If a firewall is placed between the Web Server and the CommServe computer, you must configure the firewall to allow traffic between the two computers.

For more information, see Microsoft SQL Server Native Client ODBC Driver.

By default, the SQL client is used as a proxy to route requests and responses between the CommServe server and the clients in the CommCell, before and after a failover. If necessary, you can setup an alternate client for this purpose.

For more information, see Setting Up Client Communication With the CommServe.