Disaster Recovery and High Availability on Dell Data Security Servers

Summary: This information may be used to plan for disaster recovery and high availability within Dell Data Security or Dell Data Protection.

This article applies to This article does not apply to This article is not tied to any specific product. Not all product versions are identified in this article.
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Symptoms

Precautions must be considered when planning for disaster recovery or high availability with Dell Data Security (formerly Dell Data Protection).

Affected Products:

  • Dell Security Management Server
  • Dell Data Protection | Enterprise Edition Server
  • Dell Security Management Server Virtual
  • Dell Data Protection | Virtual Edition

Disaster Recovery and High Availability should be reviewed when using Dell Data Security products:

  • Dell Security Management Server (formerly Dell Data Protection | Enterprise Edition Server)
  • Dell Security Management Server Virtual (formerly Dell Data Protection | Virtual Edition)

Cause

Not applicable

Resolution

Click Disaster Recovery or High Availability for more information.

Disaster Recovery

Click either Dell Security Management Server or Dell Security Management Server Virtual for specific backup requirements.

Dell Security Management Server requires:

  • Nightly full backup with transactional logging enabled for the SQL server database.
  • Weekly backup of the back-end application directory: <Drive>:\Program Files\Dell.
    • This directory contains critical files necessary to connect to the database:
      • <Drive>:\Program Files\Dell\Enterprise Edition\Compatibility Server\conf\server_config.xml
      • <Drive>:\Program Files\Dell\Enterprise Edition\Compatibility Server\conf\secretKeyStore
Note: Reference How to Back Up and Restore Dell Security Management Server / Dell Data Protection Enterprise Edition Server for more information.

Dell Security Management Server Virtual automatically performs nightly backups. The backup location differs based on the version of Dell Security Management Server Virtual. The backups are located:

  • For v9.11 and later: /var/opt/dell/dsmsv/ftp/files/backup
  • For v9.10 and earlier: /opt/dell/vsftpd/files/backups

These backups should be regularly pulled from the server and stored in a secure location.

Note:

High Availability

Dell Data Security management servers do not support an active/active method of redundancy. It is highly recommended to only have a single back-end server and adhere to the recommended Disaster Recovery planning. Due to the nature of how keys are stored on local endpoints, always-up availability is not required.

For organizations that require redundancy, Dell Data Security management servers support in-place hot-cold servers.

Warning: Due to caching in Dell Data Security management servers, hot-cold servers may not be active simultaneously. If this happens, there is a likelihood of causing IRREPARABLE DAMAGE AND POTENTIAL DATA LOSS to the server.

Dell Security Management Server SQL Clustering

Organizations using Dell Security Management Server can choose to use a SQL cluster. In this configuration, the Dell Security Management Server should be configured to use the SQL cluster IP or hostname.

Note: Database replication is not supported.

Network Traffic

Endpoint traffic can be distributed between front-end servers and the back-end server. Optionally, multiple front-end servers can also be placed in the demilitarized zone traffic (DMZ) for activating endpoints and publishing policies to endpoints over the internet.

Below is an example of a large environment that may be leveraging all technologies that are mentioned above.

Network traffic
Figure 1: Network traffic

To contact support, reference Dell Data Security International Support Phone Numbers.
Go to TechDirect to generate a technical support request online.
For additional insights and resources, join the Dell Security Community Forum.

Additional Information

 

Videos

 

Affected Products

Dell Encryption
Article Properties
Article Number: 000126854
Article Type: Solution
Last Modified: 01 Nov 2023
Version:  11
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