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NetVault 13.0.2 - Administration Guide for Managed Service Providers

Introduction Getting started Configuring clients Managing catalog search Configuring storage devices
About storage devices SAN considerations Quest DR Series systems Quest QoreStor NetVault SmartDisk EMC Data Domain Systems Snapshot Array Manager Virtual Tape Libraries Virtual standalone drives Shared Virtual Tape Libraries Physical tape devices Storage tiers
Backing up data Managing policies Restoring data Managing NetVault dashboard Managing jobs Monitoring logs Managing storage devices
Role-based access to manage storage devices Monitoring device activity Managing disk-based storage devices in list view Managing disk-based storage devices in tree view Managing the Snapshot Array Manager Managing tape libraries in list view Managing tape libraries in tree view Managing tape drives in list view Managing tape drives in tree view Adding shared devices
Managing storage media Managing user and group accounts Managing Tenant Monitoring events and configuring notifications Reporting in NetVault Working with client clusters Configuring default settings for NetVault
About configuring default settings Configuring encryption settings Configuring plug-in options Configuring default settings for post-scripts Configuring default settings for Verify Plug-in Configuring Deployment Manager Settings Configuring Job Manager settings Configuring Logging Daemon settings Configuring Media Manager settings Configuring Network Manager settings Configuring Process Manager settings Configuring RAS device settings Configuring Schedule Manager settings Configuring Web Service settings Configuring Auditor Daemon settings Configuring firewall settings Configuring general settings Configuring security settings Synchronizing NetVault Time Configuring the reporting utility Configuring NetVault WebUI default settings Configuring NetVault to use a specific VSS provider Configuring default settings using Txtconfig
Diagnostic tracing Managing diagnostic data Using the deviceconfig utility NetVault processes Environment variables Network ports used by NetVault Troubleshooting
Common errors Safe Mode in NetVault

Creating Backup Advanced Options Sets

An Advanced Options Set is used to specify backup retirement settings, Secondary Copy job definitions, and other advanced options. You can create a Backup Advanced Options Set from the Create Backup Job page.

To create a Backup Advanced Options Set:
1
Start the backup job wizard, and click Create New next to the Advanced Options list.
2
On the Advanced Options page, click the corresponding button, and configure the options described in the following sections:
•
Setting backup retirement options
•
Specifying additional options
•
Creating a Secondary Copy
•
Configuring pre- and post script options for backup jobs
•
Configuring user-defined events for backup jobs
3
Click Save, and in Advanced Options Set Name, type a name for the set.
The set name can contain alphanumeric and non-alphanumeric characters, but it cannot contain non‑Latin characters. On Linux OS, the name can have a maximum of 200 characters. On Windows OS, there is no length restriction. However, a maximum of 40 characters is recommended on all platforms.
Click Save to save the Advanced Options Set.

Setting backup retirement options

To set the backup retirement options:
1
On the Advanced Options page, click Backup Life, and configure the following settings.
Figure 19. Backup Life dialog box
 
Table 47. Backup Life options
Option
Description

Archive

To create an archive, select this option.

An archive cannot be used as a base for Incremental or Differential backups. When archiving data, you must always select the Full Backup type. If you select Incremental or Differential Backup type, the restore job fails.

Backup

This option is selected by default. To create a backup, use this option.

Backup Life

This option specifies how long a backup is retained.

A backup can be retained indefinitely or retired after a specified period. NetVault supports generation- and time-based retirement methods for backups. For more information about backup retirement methods, see Backup retirement.

You can specify the retirement options in the Backup Advanced Options Set. Alternatively, you can use the Change Expiry method to set or change the expiry date or generation count for existing savesets. For more information about the Change Expiry method, see Configuring saveset expiry options.

To set the Backup Life option, do the following:

•
Backup life — based on Full Backup count: To configure generation-based retirement, select the Discard After Full Backup Count option. In the associated list, type or select the maximum number Full Backups that you want to retain.
•
Backup life — based on time: To configure time-based retirement, select the Discard After option. Type or select the period, and in the associated list, select the Days, Weeks, Months, or Years option.
By default, the Backup Life option is set to Discard After and the retirement period is set to three months.

