Maintenance Server Info

[James_Hamilton]

Where can I find more information about what the maintenance server does? I have installed a maintenance server at each of my storage locations for DLO. The documentation does not go into any detail on what it does. How do I know it is working for a particular storage location?

[perry_baker]

You can find information on a DLO Maintenance Server in the BE Admin Guide. Start on page 1048 where the top of the pages starts with Using Delta File Transfer. At the bottom of the page and for the next few pages you can find more information.

Link to the BE Admin Guide.
http://ftp.support.veritas.com/pub/support/products/Backup_Exec_for_WindowsNT/285233.pdf

Here is what the manual states:
Delta File Transfer requires the use of the DLO maintenance server. The maintenance
server manages the deletion of previous delta revisions from storage locations. The
maintenance server is only required when the Delta File Transfer option is enabled, but it
is installed by default when DLO is installed. Only one maintenance server is required,
but in large installations it may be more efficient to have one maintenance server for
each Storage Location host (i.e. File Server).

[James_Hamilton]

I read that. It really doesn't tell me much detail about what it actually does. I am looking for more detail on what the process is of generating the delta file and the interaction between the pc, maintenance server, and storage location.

[perry_baker]

It sounds like you're wanting more information that we would post in the forum. I'm not even sure we would divulge that information in a support case since it comes close to releasing feature design. I'll see if I can get the information released to me for posting.

[James_Hamilton]

Thanks. We also have an open case with support. It seems that the Maintenance Server feature is not working properly. After configuring all the maintenance servers and assigning storage locations, everything looks good. We close the console, open the console and all storage locations are using the alphabetically first maintenance server (this is not even marked as the default) They can reproduce the issue.

[perry_baker]

What is your case number?

Has the case been escalated?

[James_Hamilton]

Case 290-700-783
It is supposed to have been escalated.

[perry_baker]

Here is the information I could get released...

First it's important to note that a DLO Maintenance Server is only needed if you are implementing the Delta File Transmission option.

The DLO Maintenance Server deletes files that are no longer supposed to be saved in the Network Storage Location based on file retention settings. The DLO Maintenance Server gets the information as to what file revisions to groom based on a delta map maintained on the users desktop/laptop. The users desktops/laptops will communicate with the DLO Maintenance Server via MS RPC. If you use delta file transmission options the local user data folder must be enabled but can be set to maintain 0 (zero) versions. Ideally the maintenance server and network user data folder server will be the same system, but in cases where the network user data folder is not a Windows system that will not be possible. In those cases the DLO Maintenance Server will need to perform file IO via LAN to groom outdated file versions in the network user data folder. So there needs to be a fast, reliable connection between the DLO Maintenance Server and the server where the network user data folder is hosted if they are not the same system. The DLO Maintenance Server should also be robust enough to handle the computational tasks at times when file grooming will take place. A delta file transmission strategy could result in the need to maintain delta file data that contains previous file versions, that could have otherwise been groomed, as base files. This means it is possible that more file revisions than configured could be retained and available for restore operations.

[James_Hamilton]

Thanks for the information. We are using Delta backups.

[James_Hamilton]

It hink you have answered my question. Hopefully we can get this working properly so we no longer have to groom files over our WAN.

[perry_baker]

I've made certain your case was escalated to the backline support engineer for DLO.

[drgarner]

I am having the same problem described in Case # 290-700-783.  Can someone tell me what the fix is?

Maintenance Server assignments get changed when the DLO console is closed then re-opened.

I have performed LiveUpdate and installed all available updates.

My Case # is 290-741-148

Thanks.

[Tony_Jolley]

I am having the same issue described in cases 290-700-783 and 290-741-148. Is there a fix?