In NetBackup 7.7 administration we will discuss about its concepts, data protection, environments, administration console, OpsCenter along with NetBackup Appliance overview.
In this introduction we’ll discuss the consideration for data protection. We’ll also identify the components of NetBackup environment and their functions. Define common terms used in the NetBackup product and describe how NetBackup backs up and restores data.
We’ll also navigate the NetBackup Administration console, describe the NetBackup Appliance offerings and navigate the OpsCenter console which is a web based interface as well.
Data Protection in general
As we know data protection is a very critical element of any business and if we lose any data which is crucial for business requirements then it can have a huge impact on the business since today the data growth for any business is at very high level which actually increases the backup windows as well.
This is further very difficult for the IT admin to minimize the applications and user disruption while backups and disaster recovery methods and procedure are being used. Even though there are many different technologies available today to perform the different types of disaster recovery in different scenario in different environments. The IT admins are advised to streamline the backup and restore process.
Data Protection
When we discuss the data protection and disaster recovery the there are certain process or terms which are often applicable which are Recovery Point Objective and Recovery Time Objective.
Recovery Point Objective – RPO: It explains how much data loss is possible during the disaster recovery or system or hardware failure. However we would always try to minimize the data loss as low as zero. It also depends upon how often the full, Incremental or Differential backup had been taken and what backup strategy or data protection strategy was followed along with hardware type associated with system failure.
If the backup copy was sent offsite once a week and there is a complete site failure then there might be a week’s data loss.
Recovery Time Objective – RTO: It measures how long it will take to recover the data in case of failure or outage. In some technologies like cluster system, it detects the failure and restoration process could be faster.
So basically, RPO tells us how much data loss is possible during the data restore and RTO defines how long its going to take to recover the data.
Data Protection Plans
While making the data protection plan we need to keep in mind that all data is not equal and some data may be more critical than other in an organization so recovery point objectives and recovery time objectives should be planned accordingly. Normally the quicker we may need to recover the data the using some specific technology it may be more expensive.
The above things determines the backup strategy and required resources like servers, hardware, storage systems, backup technology etc. It also includes testing the data protection plan often or testing disaster recovery plan to ensure that data protection plan and strategy are effective and backups are also working fine.
There might be some changes in the organization time to time like new application introduced, new hardware, new sites, new technology etc which will require to update the data protection plan accordingly.
NetBackup Components
Usually, in any environment we’ll have some systems like servers, storage and data repository that need to be backed up. Backups refers the these systems as clients. In NetBackup the clients are backed up by media servers. Media servers are data movers which pull the data information from the clients and move the information to the backup storage destination.
Though the media server performs the operation, it is the Master server which is considered the brains of the NetBackup. The Master server performs and manages and centralizes all the backup and recovery activity for the NetBackup. It keeps the track of all the data information which is being backed up.
Since the all the backup and recovery operations are managed by the Master server if there is any backup or recovery is needed then it will assign the require media server to perform the operation.
NetBackup server hierarchy options and domains
It is also possible that in a small environment the Master server can perform both the operation for Master server itself and media server as well. However when the organization grows it may required to add a media server to share the load of Master server and perform the backups and restore operations quickly for more clients.
As in the above picture the resources which fall under Master server are known as NetBackup domain, at the same time we should not be configured with the term domain as in IT since here the we are talking about on the resources that are under Single Master server which performs all operations.
NetBackup domains and OpsCenter
Here we see two NetBackup domain – Master1 and Master2 and each one is considered a separate domain and in order to manage them we need to login to one of them specifically to manage its domain.
NetBackup OpsCenter is a free web based tool to manage one or more NetBackup domains.
OpsCenter Interface
OpsCenter is primarily used as a monitoring and reporting tool however it does have some useful management and restore capabilities. It can be installed and used for free however there are some paid version available as well. For more information please visit below link : https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/article.100040281
Related post – What is Veritas NetBackup and How does NetBackup work?
—————–