Netting Out NetBackup

Scott Waterhouse who writes at the “Backup Blog” posted a good note about an important and often ignored setting for NetBackup media servers. He references this in relation to EDL, the disk library which has an embedded NetBackup media server, although it is a useful tip for many other circumstances . He points out the need to make sure that you set up NetBackup correctly so that when you duplicate tapes or images it doesn’t require the data to traverse your IP network and slow your duplication down significantly. You do this by correctly setting the alternate read server for your duplication which you can do for a Disk Staging Storage Unit, in Vault or in a Storage Life Cycle policy.

Nice work Scott.

Tim Burlowski
Technical Product Manager

In my last post, I discussed backup redesign, emphasizing the need to begin with an analysis of the basics which include understanding and analyzing RPO and RTO.

The acronyms RTO and RPO used to cause hands to be raised in presentations as they weren’t well understood by our industry. It seems like they have become standard terms in our industry, but let’s define them for completeness.

RPO — this stands for Recovery Point Objective. In the book, “Implementing Backup and Recovery” written by David Little and David Chapa it is defined as “How far back in time you are willing to go to recover.” If you backup once a day at midnight, and you delete a file at 11:59 PM the next day you will have a...

Note:  This is not a recommended procedure.  It should be used only in extreme situations and as a last step in attempting to restore data. This procedure has been used on numerous occasions with success.

First, figure out the fragment number and the block size needed.

Ex:

# ./bpmedialist -mcontents -ev D0004
media id = D0004, allocated 09/21/99 14:19:, retention level = 1

File number 1
 Backup id = jeckle_0937941543
 Creation date = 09/21/99 14:19:
 Expiration date = 10/05/99 14:19:
 Retention level = 1
 Copy number = 1
 Fragment number = 1
 Block size (in bytes) = 32768

Then work the tape:

ficus# tpreq -ev D0004 -a r -d dlt -p NetBackup -f /tmp/mytape

This issues a tpreq for media id D0004, the " r " is for read, the " -d " is density, " -p " is pool and " -f " is mount point.

ficus# /usr/...

I bought a box of Frosted Flakes recently - this was a departure from my usual diet of Froot Loops, I make my life very exciting with these spontaneous bursts of adventure. One thing I noticed on my box of Frosted Flakes was a big bright bubble that said, "Less sugar!" and in much smaller letters beneath it, "than original Frosted Flakes." This is of course a meaningless comparison. Less sugar than the original may still mean "way too much sugar." 

In the technology industry, one of the tactics software companies sometimes use to increase the chance of closing a sale is "FUD": Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt, which basically means injecting misleading information into a sale process. There has been some interesting FUD circulating around backup vendor support for VMware's ESX and ESXi platforms. ESXi and ESX are essentially identical from a functionality perspective. To quote VMware.com, "...