BE 15 SDR with dedicated backup network

[ldumont]

Hi,

I try to recover a server with an SDR disk... But it fail...

Here is the configuration:

I have a backup server (BE 15) with two paths, one to the default lan, the other one to a dedicated lan with an OST appliance (no DNS or stuff like that on this path, only backup).

I backup an other server with a agent, this server has also the same two paths, to have a direct backup to the OST appliance.

At this point, everything is fine...

I create the SDR disk to restore my "client server", following the step by step, I boot on it and configure my two networks... And at this point, it is not able to see the backup server....

So, I try to configure only the default lan, and then I can connect to the backup server, run the recover mode, but my agent is not able to find "media", I think that he tries to access directly throught the dedicated lan.... As it did for backup...

I tried with the tools provided with SDR to send a ping to my backup server... If I only configure the default lan, it's ok, but I I configure the second one, ping failed...

Did anybody has an idea of what could happen?

Thanks;

Laurent

[pkh]

You cannot use any dedup'ed data for SDR, only normal backups, either disk or tape

[ldumont]

Thanks for your answer, but I did not see it in any doc....
I'll have a look...

[Colin_Weaver · Accepted solution]

Small correction

You cannot use SDR to restore the BE server itself from it's own deduplication folder however remote SDR should be able to use deduplication. BUT SDR will not be able to use an OST device as a direct source which might in fact be more of an issue - this is because the WinPE environment will not contain the OST plugins for that target device and might be more of a problem for you.

With regards Backup LANs however it is all down to DNS and IP registration.

Basically when the SDR disk boots up it gives itself a semi-random name and either gets an  IP address from DHCP or you give it one. If you then tell it to talk to the BE server to do a remote SDR, you either  need to be using the correct IP address of the BE server or give it a DNS name that it can resolve to the correct IP address. (and in this case correct IP address would have to be the one for the BE server on the backup LAN) - At this point I would expect ping to work and you indicate it does not so almost certainly this is part of your problem.

However that bit is easy to solve (as it is just basic networking involving IP and DNS addresses within the WinPE OS ) but it is only half of the problem. Once you have the SDR (WinPE) environment using the correct details to talk to the BE server on the Backup LAN, it tells the BE server it's name and IP details so that when the BE server starts the restore job it knows where to talk to - this will almost certainly give the details of the primary network IP address etc so is probably the cause of your problems.

In reality we have almost certainly not done any specific programmatic development to let SDR use a Backup LAN - reason for this is that in the event of a disaster the last thing a customer is thinking about is which LAN the restore uses - they are usually just thinking about getting the data back by any means.  Due to this we have not seen enough requests to justify working on such a feature although that does not mean it won't be possible to get it to work, just means we have not spent time making sure it will.

All in all you need to prove you can restore from OST first - so I'd suggest testing with the primary LAN and forgetting about the backup LAN until you know that the OST part is not an issue.

[ldumont]

Thanks for this clear reply.

Now I have some testing in sight.

Regards,

Laurent