When it comes to disaster recovery, there has historically been a limitation on disk storage. While tapes can easily be sent offsite to be used for restores after a site outage, disks do not offer the same flexibility. Some OpenStorage technologies, support out-of-band replication in which the contents of the disk storage are replicated between devices. In these instances, NetBackup has no knowledge of the data, which complicates recovery in a NetBackup protected environment because the replicated data can only be accessed after recreating the NetBackup catalog. Replication is done by importing the entire contents of the disk storage at the remote site using the bpimport command. The nbcatsync utility, introduced in NetBackup 6.5.6 and 7.0.1, can address this challenge as well, but it relies on being able to restore the catalog from a catalog backup and then post-processing it to reconcile the disk device mappings, resulting in a very time consuming process.

Who hasn’t run into that pesky old ‘Status Code 2’ problem? Your backup fails with a NetBackup message indicating that "none of the requested files were backed up." Well, let me dig through my notes and see what I did about it… Ah, yes! I remember when a customer ran into a Status Code 2 error when running an SQL database backup. In my investigation to help them fix the problem, I stumbled across a Symantec support article specifically focused on this issue.

LiveUpdate is a NetBackup feature that allows administrators to quickly and easily upgrade NetBackup clients under central control using a special NetBackup policy. Previous releases of NetBackup offered limited functionality for LiveUpdate, providing only the ability to upgrade to a minor update of the current version (e.g., from NetBackup 6.5.5 to 6.5.6). In contrast, NetBackup 7.1 has the ability to update a client even if it’s running a previous major version (NetBackup 6.5 and later). LiveUpdate operates with any supported NetBackup client system, including UNIX, Linux and Windows machines, and can update a mixture of UNIX, Linux and Windows clients from a single LiveUpdate policy. It’s important to understand that NetBackup LiveUpdate is not the same as the LiveUpdate service that many other Symantec products use. The NetBackup version only runs when the administrator explicitly executes it and it does not pull data from Symantec or any other location on the Internet. All update information is contained on servers that are controlled by the NetBackup administrator. It’s also important to note that other installation methods are still supported; LiveUpdate is an optional tool. If administrators prefer to use the standard NetBackup client installation utilities, they may still do so.

The race to virtualize everything has created a host of unintended consequences, not the least of which is how to meet the SLAs (service level agreements) for application backup. As we move into cloud alternatives this problem will only grow since your cloud provider will have to provide this to you on an application by application basis. Every virtual machine is essentially a set of large files such as VMDKs in a VMware context. These large files are typically stored in storage arrays which can be connected via iSCSI or Fiber Channel or on NFS volumes. Traditional data protection techniques such as VMware's VADP, or VMware VCB rely on an agent to protect VMDK files associated with virtual servers.

Come one come all come see the greatest spectacle in the known universe… NetBackup 7.5 Beta. It removes excess body hair, cures mad cow disease, protects against the occasional snake bite, and Justin Beiber. Okay, so maybe these features are not in the NetBackup 7.5. However you can find these: - Primary Replication Management: Unified Policy-based Management of Backups, Snapshots and Replication. - Deduplication of storage in multiple deployment environments. - Single dynamic data protection solution across physical and virtual data centers including mission critical applications. - Enable the use of cloud-based offsite storage - Search metadata associated with backup images Want to learn more? Symantec’s NetBackup Guy can help! One size does not fit all when it comes to protecting applications- check out more information here:

Data protection architectures are by necessity complex in nature as they involve the cold calculus of many factors. There is not a “one size fits all” approach to data protection because the operational requirements of each organization dictates how data is used and the local risk assessment process dictates to some extent how it will be protected. Part of the data protection strategy is the backup / restore process. The simplest of these architectures involve a management tier, a process tier and either a storage tier (disk, tape or both). Symantec’s answer to this is the Netbackup Appliance; a 4U 32TB raid 6 stack that includes all three layers in an appliance form factor. It comes with 2 1GigE ports, 2 10 GigE ports and 2 4Gig fiber hbas. It also has a direct out to tape capability for off-site backup replication. Symantec’s de-duplicate anywhere capability is an integral part of this appliance which extends the scope of data protection significantly.

With NetBackup 7.0, Symantec is no longer using VSP (VERITAS Snapshot Provider). This leaves you with the wonderful Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS) from Microsoft. Solutions are well documented through technical articles and blogs for some of the common problems with VSS. But maybe, just maybe, you are that type of engineer that really wants to be the master of VSS and understand more about how to troubleshoot it. Troubleshooting your VSS issues are as easy as setting up tracing.

NetBackup offers a variety of ways to reduce storage capacity using deduplication. In fact, we believe our users should deduplicate everywhere. Backup is the killer app for deduplication. Why? Well a backup is essentially a copy of your information to be used for a recovery in the event of a corruption, or if something goes wrong. So it’s basically an insurance policy. So if you’re doing backups over the weekend and incrementals during the week and your data change rate isn’t that high, why backup the same thing over and over again? Just think of how many instances of a particular file or application that you have across your entire company. Say I send out a 3MB PowerPoint presentation for a review and a co-worker changes the title slide, another tweaks a bullet or two. Now there are 3 copies totaling 9 MB with only a few minor changes! Because of examples like that, it’s probably no surprise that data is growing at an alarming rate. The problem is that network, server, and storage systems are trying to keep up with this growth. Many organizations are still relying heavily on tape, yet still implementing next generation technologies like virtualization. That makes the outdated practice of keeping data forever impossible, especially while trying to meet today’s more aggressive service levels. Symantec believes deduplication should be natively integrated into any backup application, and in fact with NetBackup 7 it is. Deduplication should live in every part of the information architecture, at the source and the destination.

Having problems with trying to do eDiscovery with NetBackup? Stop! Just Stop! For the love of NetBackup…. Stop! Find out more about the marriage between NetBackup and Enterprise Vault.

Disk Staging Storage Unit (DSSU) cleanup behavior is different in NetBackup 6.5 in comparison with prior versions. NetBackup 6.5 staging and high water mark processing is very different from 5.x and 6.0. In NetBackup 5.x and 6.0, High Water Mark value does not apply to disk staging storage units. The only condition that triggered staged (but not expired) image cleanup was the disk full condition reached during a backup. If this was encountered, all disk backups to that media server (not only to that storage unit) were temporarily paused and a cleanup process was launched to clean the oldest 10 images that had been staged. This would not necessarily mean that it would hit the Low Water Mark as a result. Backups were then resumed until the disk full condition was encountered again, and then the process would repeat. In essence, staged images were cleaned up in a reactive manner in NetBackup prior to 6.5.