BAR shows 0 bytes for DB restore

[Will_Restore]

I am familiar with NetBackup but not Enterprise Vault.  In NBU BAR the contents pane shows Full and Differential backups yet all of them show 0 (zero) bytes.  DBA does not want to proceed with test since he thinks something is seriously wrong.  Asked on EV forum and it was suggested to repost here.

[Will_Restore]

Further information.  NBU Policies set up per Article URL http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH150237

Backups are successful (Status 0).  Reports > Client Backups shows many Kb backed up for DIR_DB, MONITORING_DB, etc.  It's just the BAR shows 0 bytes to restore that has me puzzled. 

[Mark_Solutions]

You do not do SQL Database restores from the BAR GUI - you need to do them from the NetBAckup SQL Agent GUI on the database server itself

Open that up and select restore to see exactly what you have

Hope this helps

[Will_Restore]

Yes, I thought about that but none of these databases show up in SQL Agent restore GUI.  I suppose because they are not SQL Agent backups per se, rather Enterprise Vault backups.  Per the EV Admin Guide one uses BAR to restore.

[Mark_Solutions]

wr .. sorry - been a long day!

You are of course correct and i think the issue is that NetBackup has limited knowledge of the SQL databse backups - hence the use of SQL Management Studio to actually query the backups for any details.

Also remember that unless you are opening the BAR GUI on the client itself or the Master server you need the No.Restrictions file in place to see the backups.

I think the key is the lack of visibility NetBackup actually has of the data it has backed up

Hope this helps

[Mark_Solutions]

One thing i didn't ask ... when the backup jobs runs for the databases do they report the kb size for the backup

If there are none in the Activity monitor see if the catalog or client backups report helps give you an idea

[Mark_Solutions · Accepted solution]

A little googling around and i found this one:

http://exchangeengine.wordpress.com/2011/11/30/restore-enterprise-vault-databases-when-ev-database-s...

The screen shot of the BAR GUI here also shows 0kb as the size of the databases so as i suspected that is just how it is - sorry i didnt have one to hand to screen shot for you myself.

[Will_Restore]

OK, looks like 0 bytes in BAR is normal.  Thanks for that find. 

Set up a query in SQL Studio and it confirms Database and Logs being backed up matching the NetBackup schedules.  DBA was concerned because he saw alerts "database not backed for x days" but it looks too like this is normal for SQL -- default monitor settings expect daily full database backup, while we doing weekly full and daily differential.