NSS 8.1.2 enhancements

[aantoniou]

NSS 8.1.2 is currently scheduled for a July release and engineering is now winding down. Here's an overview of the enhancements...

Protection Enhancements

The Protection features of NetBackup Self Service have been enhanced to reduce the amount of maintenance required. Additionally, these changes provide greater flexibility when protecting VMware environments.

Self Service now allows for more attributes to be configured on policies it manages. These attributes no longer need to be specified on multiple template polices residing on the associated NetBackup master servers.

In order to offer a variety of Protection Levels to a user, previous versions required the maintenance of a template policies for each level. This one-to-one association has now been broken, with many Protection Levels in Self Service now able to share a template policy.

Storage Lifecycle Policy, Backup Retention, and Schedule Overrides

The Storage Lifecycle Policy (SLP) and Schedule (including SLP, Retention, Frequency and Backup Window) can now be configured in Self Service. This can be applied to the active policy on creation. Customers can configure Self Service to optionally override these attributes for the template policy.

Template Policy Report

For convenience, Self Service now provides administrators with a list of template policies required on the associated master servers. A new menu option on the Protection Type screen allows the list to be exported. This includes a status report on any items Self Service cannot detect. It also includes templates, storage lifecycle policies and retention levels.

Computer Policy Grouping

Policy management rules in Self Service have been enhanced to allow for separation of computer groups across policies. This is relevant when they are for the same tenant and protection level. A new optional computer attribute can now be used to modify the policy name.

Mixing agent based and virtual machine policies

A single Protection Level in Self Service can now contain a mix of policies with different client selection modes.

Protecting VMware Workloads

A number of enhancements have been made to increase flexibility when protecting VMware workloads. A selection of new configuration options within Self Service can override default settings from the associated template.

Client Selection

Self Service supports client selection based on a standard client listing for VMware policies. This is in addition to query based intelligent policies. Also, clients can now optionally be identified by their host name, as well as by their display name.

Optional File Restore

The policy optimization to allow file recovery from a VMware backup can now be controlled from Self Service.

GDPR

A variety of changes have been incorporated to support the European ‘General Data Protection Regulation’ (GDPR).

User Interface Enhancements

The user interface of Self Service has been enhanced throughout. The new top bar area now reflects standard Veritas styling and incorporates links to newly designed ‘About’ pages.

All available vertical screen real estate is now utilized by every page in Self Service. This reduces the amount of paging required.

Additional helper text has been incorporated and button layouts adjusted to optimize usability, particularly in the more complex configuration pages.  

Installation and Upgrade Improvements

A number of improvements have been made to ease the installation and upgrade of Self Service.

Most notably, upgrade complexity has been reduced, page sequencing and layouts adjusted, and additional help text incorporated to improve usability. The more frequently detected error messages have been made more informative.

Backup Server Management

The backup server (formerly ‘location’) administration area of Self Service has been overhauled to ease the registration and maintenance of master server connectivity. Extra validation and error detection has been incorporated to ease trouble shooting. Pages have been redesigned to improve usability.

A new NetBackup REST API configuration section is also available.

View NetBackup Jobs

Non-Tenant Administrators can now view NetBackup jobs associated to a computer in Self Service. A new ‘Jobs’ tab within the Computer Details page displays a jobs list / details page. The NetBackup API is used to query the associated jobs. This data can only be viewed if using minimum NetBackup 8.1.2.

Miscellaneous

• The Self Service API has been extended to support new functions available in the user interface. The API now also supports management of Backup Servers.
• Utilization data can now be regenerated by administrators from the monitoring tab.