Help creating a backup strategy

[DEI815]

Our setup:

Powervault 745N roughly 700GB
Powervault 122T (LTO-2 8 slot autoloader)
Backup Exec 10 for Windows Servers

We are looking to utilize a father/son type of strategy, possibly slightly altered for what we would like to accomplish. We would like to utilize our NAS to hold 1 week worth of backups (more if we can swing it) and then utilize our autoloader to shoot the data to tape for added assurance. Once a week we take a full backup to the bank.

The first issue I am running into (probably self created of course) is that when utilizing the backup-to-disk feature I can only see a max of one restore point (The previous night's backup). This is a problem if we are looking to keep a good week's worth of backup sets. How do I get around this obstacle?

The second issue I am running into (again self created im sure) is that I would like to take a the data on the NAS and shoot it to tape on a daily basis (Mon - Sat) and our Sunday tape will go to the bank. I cannot figure out how to have the backup job that shoots the data to tape utilize our autoloader. I thought I may have been able to fix it by utlizing the "Media Rotation Wizard" butI notice that I do not have that option under TOOLS>WIZZARDS. There are two devices related to the autoloader, DELL1 and DELL2 (the actual drive). Ive attempted to use DELL1 but it will always utilize slot1 and nothing else.

Hopefully my "problems" have simple fixes and that being my not knowing what I am doing.

Any suggestions?

[Keith_Langmead]

I think you need to look at the staging backups option which is available within v10, as that will then allow you to backup your data to your NAS (I'm assuming this is where you backup to disk folder is located, as apposed to it being the actual source of the data), and then from there back it up to your library.

I haven't used it myself, but from the presentation I saw on it last year (admittedly for Net Backup, not Backup Exec), I believe as part of that you can configure how far back the disk copy goes, thus enabling you to keep multiple days backup on disk, and rotating it accordingly.

As far as pointing the backup to the library, you should be able to simply point it to the library, though from the fact that you are seeing two devices listed I wonder if you have it configured correctly. On our Powervault LTO library we only have one entry for Dell1, and no Dell2 listed. Within Dell1 you should see two entries, one for the drive itself, and the other for the library. By pointing the backup at Dell1, it should then make use of which ever tapes are available in the library for use. That is unless you have partitioned the library, in which case you will see entries like Dell1 , as options for the backup device in the job setup.

One other thing I would comment on. If you are only planning to move the Sunday tape to the bank, I would suggest getting a fire proof safe at the office, and storing the other tapes in there once used, otherwise if something like a fire happens at the end of the week you've defeated the object of having tape backups for disaster recovery.

[Danny_Satterlee]

Have you looked into the synthetic backup policy templates?

I don't know all of your situation, but if you have multiple clients that you're backing up to the NAS with incrementals on a daily basis, you could in turn run a synthetic afterwards (if time constraints allow) and thereby allowing you to have a full backup to save to tape following.

A lot of your variables unknown. Do you want multiple restore points? Are you fine with a one day restore point or do you want multiple? This would require a different approach.

[DEI815]

Keith,

I just started looking into the staging backups and will read up on it.. Maybe that is the route to go for making sure I have multiple backup sets.

Let me clarify my "devices" list. The list is as follows ROBOTIC LIBRARIES>DELL1 Expand DELL1 and there lies DELL2 and then SLOTS.. From what I have tried I would point a backup job to DELL one and it would always use slot 1. The next time the job ran it wouldnt rotate through the slots Maybe that clarifies my situation. I would almost feel better if it was a configuration problem and not just my stupidity.

Danny,

What I would like to accomplish is when I go to restore and go to my backup to disk folder I would like to see at least a week's worth of backups to restore from. So If I have a user call and say they accidently deleted a file and the last known good copy was 3 days prior, I could go to that backup set and pull it.


Please let me know if you need more info...

[Keith_Langmead]

Weird. I don't understand why you're seeing Dell1 and Dell2, when on my library setup I just get both the entire system, and the drive within it labeled as Dell1.

Might be worth deleting the references to the library and drive from Devices, and then running the Devices configuration wizard again, and see if it detects your hardware correctly this time and you get different settings appear.

[Zerene_Sangma]

I agree with Keith, Reconfigure the tape device using following steps.
1. From Backup Exec | Devices Right Click the device/library | Properties | Uncheck "Enable device for backup Exec" Right click and delete the device.
2. Power cycle the device and the server
3. From :\Program Files\VERITAS\Backup Exec\NT
4. Run tapeinst.exe
5. Install Veritas tape drivers.
http://support.veritas.com/docs/275676

6. Run the device configuration wizard.

[DEI815]

The re-installation of the autoloader looks to have fixed that problem. Thanks for your recommendations. I am still however puzzled at being able to retain multiple restore points of a backup, utilizing the Backup-to-disk folders.

As far as the scond part of my problem, I am still a little puzzled. Im looking to achieve the following. Run one backup job that goes and gets all my data from my servers and back it up to a Backup-to-disk-folder. When I select restore, I select the backup to disk media (Media Created xx-xx-xxx) and it then shows the backups for that media. I would like to have a week's worth of backups here. So obviously the prior night backup, but at least 4 days worth of incremental backups before that. So if someone comes up to me and states they need a file from 3 days ago that they accidently deleted, I can go back to that set and restore from that point.

I can do this with the tape, because obviously I have 7 different tapes to choose from, so I can go back 7 tapes and pull a file, but it seems since I am backing up to the same folder every time it just retains one prior backup.

Thanks for your help so far..

[Amruta_Bhide]

Hello,
you could make the same backup strategy with backup to disk folders as well.
You can create 5 backup to disk folders (in place of the tapes) you can have different folders with different names on the same drive, and assign each for the incremental or diffrential backups that you make. You can use these as your backups...

Also while restoring in the selections you get the selections as per the date and the type of backup that you have done. So if you know on what date that particular File or Folder was deleated you can just select that particular backup set on that particular day and then serch for the folder that you are looking for in the right pane and select that for restore....
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Hope that answers your querry.
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NOTE : If we do not receive your reply within two business days, this post would be marked ‘assumed answered’ and would be moved to ‘answered questions’ pool.

[Madhuri_Shenoy]

As per our previous reply, marking the case as "assumed answered" and moving it to "answered questions" pool.