This is a minimal deployment of Backup for Data Centers.  In this deployment there is one Cluster Control Server, two Backup Servers, and one User Interface Web Server.

The advantages of this deployment over a stand-alone Backup Server are that user interface requests go to a dedicated server and are not slowed down by the Backup Servers which are busy processing backup and restore jobs.

This deployment is a great way for small data centers and co-locations to start because it allows great room to grow.  If you need more backup server capacity, just add another backup server to the network, install Righteous Backup on it and add it to the cluster.  Instantly it will be available for processing backup and restore jobs.

In this example we show you can assume that each backup server has its own directly attached hard disks.  As an alternative Network Attached Storage or a directly attached RAID subsystem could be used.

In this example all backup servers are connected to the same Network Attached Storage.  The Network Attached Storage could be implemented in a variety of ways.  For example a Windows Server with hard disks or a RAID subsystem could be shared by multiple backup servers.  Or a specialized NAS device such as a NetAPP or EMC could be used. 

The Backup Servers can write to any native Windows or network mounted disk.  This means the storage can be shared simply by mounting a Windows network drive (CIFS / SAMBA).

In this example each backup server is directly connected to its own storage device.  Since the Backup Server can write to any native Windows file system this connection could be in the form of SCSI, ISCSI, Fiber Channel, or any other means available.

The disadvantage to this deployment is that each backup server has access only to its own directly attached storage.  This means once you assign a Storage Pool (link to glossary) to a backup server, only that backup server can process backup jobs for hosts using that Storage Pool.