Avamar_backup_consumption

Bash script to add feature of giving usage quota to tenants, checking it, and sending emails about consumption

DISCLAIMER

This script works in production environment. You're free to use it according to the GNU license. The script is executed as admin, it calls psql to query database, so it is powerfull tool! GNU v3 states that you accept all liability for usage, but I will emphasize it:

Read it carefully and check if it suits your environment. I accept no damage that may be done to your data. The script works fine in my environment (Avamar 18), but if you decide to use it in yours, you accept all liability for using it and for any damage that may come as result of the usage. I am just giving it to anyone whom it may help in solving data measurement and reporting in Avamar. REMEMBER: responsibility for the system is yours and by using these scripts, you are accepting the sole responsibility. Also, you are accepting the whole liability that any alteration of the script by you, and damage that you may cause to your system by doing that.

Background

Avamar is a great system for BaaS and works great in our production environment. It just lacks the option to charge customers per certain amounts of backup used.

So, if you have the flat system, then you should probably stop reading. If you need a basic feature for charging per GB of data that customer keeps in the Avamar backup, then this is the thing.

Explanation of tariff model

These scripts don't measure the amount of data stored in Avamar and DD. Our tariff model is to measure how much of data the client has defined for backup. E.g. client has a folder protected on its machine that has total 18GB of data. The first backup will send that data to Avamar, it will compress it and deduplicate and store it on DD. It will take, let's say 2GB. But, we charge 18GB, because he/she wants to protect 18GB!

The idea is that we define quotas for each customer, for example this one will buy 30GB of space for backup. We want to check consumption every day, if it passes 80% of the defined quota, we send warning emeil. If they pass defined quota, we send Alert email. If usage is lower we don't spam them, so we don't send anything.

Also, at the end of the month, we send monthly report, which is the same as the first script, it's just unconditional, we send it at every run.

The script is written in bash, with usage of AWK for parsing the data fetched by psql from the table v_activities_2. I used the column bytes_protected.

If you want some other model, then you can use some other value from this table. The principle should be the same.

How does it work

The scripts create some HTML formatting for sending reports via email.

It uses the external file avamar_tenants.csv in which one defines tenant names and assigns quotas for each one.

The main thing that you may change and play with is the psql query to table v_activities_2. You may use some other table if you're familiar with the Avamar DB data structure.

The script will read avamar_tenants.csv and check data for each given line.

In my case, I sum the recorded_bytes for each client machine registered for backup for each tenant. Bytes will be converted to GB and compared with defined quotas from the file.

If usage is less than 80% then nothing happens, no email is sent. If it is >80% and <100% then warning email is sent. If > 100% then Alert is sent.

For monthly script there is no point in checking, just report with consumption is sent to the customer.

Email addresses to which those reports are sent are defined in Avamar tenants. When you create domain, you add email of the contact. This email is fetched by mccli and script uses it to send email.

You need to edit email addresses where it is stated From field. You should use one defined in DD configuration for email. These addresses are usually allowed at mail servers as aliases, so it is good idea to use them as you will have clear information who's sending those emails and it will not be treated as spam. Check your DD email config.

Also, other information in email should be reviewed and suited to your needs.

Usage

First, create dir in admin home:

mkdir /home/admin/avamar_quotas

cd /home/admin/avamar_quotas

then copy those 3 files there and add execute permission:

chmod ugo+x avamar_quotas*.sh

and you're set to go. You can execute individual scripts or add crontab to admin user like in the samples.

Just don't forget to edit avamar_tenants.csv and replace tenant1, etc with your real tenant names, otherwise the script will not find any clients.

You can run script interactively, it will display some basic info and you can check if it found the tenants and the consumption.

Or you can run it via cron, like below.

For daily script execute as root:

crontab -u admin -e

insert new line:

45 12 * * * cd /home/admin/avamar_quotas;./avamar_quotas.z.sh & > /home/admin/quota.log

For monthly script execute as root: