Appliance Policies not running scheduled fulls backups

[jgilmore79]

I've been asking around and haven't found and answer yet so I want to ask the NBU community....If I have a policy setup on a master to write to an appliance and the fulls are not getting kicked off after the first time (unless I run a manual backup), and the diffs are running fine, is this a policy issue or is this the way de-duplication works. (Diffs acting as fulls.) The reason I ask is because I do see a diff starting the time a full backup is suppose to and didn't know if this was the way it was suppose to be.

I think not because the retention on the fulls are set to 34 days and if I do not get a new full before then, I would not be able to restore a server to its full state correct?

Please let me know.

Thank you,

[Marianne]

Scheduling problems is normally caused by difference in our own interpretation of the schedules and NBU's interpretation of the schedules.

Please show us the policy config. On master server, run:

bppllist <policy-name> -U

Tell us when you have kicked off manual full backups.

[jgilmore79]

I kicked off Full Manuals last week. 5th and 6th. They were suppose to run this weekend on the schedule. Diffs ran and Fulls didn't. Does this have anything to do with the accelerator and appliances. Will new fulls be ran with the diff schedules?

Policy:            AIX_PROD_00_SUN
Policy:            Appl_Dedup_8963

For security purposes I'm showing all just a snip of that output. The Appl_Dedup_8963 is a policy writing to an appliance.

Thank you,
 

[Marianne]

We need to see the schedules section of bppllist output.

I cannot imagine any kind of security info contained in that part of the policy.

For the rest of policy output, it is perfectly fine if you want to replace hostnames with some generic names (e.g. Client1, ServerX, etc....)

[Brook_Humphrey]

What version of the appliance are you running?

If it is 2.5.1 there is a known performance issue that causes this and the fix is included in 2.5.2. At 2.5.2 there are a few other patches you will want to apply however to address other issues with that release.

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH203521

to resolve activity monitor issues.

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH205407

to resolve an issue with getting to many alerts.

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH204164

to resolve an issue with the webgui collecting and reporting hardware status.

Since applying 2.5.2 all my jobs kick off and run at the correct time. 

[jgilmore79]

We are running 2.5.1...

[jgilmore79]

I confirmed. It is ok.

CLASS Appl_Dedup_8963 *NULL* 0 750000 0 *NULL*
NAMES
INFO 13 0 0 50000 *NULL* 0 0 2147483647 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1360091654 3A749EE66FC811E28E370901BB4C5857 1 1 15 0 0 0 0 0 -1 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 184 0 0 1
KEY *NULL*
BCMD *NULL*
RCMD *NULL*
RES stu_disk_de08u8963 *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL*
POOL NetBackup NetBackup NetBackup NetBackup NetBackup NetBackup NetBackup NetBackup NetBackup NetBackup
FOE 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
SHAREGROUP *ANY*
DATACLASSIFICATION *NULL*
CLIENT de08wxxx0 Windows-x64 Windows2008 0 0 0 0 *NULL*
CLIENT de08wxxxx Windows-x64 Windows2008 0 0 0 0 *NULL*
CLIENT de08w9xxx-...Windows-x64 Windows2008 0 0 0 0 *NULL*
CLIENT de08w93xx-...Windows-x64 Windows2008 0 0 0 0 *NULL*

INCLUDE ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES
SCHED Full 0 1 604800 2 0 0 0 *NULL* 0 0 0 0 0 0 -1 0 0
SCHEDWIN 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 82800 89999 0 0
SCHEDRES *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL*
SCHEDPOOL *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL*
SCHEDRL 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
SCHEDFOE 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
SCHEDSG *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL*
SCHED Daily 1 1 86400 2 0 0 0 *NULL* 0 0 0 0 0 0 -1 0 0
SCHEDWIN 7200 36000 7200 36000 7200 36000 7200 36000 7200 36000 7200 36000 0 0
SCHEDRES *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL*
SCHEDPOOL *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL*
SCHEDRL 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
SCHEDFOE 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
SCHEDSG *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL* *NULL

I removed some of the clients from this and altered the naming but everything else is the same from the output.

Thank you.

[Brook_Humphrey]

You will need the patches mentioned above to resolve this.

Thanks

[Marianne]

You forgot the '-U' to give us 'User readable' format....

PLEASE run 'bppllist <policy-name> -U' and post output.