 
•
Force Expiry: By default, if a backup has any dependent backups, its retirement is deferred until all dependent backups are ready for retirement.
You can select this check box to retire a backup according to its retirement schedule. Forcing this behavior can cause early retirement of dependent Incremental and Differential Backups.
To apply this rule globally to all backups, you can modify the Media Manager settings. For more information, see Configuring retirement rules for dependent backups. If the Retirement Timing Control option is set to Force Always, the Force Expiry is option is used, regardless of state of this check box.
•
Retain a backup indefinitely: To retain a backup indefinitely, select the Don't Discard based on Full Backup Count and Don't Discard based on Time options.

 
NOTE: If you set both Discard After Full Backup Count and Discard After options for a Full Backup, the backup is retired only when both conditions are met. For example, if you set the Discard After Full Backup Count option to four Full Backups and the Discard After option to 30 days, the backup is retired after five Full Backup counts and 30 days.
NOTE: When you set time-based retirement, the time component (HH:MM) is automatically set to the job save or job submit time.
NOTE: In time-based retirement, the time component (HH:MM) does not represent the actual retirement time. It only represents the time due for backup retirement. The actual time of retirement is determined by the interval at which Media Manager scans the Media Database to identify the backups that it needs to retire. The default interval between two scans is 60 minutes. Thus, if the retirement time is set to 10:20, the backup is actually retired at 11:00. You can change this default setting in the mediamgr.cfg file. For more information, see Configuring default interval for backup retirement scans.

Offline Index After

Online backup indexes allow you to quickly scan through the contents of a saveset without loading the media. However, these indexes can increase the overall size of the NetVault Database. To manage the database size, you can delete the online indexes.

You can use different methods to delete online indexes:

•
You can configure the Offline Index After option in the Backup Advanced Options Set to automatically delete the online index for a backup after the specified period. This method is described in this section.
•
You can use the Days of inactivity before an index is offlined setting to configure a global policy for deleting online indexes after a specified period of inactivity. For more information, see Configuring Media Manager settings for backup indexes.
•
You can manually delete the online indexes for one or more backups from the Manage Backup Indexes page. For more information, see Manually deleting online indexes.

To specify the index retention period in the Backup Advanced Options set, select Offline Index After option. Type or select the length of time that you want to retain the index, and in the associated list, select the Days, Weeks, Months, or Years option.

2
Click Set to save the settings and close the dialog box.
 
* 
NOTE: When a backup stored on a disk-based storage device (such as NetVault SmartDisk, Quest DR Series system, or Data Domain system) is retired, that backup is deleted from the device. You cannot import the deleted backup by scanning the device.

Specifying additional options

To specify additional options for a backup job:
1
On the Advanced Options page, click Additional Options, and configure the following settings.
 
Table 48. Additional backup job options
Option
Description

Enable Encryption

NetVault provides two encryption plug-ins:

•
NetVault Plug-in for Standard Encryption (Plug-in for Standard Encryption)
•
NetVault Plug-in for Advanced Encryption (Plug-in for Advanced Encryption)

These plug-ins provide support for CAST-128, AES-256, and CAST-256 algorithms to meet regulatory backup security requirements. For more information about these plug-ins, see the Quest NetVault Plug-in for Standard Encryption User’s Guide or Quest NetVault Plug-in for Advanced Encryption User’s Guide.

Once the Plug-in for Standard Encryption or Plug-in for Advanced Encryption is installed on a client, you can do either of the following:

•
Configure the plug-in to encrypt all backups originating for the client where the plug-in is installed. For more information about this setting, see relevant the plug-in user's guide.
•
Use the job-level encryption option to encrypt specific backups for the client. You can also select encryption only for the secondary copy.

