Re: [Veritas-bu] Top 20 (or so) misunderstood things about NBU
2008-04-09 17:35:26
I agree with verifying with the
application support techs on what files are being skipped and how to address
them as they are responsible for their applications but as the backup and
operating system administrator I am held accountable for recovery. I don’t
like exclude lists especially if it is just to make the reports look good for
status 0. I have found that in too many cases an exclude list in created and
then another administrator or application support tech will make a change and
now important files are being skipped that shouldn’t be. If coordinated
correctly with procedures and documentation this should not be the case but
there is still the reliance upon human intervention to follow procedures and to
document.
Regards
From:
veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
[mailto:veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu] On Behalf Of Stuart Liddle
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2008
1:40 PM
To: Jeff Lightner; VERITAS-BU AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Top 20
(or so) misunderstood things about NBU
Yes….very true. What I
recommend doing is to check all backups against a new client the first few
times and see what is causing the partial success. Checking with the
application support people on what files are OK to skip is always a good idea
and will definitely eliminate problems in the future. Then use this
information to build an exclude list for the client.
I used to treat databases as a special
case for backups since they are so temperamental. I would do SQL
databases by having the SQL DBA’s do their own backup of the db to the
local filesystem (or a network share). Then we would have the DBA’s
put together an exclude list for their SQL servers to exclude the active DB
files. Then we would schedule our backup jobs for a time AFTER the SQL local
backups. Never had to worry about restoring SQL DB’s after
that. But, testing database restores is very critical to ensuring
that you are backing up the right thing(s). And you definitely need the
assistance of the DBA’s for this.
-stuart
From: Jeff Lightner
[mailto:jlightner AT water DOT com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2008
1:31 PM
To: Stuart
Liddle; VERITAS-BU AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: RE: [Veritas-bu] Top 20
(or so) misunderstood things about NBU
I’d amend point 3 to say “does
NOT ALWAYS mean”.
There are many OS and filesystem level
backups that are complete despite status 1. However, having a
status 1 on a database backup can be a real killer…
From:
veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu [mailto:veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu]
On Behalf Of Stuart Liddle
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2008
3:52 PM
To: VERITAS-BU AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Top 20
(or so) misunderstood things about NBU
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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- Re: [Veritas-bu] Top 20 (or so) misunderstood things about NBU, (continued)
Re: [Veritas-bu] Top 20 (or so) misunderstood things about NBU, Ed Wilts
Re: [Veritas-bu] Top 20 (or so) misunderstood things about NBU, WEAVER, Simon (external)
Re: [Veritas-bu] Top 20 (or so) misunderstood things about NBU, WEAVER, Simon (external)
Re: [Veritas-bu] Top 20 (or so) misunderstood things about NBU, Smithers, Mike
Re: [Veritas-bu] Top 20 (or so) misunderstood things about NBU, Rusty . Major
Re: [Veritas-bu] Top 20 (or so) misunderstood things about NBU, Weber, Philip
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