Appassure 5 Smart Agent; Appassure 5 Core - Dell PowerVault DL4000 User Manual

Figure 2. AppAssure 5 Deployment Architecture

AppAssure 5 Smart Agent

The AppAssure 5 Smart Agent is installed on the machines that is protected by the AppAssure 5 Core. The Smart Agent
tracks the changed blocks on the disk volume and then snaps an image of the changed blocks at a predefined interval of
protection. The incremental block-level snapshots' forever approach prevents repeated copying of the same data from
the protected machine to the Core. The Smart Agent is application-aware and is dormant when not in use, with near
zero (0) percent CPU utilization and less than 20 MB of memory overhead. When the Smart Agent is active, it uses up to 2
to 4 percent CPU utilization and less than 150 MB memory, which includes transferring the snapshots to the Core. This is
much lower than the legacy software programs that use significantly higher levels of CPU and memory bandwidth, even
though they are dormant.
The AppAssure 5 Smart Agent is application-aware because it detects the type of application that is installed and also
the location of the data. It automatically groups data volumes with dependency, such as databases, and then logs them
together for effective protection and rapid recovery. After the agent is configured, it uses smart technology to keep track
of changed blocks on the protected disk volumes. When the snapshot is ready, it is rapidly transferred to the AppAssure
5 Core using intelligent multi-threaded, socket-based connections. To preserve CPU bandwidth and memory on the
protected machines, the smart agent does not encrypt or deduplicate the data at the source and agent machines are
paired with a core for protection.

AppAssure 5 Core

The AppAssure 5 Core is the central component of the AppAssure 5 deployment architecture. The Core stores and
manages all of the machine backups and provides core services for backup, recovery, and retention; replication,
archival, and management. The Core is a self-contained network-addressable computer that runs a 64-bit variant of
Microsoft Windows operating system. AppAssure 5 performs target-based inline compression, encryption, and data
deduplication of the data received from the agent. The Core then stores the snapshot backups in a repository, which can
reside on different storage technologies such as Storage Area Network (SAN), Direct Attached Storage (DAS), or
Network Attached Storage (NAS).
The repository can also reside on internal storage within the Core. The Core is managed by accessing the following URL
from a Web browser: https://CORENAME:8006/apprecovery/admin. Internally, all core services are accessible through
REST APIs. The Core services can be accessed from within the core or directly over the Internet from any application
that can send an HTTP/HTTPS request and receive an HTTP/HTTPS response. All API operations are performed over
SSL and mutually authenticated using X.509 v3 certificates.
Cores are paired with another core for replication.
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