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BMR vs Unix disk mirror

Itegral
Level 6

Could someone do a comparison between Symantec BMR and Unix disk mirroring.

This is in reference to a migration activity for Solaris OS to a new Data Centre. The current root partition of the hosts have resilient hard disks using Unix disk mirroring. I need to establish which of the above method will be effective, time-saving, and pragmatic.

The current architecture is NetBackup 7.5, Oracle RAC with AMS, SPARC M5000

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Yasuhisa_Ishika
Level 6
Partner Accredited Certified

You are compareing High Availability vs Disaster Recovery - these two is completely different.

By disk mirroring, your system is protected from single disk failure. But disk mirroring does not protect your system from disaster incluing data loss by mis-operation.

Whereas, system backup(BMR) does not provide high availability. BMR des not protect your system from disk failure - when disk failure occurs, the system may stop. But system backup provide you recovery point of your system. When system get corrupted, you can recovery your system from system backups.

BMR is not aware of RAC. It just provide automated system recovery method. After recovery, you may need  some steps to get RAC work. You should make POC in test environment.

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mandar_khanolka
Level 6
Employee

BMR provides server level disaster recovery onto same or different HW; same or different NB domain; recovery from point-in-time backup (full/incr); also it gives user flexibility to tune target system like disk/volume size/volume layout/NW configurations by providing easy mapping GUI.

Many of these features cannot be benefitted using disk mirroring.

Thanks.

Mandar

Itegral
Level 6

Thanks Mader. 

BMR support for dissimilar hardware on Soalris is not supported, right? 

1 - Also, BMR for Oracle RAC is not a published document, however there is a method to overcome this requirement. How about Symantec support's  view on BMR RAC, are they going to assist if required?

2 - I am more educated on BMR now, thanks for your help previously, could you help me gathering some high level points on disk mirroring process, limitations, risks & implications? I'll have to present it back to business and formalise a preferred approach.

Yasuhisa_Ishika
Level 6
Partner Accredited Certified

You are compareing High Availability vs Disaster Recovery - these two is completely different.

By disk mirroring, your system is protected from single disk failure. But disk mirroring does not protect your system from disaster incluing data loss by mis-operation.

Whereas, system backup(BMR) does not provide high availability. BMR des not protect your system from disk failure - when disk failure occurs, the system may stop. But system backup provide you recovery point of your system. When system get corrupted, you can recovery your system from system backups.

BMR is not aware of RAC. It just provide automated system recovery method. After recovery, you may need  some steps to get RAC work. You should make POC in test environment.

mandar_khanolka
Level 6
Employee

yes, above points are correct which you need to consider.

>> BMR support for dissimilar hardware on Soalris is not supported, right?

DSR on UNIX/LInux is not automated but you can refer below technote which guides you doing it manually. And UNIXes (not linux) are easy to do DSR as they have all required drivers in built. You would need to take care of MAC, NW addess, disk , volume mapping related stuff which is documented in bmr admin guide.

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH62678

thanks.

mandar

Itegral
Level 6

How does BMR deal with SPARC M5000 if it is split in two domains?

Will I have to take BMR backup of each domain one by one?

How the restore will happen?

Yasuhisa_Ishika
Level 6
Partner Accredited Certified

BMR takes backup of system - it does not cover multiple domains at once. You need to backup each domain. Please note that BMR on control domain is not supported.

Reference

Statement of Support for NetBackup 7.x in a Virtual Environment
http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH127089

NetBackup Support for Oracle Solaris Virtualization
http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH162994

NetBackup Bare Metal Restore 7.5 Administrator's Guide
http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC5163

Itegral
Level 6

Thanks Guys...

I have 3 SAN media servers running on SUN Sparc M5000 with Oracle RAC & ASM. How to backup and restore these NetBackup SAN Media servers using BMR?

Yasuhisa_Ishika
Level 6
Partner Accredited Certified

To backup the system, just enable BMR in policy attribute.

For restore, please check the section named "About restoring NetBackup media servers" in BMR Administrator's Guide. 

I recommend you not to use storage units on SAN media servers for BMR backup. If you do so, you can not recover the sytem because in this configuration the SAN media server must be running to recover itself. Of course, you can manage it by moving tapes or disks and configuring alternate media server restore, but it is a bit complecated to do in urgent situation. Better to use normal media server.

Itegral
Level 6

Thanks guys, last but not least;

In order to restore a SUN Sparc T2000 server with Solaris 10 /u8, do I need the matching architecture on boot server i.e. SUN Sparc T2000 with Solaris 10 /8? or it can be any server with X64 architecture?

Yasuhisa_Ishika
Level 6
Partner Accredited Certified

As described on of top this technote, Solaris 10 SPARC boot server is required.

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH87607

Itegral
Level 6

1 - I assume any Solaris 10 SPARC server would do i.e. T2000 can be a boot server for M5000?

2 - Alternatively, my Master server is on Solaris 10 SPARC M5220, can it be a boot server for Solaris 10 SPARC T2000?

Yasuhisa_Ishika
Level 6
Partner Accredited Certified

Both T2000 and M5000 is sun4v architecture server. You can use T2000 as boot server fot M5000. But please note that BMR on control domain is not supported as I wrote before.

T5220(right?) is also OK.

Itegral
Level 6

Yes SPARC T5220.

I have to recover SPARC T2000 and M5000 and also a Windows 2003 server. I am planning to use my NetBackup Master Solaris 10 SPARC T5220 as boot server for T2000 and M5000 and add another boot server to accommodate the Windows box.

Is that OK to register a Windows boot server on Solaris 10 SPARC T5220 Master?

mandar_khanolka
Level 6
Employee

BMR Boot server operating system platform needs to be of same platform as that of client OS being recovered.

General Rule:

BMR Boot server OS platform = Client OS platform

BMR Boot server OS version >= BMR SRT OS version ~= Client OS version

 

>> Is that OK to register a Windows boot server on Solaris 10 SPARC T5220 Master?

No, You need x86 architecture m/c where you can setup a Windows OS to build BMR boot server on top of it. Windows is more flexible where above OS version and architecture (32/64 bit OS) rule is not applicable. I mean windows 2003 32-bit OS based boot server can protect windows 2008 R2 (64-bit) box as well.

Also make a note that, sometimes dedicating a box for bmr boot server seems costly; especially in case where only couple of clients are to be protected for DR. In that case you can go with bmr media based recovery option. You can create a temporary bmr boot server on your NB client itself. Create an BMR SRT ISO and burn DVD and then disable BMR boot server back. Now whenever client goes off you can boot it over the BMR media and recover.

Thanks.

Mandar

Yasuhisa_Ishika
Level 6
Partner Accredited Certified

Is that OK to register a Windows boot server on Solaris 10 SPARC T5220 Master?

OK, of cource!

mandar_khanolka
Level 6
Employee

>> Is that OK to register a Windows boot server on Solaris 10 SPARC T5220 Master?

BTW if you mean you are setting up another x86 windows box for boot server and want to register it with solaris sparc master server then it is absolutely fine.

BMR master server can be of any supported OS platform. Only boot server is client os centric.

 

Thanks.

Mandar