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Re: [Veritas-bu] Top 20 (or so) misunderstood things about NBU
2008-04-10 02:43:51
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Point 5 is not totally correct (that Ed
stated).
to clarify on Point 5
Backup the physical clusters (ie: their local drives where
the operating systems resides) and use the Virtual Cluster Name to perform the
backup of the Data.
You need to backup the physical cluster names (as in the
computers themselves) in order to recover your cluster config. But your Data for
the cluster should be backed up with its own virtual server name
(VSN).
Also to add; If the Backup/Recovery specialist is backing
up a system and streaming physical drives, it is the Server owner or application
owner to notify them if any additional drives are being added or removed. It
only comes to light when you attempt to restore a drive that NetBackup knows
nothing about. Its not the NBU Admin who is to blame.... how do they know what
drive drive letters to add?
Finally, I do see status 1 as a problem, and warrants
further investigation. Its down to the NBU admin to identify the cause of Status
1. Some companies I have worked with appear to class status 1 as a
failure.
Simon
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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