The job-level encryption option is useful in the following situations:

•
Any plug-in installed on the server or client is incompatible with the encryption plug-ins.
•
Only specific backups on the server or client require encryption.
•
Primary backups do not require encryption, while secondary backups for offsite protection require encryption.
•
Primary backups are targeted to storage devices that support deduplication.

To perform job-level encryption for a primary backup, select the Enable Encryption check box. For more information about using job-level encryption for a secondary copy, see Encrypt Secondary Copy Only.

NOTE: An encrypted backup can be restored to the original client or an alternate client. In both cases, the plug-in must be installed on the target client and it must be configured as it was when the backup was performed — using the same Encryption Key String and Encryption Algorithm.

Enable Deduplication

Deduplication is enabled by default. Clear this check box if the target device does not support data deduplication.

When performing backups to devices that support deduplication, we recommend that you clear this check box for the following jobs:

•
Backups that use the encryption option. Encrypted backups do not deduplicate well and should not be deduplicated.
•
Incremental Backups that you want to consolidate using the Plug-in for Consolidation. By not selecting this option, you eliminate the unnecessary overhead of rehydrating the deduplicated Incremental Backups during the consolidation process. You can enable deduplication while backing up the Consolidated Full Backup.
NOTE: You cannot completely disable deduplication for a Quest DR Series system. The Quest DR Series systems provide a configuration mode for deduplication that controls whether deduplication is performed on the client or on the Quest DR Series system. You can turn off client-side deduplication by setting the Dedupe mode to Passthrough. For more information about this setting, see the Quest DR Series system Administration Guide.
NOTE: When backups stored on the Quest DR Series systems are selected for backup consolidation jobs, the overhead of rehydrating the deduplicated data can have a negative impact on performance.

Verify After Backup

To verify the stream length written to the media and ensure that no blocks were dropped during backup, select this check box.

Backup verification is performed as Phase 2 job after the actual backup is completed. If any dropped blocks are detected, the verification phase reports an error and fails. You must run the backup again if the verification phase fails.

NOTE: The Phase 2 backup verification job does not verify the integrity of data. This phase only verifies that the backup was actually written to the media.

By default, the verification job runs on the NetVault Server. To configure a different client to run the verification phase, see Configuring default settings for Verify Plug‑in.

Use Network Compression

To use network compression while transferring data over the network, select this check box.

The data is compressed on the backup client before being transferred over the network. On the machine to which the target device is attached, the data is decompressed before being written to the media.

Network compression does not work for the following types of jobs:

•
Backups to NetVault SmartDisk
•
Backups to devices attached to NDMP-based NAS filers
•
Backups performed using the NetVault Plug-in for NDMP, NetVault Plug-in for NetWare, and NetVault Bare Metal Recovery products.

Don't Add Saveset Items to the Restore Search Catalog

To exclude a backup with a selected saveset from cataloging, select this check box.

To check the cataloged status (Yes or No) of a saveset, see the ‘Cataloged’ column on the Create Restore Job - Choose Saveset page

2
Click Set to save the settings and close the dialog box.

Creating a Secondary Copy

To create a secondary copy:
1
On the Advanced Options page, click Secondary Copy.
2
Click the Create Secondary Copy check box, and configure the following settings.
Figure 20. Secondary Copy dialog box
 
Table 49. Secondary Copy options
Option
Description

Copy with

Select the method that you want to use to create the Secondary Copy. The available methods are:

•
Duplicate
•
Data Copy

For more information about these methods, see Secondary Copy.

NOTE: On NetVault Server 10.0.5 and later, the Plug-in for Data Copy creates index version 4, which is incompatible with earlier versions of NetVault. A client running NetVault 10.0.1 or an earlier version cannot read these index files. To restore Data Copy savesets generated from NetVault Server 10.0.5 or later, the client must also be running NetVault 10.0.5 or later.

Run copy job on

By default, the secondary copy job runs on the NetVault Server. If you want to run the job on a particular client, select the target client.

