Veritas-bu

Re: [Veritas-bu] Top 20 (or so) misunderstood things about NBU

2008-04-09 16:13:45
Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Top 20 (or so) misunderstood things about NBU
From: "Stuart Liddle" <stuart.liddle AT glasshouse DOT com>
To: <VERITAS-BU AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu>
Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2008 15:52:27 -0400

I think I would agree with all of what Ed has stated here.  However, I think that these points would apply to ANY backup product and not just NBU.

 

Since the question was about the “top 20 (or so) misunderstood things about NBU”, I’d have to add the following:

 

1)     Yes, there is a command line interface!  The GUI is NOT the only way to do things with NBU.  (yeah, this might be generic,  but…)

2)     Multiplexing and Multistreaming are not the same thing and both need to be tuned properly in order to optimize your backups.

3)     A return code of “1” on a backup does NOT mean that the backup has failed.  Nor does it mean that the files that could not be backed up are essential to the recovery of the system.  (This DOES mean that the backup admin needs to have a discussion with the system admins and application support folks about what files can be safely ignored on backups.  Building exclude lists helps.) 
I had to explain to a manager once why we treated a return code “1” (partial success) the same as return code zero (successful).  His thought was that he wanted everything to be zero return code!

4)     Yes, NBU includes reporting, but it is no substitute for a 3rd party reporting tool like Bocada.  (another item that could be about any backup tool).

 

 

I’ll have to think up some other NBU specific items and add to this list later.

 

-stuart

 


From: veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu [mailto:veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu] On Behalf Of Ed Wilts
Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2008 8:11 AM
To: Curtis Preston
Cc: VERITAS-BU AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Top 20 (or so) misunderstood things about NBU

 

On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 4:48 PM, Curtis Preston <cpreston AT glasshouse DOT com> wrote:

What are the top 5/20/30 things about NBU that you think people get wrong?


1.  People think that you're working on a backup system.   You're not - you're working on a *recovery* system.  If you can't recover, backups are useless.

2.  File system backups are not a replacement for bare metal restore.  It is usually not acceptable to just do a fresh install, restore files, and expect to be back to where they're started

3.  Error messages really are important.  Check them every day or you'll eventually discover that failures were missed in the noise and backups haven't run in a long time.  When you do a restore is not the time to check to see if backups actually ran.

4.  Audits are important.  The larger the environment, the more likely it is that file systems are missed.  This is especially true of clusters.  Sometimes it's not the failures that get you but the lack of attempts.

5.  Backing up clusters by physical host names will cause you grief.

6.  Application owners are responsible for ensuring the application is recoverable.  A backup admin, working in a vacuum, can not help you.


7.  Test your restores regularly.

There are lots more but this is a start...

--
Ed Wilts, Mounds View, MN, USA
mailto:ewilts AT ewilts DOT org

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