How to Set up Data Mirroring Process for On-Boarding Customers In Nerdio?

Applies to: Nerdio Private Cloud (NPC) and Nerdio For Azure (NFA) customers

When a new customer comes on-board, Nerdio admins need to replicate data from customer’s servers to Nerdio servers. To ensure 100% accuracy, data mirroring requires that the mirror server instance always stays current, an exact copy of the original one. Data mirroring is achieved using robocopy functionality, which is run on a regular basis (typically daily) from one of the Nerdio servers. This onboarding process can take a few weeks, which is why the robocopy process has to be run a few weeks in advance to keep the Nerdio servers in sync with the customer's server.

Now let us look at various data mirroring options in Nerdio.

How to schedule data mirroring jobs in Nerdio?

Login to Nerdio Admin Portal (NAP) as shown below:

Sign in to either NPC or NFA account. For demonstration, we are signing in to NPC account 1010:

On the main menu, select the Onboard option as shown below:

Expand the Onboard option to select Data mirroring option as shown below:

You will be directed to the Data mirroring page as shown below:

The data mirroring page is divided into three sections:

1. Data mirroring sources: You can add data mirroring sources through this section
2. Data mirroring jobs: You can add data mirroring jobs through this section
3. Data mirroring management tasks: You can view status of data mirroring tasks through this section

Let us explore these sections one by one.

1. Setting up a data mirroring source

On the data mirroring page, select option “Add source” to go to the "Data mirroring source" page as shown below:

To setup the data mirroring process, you need to first setup a data source. For that provide the following details:

• Name of the source - Server machine's name for the customer
• IP address of the customer server
• Domain name or username
• Password (Please ensure your password does not contain a "$" character, if so, please change your password)

Once you are done adding all the details, click"Test connection" to make sure that the Source (customer server) is up and running.

Click “Save” and you will return back to the "Data mirroring" home page.

Now that you have added the “Source”, you need to setup and initiate a data replication or mirroring task. This can be done by scheduling a data mirroring batch job.

2. Adding a data mirroring job

On the data mirroring home page, select option “Add job” to go to the "Data mirroring job" page as shown below:

To schedule a data mirroring job, you need to provide the following details:

• Name of the data mirroring job (Note: You may have several jobs for a single customer)
• Select the data source from the drop-down (Note: You will have to add the source first from the "Add source" screen)
• Name of the specific Drive
• Name of the specific Folder
• Job run time : Specify the time to run the job in the "Run at" field
• Frequency of the job : Specify the frequency of running the job in every "X" days, starting on "Y" date
• Check "Enable" option to run the job (Note: Once you check this "Enable to run the job" option, all files and folders in the destination will be overwritten from those in the source. Also files that are no longer in the Source will be removed from the destination.

Once you are done setting up a data mirroring job, click “Save” and you will return back to the Data mirroring home page.

3. Tracking data mirroring management tasks

Once you setup and schedule jobs through the "data mirroring job" tab, you can view their status under the "Data mirroring management tasks" section as shown below:

Currently there are no records to show. However, you can view the status of all data mirroring jobs processed within the last 3 days through this tab. If you want to view more details of each job, you can go to the "Logs" section. On the main menu, select "Logs-> Management tasks" option as shown below:

• Choose the task type as "Data mirroring"
• Select a date range and
• Select status of the job from the drop downs

You will be able to see all the data mirroring jobs as per the filter criteria. Currently, there are no records to show.

Now that you know the basics of data mirroring, consider a tricky scenario: You have added a source (say x.x.x.x) and shared its C: drive for mirroring its contents. Click "more..." under "Drives" column of the Source to view the list of already shared drives under the server x.x.x.x :

• ADMIN$
• Another share name
• C$
• NETLOGON
• SYSVOL

You want to mirror the contents of a new folder (say ruby_new) under the same server x.x.x.x, how do you go about it?

Here are the steps:

1.Login to the server x.x.x.x and change the properties of the folder ruby_new to "Share with everyone"

2. Since you have already setup x.x.x.x as a source on NAP, login to your account on NAP and just click "Refresh" button on the corresponding "Data mirroring" source as shown below:

Note: The "Delete" button on the data mirroring source is only used to delete the source when you no longer need to copy data from that source.

 3. Click "Add job" button

4. Enter the job name, select the source x.x.x.x and expand the "Drive" drop-down. You will be able to view the newly shared folder "ruby_new" in the drop down as shown below:

5. Select the folder "ruby_new" and add a data mirroring job as per the instructions given in the "Adding a data mirroring job" section

In addition to moving shared files, make sure you copy each individual user's data to Nerdio:

• Browser bookmarks: Ask users to sync their Chrome and Firefox bookmarks with their browser account so that they can be automatically synced with the Nerdio desktop
  
• Personal files : Ask users to organize personal files such as documents, Desktop, PSTs, etc. which also need to be replicated to Nerdio

There can be two scenarios for copying user data:

If user data is already on a server,

• Include the source shared folders that contain user data in the mirroring job in Nerdio Admin Portal (NAP)
• Immediately prior to go-live, when running the final mirroring job, ensure that Microsoft Outlook is not open on source machines or on Nerdio desktops so as to allow PSTs to be copied properly

If user data is on individual local PCs,

• Set up scripts on local file server to copy user data (desktops, documents, favorites - excluding PST files) into a single location on a local server or directly to Nerdio FS01 server
• After last business day prior to go-live, ensure all PCs are powered on and run a final copy, at this time including PST files (make sure local email client is not running when copying PSTs)
• Remember to move "Favorites" to the "Favorites" folder on each user profile
• Alternatively, you can ask users to move their own files by utilizing VMware Horizon client local folder redirection if they are planning to connect to Nerdio from the same local computers that have their data. However, this will affect network and perceived VDI performance while users are copying their data.