You can use this option to perform backups on a client with a locally attached physical or virtual tape device.

IMPORTANT: For better performance, we suggest that tenants must select the client machine that is provided by MSP, to perform data copy operation.

Use Schedule Set

Select an existing Schedule Set, or click Create New, and configure the schedule type and schedule method. For more information, see Creating Schedule Sets.

NOTE: You cannot use the Repeating and Triggered schedule types to run Secondary Copy jobs. A Secondary Copy job can run only after the Phase 1 job completes successfully. The Repeating and Triggered schedule types can cause a situation where a Secondary Copy job is configured to start before the source saveset is available.

Use Target Set

Select an existing Target Set, or click Create New, and configure the target device and media options for the job. For more information, see Creating Target Sets.

NOTE: When performing Duplicate and Data Copy backups, you cannot use media items that contain the original saveset or a copy of the same backup. NetVault excludes these media items to ensure that copies and original backup do not exist on the same media item. The concept of media does not apply to disk-based devices. If the original saveset is stored on a disk-based device, NetVault does not exclude that device when you run a Duplicate or Data Copy job for that backup.
NOTE: We recommend that you select the same drives for all secondary copy jobs. For example, in a library with four drives, select drives 1 and 2 for the primary backups and drives 3 and 4 for the secondary copies targeted to tape devices. This type of selection avoids deadlocks when running several duplication jobs at the same time.

Use Source Set

Select an existing Source Set, or click Create New, and configure the source device options for the job. For more information, see Creating Source Sets for backup jobs.

3
Configure the required additional options.
 
Table 50. Additional options for Secondary Copy
Option
Description

Maximum Streams for Data Copy

Type or select the maximum number of parallel streams that can be generated for the Data Copy job. By default, a single data stream is generated to copy the data items in a sequential manner.

Media Request Timeout

Type or select the amount of time NetVault waits for the backup media. The timeout value is specified in number of minutes. The default value is 10 minutes.

If the required media item is not available within the specified interval, the job is automatically aborted.

If you set the value to zero (0), the Secondary Copy job waits indefinitely until the media is provided or the job is manually aborted.

The maximum timeout period that can be set is 1440 minutes (24 hours), which ensures that current instance is aborted before NetVault runs the next instance of a Daily job.

NOTE: The media request timeout for Phase 1 Data Copy jobs (created using the Plug-in for Data Copy) is controlled by the Media Request Timeout setting in the Backup Options Set; it is not controlled by the Media Request Timeout setting in the Target Set. The media request timeout for Phase 2 (Secondary Copy) Data Copy and Duplicate jobs is controlled by the Media Request Timeout specified in the Backup Advanced Options Set.

Encrypt Secondary Copy Only

To perform job-level encryption for a secondary copy, select the Enable Encryption check box.

This option can only be used with the Data Copy method. To use this option, the Plug-in for Standard Encryption or the Plug‑in for Advanced Encryption must be installed on the client.

Note the following:

•
If the primary copy is encrypted, the Data Copy method automatically creates an encrypted saveset whether you select the Encrypt Secondary Copy Only check box or not. Therefore, this option is only useful when you want to create an encrypted secondary copy from an unencrypted primary copy.
•
Encrypted primary backups are not encrypted again if you select the Encrypt Secondary Copy Only check box for a Data Copy.
•
To restore data from an encrypted Data Copy, you must use the primary copy’s Encryption Key.

For more information about using job-level encryption for a primary backup, see Enable Encryption.

Migrate (Discard Original)

To migrate the backup instead of creating a copy, select this check box. After copying the data, NetVault deletes the index for the original backup.

NOTE: When creating copies of the Plug-in for FileSystem backups, the Migrate option can only be selected for Full Backups that do not have any associated Incremental or Differential Backups. If you select this option for a Full Backup that has an associated Incremental or Differential Backup, NetVault creates the secondary copy successfully, but it does not delete the index for the primary or original backup. For such backups, after creating the copy, you must manually retire the primary or original backup.

