Restore redirection

[LLSA]

Hello,

I have recently inherited the Backup responsibilities for my company. We are using Backup Exec 2010. The gentleman who left before me was kind enough to go over the basics with me. I have also skimmed the admin guide, but i have no formal training on Backup Exec, or any other backup software. What brings me here is a search for a good way to migrate a large chunk of data (over 1TB) from one system to another. I am attempting to move this data from a server 2003 system to an EMC storage device by simply restoring a full backup, and then a smaller differential to cover what was changed during the long restore. From the resources i have found (or rather not found) I’m beginning to think that i am either approaching this the wrong way, or attempting to use Backup Exec in a way it was not intended….. or if I need to acquire additional software functionality (licensing etc) to accomplish my goal. I am hoping you guys can set me straight.

The assumption was that restoring a windows directory to a Cif share is an option. I have created a file system on the EMC specifically for this purpose, and i am able to backup and restore data from one file system on the EMC to the one i created using an NDMP backup, so i know there is no permission issue. However, every time i have attempted to perform a redirection from a windows backup (even with just a small text test file), it says that the location I’m restoring to has no agent, or it is unable to verify the location. As we do not have an agent installed on our EMC, this is an accurate error message. I was also told i should be able to simply add a "user specified location" but i get a similar error. There is little to nothing in the admin guide that i can find about redirecting to a CIF share.

I am also concerned about potentially restoring data form the EMC NDMP backups to a windows system (with a backup agent). Once the restore begins it states that it can only be restored to an NDMP device of the same brand. To me this means that if our EMC fails and there is some business critical data that was on it, i will be unable to take the tapes from the prior days backup and dump them to an accessible location on our network. Is this an accurate assessment?

Essentially it appears that i cannot take data from a Windows environment and restore it to a CIF share, nor an NDMP backup and restore specific files to a Windows Share.

Thank you in advance for any advice or information you can toss my way!

~Chris

[AmolB]

You cannot restore Windows server data to a NDMP server and also NDMP data cannot be restored

to the Windows box. 

[ZeRoC00L]

NDMP is using a different backup method than a 'normal' agent backup.

With NDMP a block based backup is created, therefore you will not be able to restore this to a Windows system.

Otherwise, if you would like to restore a 'normal' windows agent backup directly to your NAS, you will probably need to disable NDMP on this NAS device. You probably also cannot create a 'normal' backup of the NAS without using NDMP.

[Colin_Weaver · Accepted solution]

Zero Cools is nearer to the correct information to help you - although AmolZeroCool's answer is also valid in terms of explaining a limitatation - just not that useful with your current requirement.

In simple terms Backup Exec uses NDMP to talk to it's remote agent to do our standard backups, however with an EMC or NetApp device we use NDMP to talk to to the hardware to request an NDMP backup process (when using the NDMP Agent anyway )

Unfortunately your can't use the same NDMP configuration to do an NDMP Backup/restore as well as a standard backup/restore so what is happening is BE is trying to open an NDMP connection to your restore location (in this case your EMC device) to see if a remote agent is installed. It it gets no answer (or a denial response) it would then use the remote agent process on the media server to initiate a share/cifs level restore. However because NDMP is enabled on the EMC device a response is received that fools Backup Exec into believing the remote agent is installed but then when it tries to initiate the next phase of talking to a remote agent this then fails and stops the job.

Solution is therefore disable NDMP on the EMC device to allow the restore over CIFS to work. Then re-enable it if you want to do NDMP backups and restores for the future protection of the data. However you will also need at least one remote agent for Windows license installed on the media server to do a CIFS backup/restore.

Note you should be able to backup over CIFs with NDMP disabled as well - just NDMP is usually a more efficient process if supported by the hardware of your storage device.

[LLSA]

Thanks everyone for your input!

Colin, i will work with the information you provided. I appreciate the time you took to explain the process in as much detail as you have.

[LLSA]

Well thanks to your answers and a bit more work on my end we belive we have a viable way to proceed with the project at hand.

I did have a consern though, and from my searching online i dont apear to be the only one. Is there ever going to be a feature avaliable that could emulate an emc device for restoration? a VHD if you will.

I ask this because we have come to realize that once we make this transition, if something were to happen to our EMC device, not only would we be unable to access that data, but the tapes would be useless to us as well.

[pkh]

This question is not related to the original question.  You should post it as a seperate discussion.