BMR To be configured

http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC5163 (document is in the attachment block right side of web page).

Look in chapter 2 - Install BMR

While configuring NBU to collect BMR info is a walk in the park - doing BMR restore is the tricky part until you have understood the concepts. Please familiar yourself with the restore flow, before is for "real". Do a couple of BMR restore test to see how it works.

Espacially the "BMR boot server" name can be misleading when doing BMR restore via iso/cd images. 

The noted article is your best source of information for this.

My version of steps to take for initial setup:

1. Initialize BMR Master Server and databases on the NBU Master Server.  BMR Master only can live on the NBU Master. All BMR commands reside in the path /usr/openv/netbackup/bin. The BMRDB files will reside in the same location as the NBDB database files.

bmrsetupmaster

2. When done, the 'bmrd' daemon should be running. 
You can verify that the BMRDB database and service is operational by running:
  
bmrs -o query -res database -table CurrentVersion

The output will display the running SCHEMA of the database, which should exactly match the NBU version of the Master.

3.Clients that will be recovered using BMR will register to the BMRDB for any policy where the BMR option is enabled. On NBU 7.5, this option is not set by default. Enabling this option will automatically enable TIR with Move detection settings. BMR only supports use of two policy types - Unix Standard (type 0) and Windows NT (type 13). The BMR option is not available for any other policy types.

4. All supported clients will automatically register with the BMR Master when any backup of that client (FULL or INCR) is performed. The BMR registration action will always occur ahead of any NBU backup stream activity. Assuming the BMR client registration goes without error, the client will be visible to the BMR portion of the Admin Console regardless of the result of the NBU backup, even if it fails. It is mandatory that you have a valid FULL backup of any BMR registered client ahead of any BMR recovery attempts.  The use of ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES is the safest setting for file list selection in the  policy. For individual file list selection all of the OS specific system drives/partitions/file systems MUST be selected and backed up. Data drives that reside on the client do not need to be backed up to perform a BMR DR recovery. However, if they are present in the backup image and it is so desired, BMR will recover any and all of them as part of the recovery process. BMR functionality allows for user defined data recovery beyond the OS portion.

5. List of registered clients can be seen by use of Admin Console or from CLI.
Admin Console:  BMR Administration Node -> Hosts -> BMR Clients
CLI:  bmrs -o list -res [ Config | Client ]

6. Before a BMR recovery can occur, you MUST define the Boot Server environment. Use this article for assistance:
Requirements for Bare Metal Restore (BMR) Boot Servers
http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH87607

BMR Boot Servers are OS specific.  A BMR Boot Server must exist for every OS type of protected/registered clients. For Windows clients, a single Windows based Boot Server can be used to recover any supported Windows OS version, to include 32 bit or 64 bit versions. Any NBU server or client can be designated as a Boot Server. BMR Boot Server software is part of any client software install. The command to run is:

bmrsetupboot -register

Once done, they will be visible on the Master:

Admin Console:  BMR Administration Node -> Hosts -> BMR Boot Servers
CLI:  bmrs -o list -res BootServer

All Boot Servers will register to their designated Master Server.  Multiple Boot Servers are allowed within any NBU domain. They cannot be shared by multiple Master Servers.

7. See the OSCL for NBU clients that are supported by BMR:
NetBackup (tm) 7.x Operating System Compatibility List
http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH76648

Under the section for NBU Clients, look under the column for BMR Boot/Client Support.

8. BMR client recoveries require the use of BMR specific boot images. The boot image is known as a Shared Resource tree (SRT). Each Boot Server will create an SRT specific to its OS type. On all Boot Servers, the command is "bmrsrtadm". For Windows you can use the GUI version "Boot Server Assistant".

9.  BMR recoveries can start from either a network boot, or a media (CD/DVD/ISO) boot. Initial SRT creation will always be the file system based network boot SRT.  Media boot images are created based on them.

10. The boot method used will always be based on the native boot method of the given OS. For example, network based boot of Windows and Linux clients will make use of PXE boot protocols.  A Solaris environment will use JumpStart. However, Solaris Sparc servers cannot boot Solaris x86 clients and vice versa.

For all that I have written above, you basically need to do three things:

1. Initialize the BMR Master (bmrd) and BMRDB: bmrsetupmaster
2. Create/Initialize BMR Boot servers (bmrbd):  bmrsetupboot -register
3. Create required SRT boot images:  bmrsrtadm

And, as noted above, your best means of getting used to the BMR recovery environment is to do some test restores ahead of any real need to do a DR recovery.  For that I recommend

1. Get a test server and install an OS and NBU client software. The amount of data on the server is of no consequence.

2. Do  FULL backup of the test client.

3. Do a Prepare To Restore operation on the Master Server. See the BMR Admin Guide for assistance.

4. Boot the test client by the designated boot method and recover the client.

Once you feel comfortable of recovering back to the exact same server that created the backup image, you can expand out to some of the more complex extensions to the product, such as doing a restore to different hardware, known as a Dissimilar System Restore (DSR).

From experience working with previous customers, I have found that the learning curve can be seen as steep but after a few test recoveries the process makes sense and is much easier for future recoveries, i.e. practice makes better.

And, in looking at all that I have written, I think I need to publish an article for all of this to assist any future customers.

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