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Vault Replication & Server Back-ups

MachielAEC
Advocate

Vault Replication & Server Back-ups

MachielAEC
Advocate
Advocate

I have a question regarding server back-ups and Vault multi-site (used as a backup server).

For the 2 scenarios, I'm trying to figure out what would work the best and/ or if we are looking at this wrong.

 

1. Server gets replicated.

Our entire server is being replicated onto another server as a failsafe server with the intent that if Server 1 (main) is down Server 2 (redundant) will kick in and everything should work as normal - no IP reconfiguration is needed, VPN setup is the same, basically, the end user won't know that the server has changed.

 

2. Vault Replication on Server 2

With our initial understanding of Vault was looking at setting up a Vault Replication on Server 2 to make sure that all files will be transferred as replication. So when Server 1 is down, the users can just "login" into the Vault on Server 2 and carry on working.

 

The network/ server team then started asking questions in terms of option 2 if it will be needed as Vault and all files are replicated onto Server 2 by default and all connections should be the same.

 

My knowledge of Vault is quite limited and server/ networks also quite low. So I'm trying to understand if Scenario 1 would work (as I know Autodesk files don't like being moved/ replicated like that - links break etc) and how would Vault as a software deal with this duplication. And secondly, if Scenario 2 is the way to do this, would you change anything?

 

Here are examples of our current 'architecture' for the 2 examples:

Server Replication_Vault Multi Site-R_Backup.png

Server Replication_Vault Multi Site-V_Backup.png

Machiel Odendaal
---BIM Enthusiast---
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ihayesjr
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi @MachielAEC 

Unfortunately, that is not how Vault replication works.

The main server is the Publisher and all other servers are what are called Subscribers. 

If you are on Vault 2022 or higher, the Subscribers are Read-only servers so they cannot take over what the Publisher is doing. You will need to get the Publisher back online ASAP for users to continue write operations (check-in or check-out)

For Fail-over you can use SQL Clustering on the Publisher and that will fail-over if the main server goes down. All servers in that cluster must point to the same file store location. 




Irvin Hayes Jr
Sr. Product Manager
Autodesk, Inc.

Vault - Under the Hood Blog
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MachielAEC
Advocate
Advocate

Thank you @ihayesjr for the info.

 

If I understand you correctly - my summary.

  1. You can't run Vault in a replicated environment as a backup.
  2. Vault doesn't have a redundancy feature.
  3. If the server goes, in order to restore usability, one has to get a Server and then a Vault server up and running again (either from a VM snapshot or Backup/ Config files, etc.).
  4. SQL Clustering can do the trick, however, this would mean that the File Store and the Vault Server should potentially be separated. i.e. In the case that Server 1 fails.

Am I missing anything.

Machiel Odendaal
---BIM Enthusiast---
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swalton
Mentor
Mentor
Accepted solution

At a previous employer, we virtualized Vault on VMWare.  That gave us the chance to spin up a new VM if the primary one went down.

 

We used VM snapshots as a 1st backup for our databases and filestore.  

 

We ran normal Vault backups as a 2nd backup in case there was an issue and we needed to run a Vault restore, not a VM restore.  This was useful to test Vault migrations.

 

We also ran a replicated Vault environment. Our site was the publisher and the remote site was the subscriber.  I don't know what backups were run at the remote site. 

Steve Walton
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CGBenner
Community Manager
Community Manager

@MachielAEC 

 

Do you still need clarification on this question?


Chris Benner
Industry Community Manager – Design & Manufacturing


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