[jgilmore79]

Hi Marianne,

I did run the command with the -U. I will attemp it again and repost.

Thank you

[Marianne]

You will clearly see the difference when 'user' version of the command is displayed.
Please remember that NBU is case sensitive - it must be uppercase U.

[jgilmore79]

[root@dexxxxx admincmd]# ./bppllist Appl_Dedup_8963 -U  <-----I added the master to the end of this last time............
------------------------------------------------------------

Policy Name:       Appl_Dedup_8963

  Policy Type:         MS-Windows
  Active:              yes
  Effective date:      02/05/2013 19:14:14
  Backup network drvs: no
  Collect TIR info:    no
  Mult. Data Streams:  yes
  Client Encrypt:      no
  Checkpoint:          yes
       Interval:       15
  Policy Priority:     50000
  Max Jobs/Policy:     Unlimited
  Disaster Recovery:   0
  Collect BMR info:    no
  Residence:           stu_disk_de08u8963
  Volume Pool:         NetBackup
  Server Group:        *ANY*
  Keyword:             (none specified)
  Data Classification:       -
  Residence is Storage Lifecycle Policy:    no
  Application Discovery:      no
  Discovery Lifetime:      0 seconds
ASC Application and attributes: (none defined)

  Granular Restore Info:  no
  Ignore Client Direct:  no
Enable Metadata Indexing:  no
Index server name:  NULL
  Use Accelerator:  yes
  HW/OS/Client:  Windows-x64   Windows2008   dexxxxxxxx
                 Windows-x64   Windows2008   dexxxxxxxxxxxx


  Include:  ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES

  Schedule:              Full
    Type:                Full Backup
    Frequency:           every 7 days
    Maximum MPX:         1
    Synthetic:           0
    Checksum Change Detection: 0
    PFI Recovery:        0
    Retention Level:     2 (34 days)
    Number Copies:       1
    Fail on Error:       0
    Residence:           (specific storage unit not required)
    Volume Pool:         (same as policy volume pool)
    Server Group:        (same as specified for policy)
    Residence is Storage Lifecycle Policy:         0
    Schedule indexing:     0
    Daily Windows:
          Friday     23:00:00  -->  Saturday   23:59:59

  Schedule:              Daily
    Type:                Differential Incremental Backup
    Frequency:           every 1 day
    Maximum MPX:         1
    Synthetic:           0
    Checksum Change Detection: 0
    PFI Recovery:        0
    Retention Level:     2 (34 days)
    Number Copies:       1
    Fail on Error:       0
    Residence:           (specific storage unit not required)
    Volume Pool:         (same as policy volume pool)
    Server Group:        (same as specified for policy)
    Residence is Storage Lifecycle Policy:         0
    Schedule indexing:     0
    Daily Windows:
          Sunday     02:00:00  -->  Sunday     12:00:00
          Monday     02:00:00  -->  Monday     12:00:00
          Tuesday    02:00:00  -->  Tuesday    12:00:00
          Wednesday  02:00:00  -->  Wednesday  12:00:00
          Thursday   02:00:00  -->  Thursday   12:00:00
          Friday     02:00:00  -->  Friday     12:00:00
 

Thank you,

[Marianne]

Let's have a good look at Weekly schedule:

 Schedule:              Full
    Type:                Full Backup
    Frequency:           every 7 days
    Daily Windows:
          Friday     23:00:00  -->  Saturday   23:59:59

So, you kicked off manual backups on 5 and 6 May. 

Friday night 23:00 arrives and NBU checks if a backup is due.

How often must a full backup run? 
Every 7 days.

When did last back run?
Monday 6 May. (Just over 4 days ago.)

This means no backup is required (only every 7 days, remember.)

So, 7 days pass, but by now the backup window is closed.

Please remember that manual backups affects Frequency Schedule.

To overcome this 'problem', we can reduce frequency to ensure that manual backups do not affect the normal schedule.
We make the frequency slightly bigger than the backup window, e.g. in your instance, you can make it every 2 or 3 days. Because the window is only open from Friday night to Saturday night, backup can only be submitted during this time and will not run more often.

David Chapa's article about frequency backups explains it better that I can:

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/netbackup-frequency-based-scheduling-1

So, reduce the frequency in the Weekly schedule to ensure that it will automatically run this coming Friday night.