Allow Streams to Share Media

This check box is not selected by default.

You can use this option to convert multiple data streams into a sequential data stream. If you do not select this check box, each stream is written separately.

If you are using a disk-based device to store the backup, multiple streams are recommended. For such jobs, there is no need to select this check box.

If you do not select the Allow Streams to Share Media check box for tape devices, each data stream targets a separate media item. Any tape that is used to write a stream is excluded from the allowable media items. If enough tapes are not available for the job, the job fails. When using tape devices to store the backups, you can select this check box to use minimal media items.

Use Optimised Replication Between Devices that Support this Feature

Optimized replication enables transfer of deduplicated data directly from one device to another device of the same type during a Data Copy or Duplicate operation. It provides an efficient method to create secondary copies and offers the following advantages:

•
Copies data in its deduplicated form, which greatly reduces the amount for data transferred over the network.
•
Copies data directly from the source to the destination without using any resources on the NetVault Server.

The following storage devices support optimized replication:

•
Quest DR Series systems: To perform optimized replication, both the source and target Quest DR Series systems must be running the same release version of the DR OS. Replication is not supported between systems that run different releases of the OS.
For example, to replicate data from a source system that is running DR OS 3.x, the target system must be running the same OS release version. Replication is unsuccessful if the target system is running DR OS release 2.0.x or 3.0.x.
NOTE: When optimized replication and backups are performed simultaneously on a Quest DR Series system, the backup throughput is affected.
•
Quest QoreStor Servers
•
NetVault SmartDisk devices: To perform optimized replication, you require NetVault SmartDisk 2.0 or later.
If the login credentials configured for the source and destination NetVault SmartDisk Servers do not match, replication fails. To ensure a successful replication, do one of the following:
- Disable WebDAV authentication on both NetVault SmartDisk Servers.
- Enable WebDAV authentication only on the source server.
- Configure the same login credentials on both servers.
NOTE: When copying a backup from a NetVault SmartDisk to a different device type (for example, VTL, Quest DR Series system, or Data Domain system), you must clear this check box. If you do not clear this check box, the Data Copy or Duplicate job fails or stops responding.
•
DD Boost-enabled Data Domain systems: The secondary copy backups between two DD Boost-Enabled Data Domain systems use the managed file-level replication feature provided by DD Boost.
File-level replication requires the DD Boost Replicator license, which must be installed on both the source and destination Data Domain systems.
NOTE: If the source and target Data Domain systems are running different versions of the Data Domain OS, then for replication to be successful, the target system must be running the higher version of the OS.

Select Source Media Before Target Media

When you select this check box, NetVault tries to acquire the source media before it attempts to acquire the target media for the Data Copy and Duplicate backups.

4
To set retirement period for the duplicate or data copy saveset, configure the following options.
 
Table 51. Retirement options for Secondary Copy
Option
Description

Use Life of Original

This option is selected by default. To use the original saveset’s retirement period, leave this option selected.

Discard After

To configure a different retirement period for the Duplicate or Data Copy saveset, select this option.

Type or select the length of time that you want to retain the backup, and in the associated list, select the Days, Weeks, Months, or Years option. You can set only time-based retirement period for the copy.

Force Expiry

This check box is displayed when you select the Discard After option.

By default, if a Secondary Copy has any dependent backups, its retirement is deferred until all dependent backups are ready for retirement.

You can select this check box to retire a Secondary Copy according to its retirement schedule. Forcing this behavior can cause early retirement of dependent Incremental and Differential Backups.

To apply this rule globally to all backups, you can modify the Media Manager settings. For more information, see Configuring retirement rules for dependent backups. If the Retirement Timing Control option is set to Force Always, the Force Expiry option is used, regardless of state of this check box.

5
Click Set to save the settings and close the dialog box.
 
* 
IMPORTANT: Data Copy or Duplicate of a persistent snapshot only backup, copies only the index and does not create the redundant copy of the data.
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