Backup time in Windows Server 2008 with Netbackup 7.6.0.2

[ProblemFinder]

Hi guys,

First of all sorry for writing a second post about some doubts, but I hope to give more points too!!

Im using Symantec Netbackup 7.6.0.2 on a few servers running Windows Server 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010.

From an answer from another post I've used bpclimagelist -client DAG_NAME -ct 16 ,and I've got a very nice report with all the backups on my client (almost all the information I need), but I need a bit more of info for each backup : "How much time is taking each backup", just to see if they are overlapping and saturating the server with FULLs and INCRs.

I dont have access to any central console (the backup team is another department, and they don't flow correctly the information ) so, I need something on the client to show how much time is taking each backup, if that's possible.

Thanks a lot in advance for all the help, you are great. 

[watsons]

I don't have an Exchange server to check, but for my database backup (such as SQL) it is possible to find those info (job details) from your client end - provided the logs did not get purged.

Try looking for logs or any file under:

\Program Files\Veritas\Netbackup\logs\user_ops\*

[Nicolai]

For that level of information you need OPScenter - part of Netbackup (no extra cost). But deployed individual in a Windows/Unix box.

With OPScenter you can do all sort of reporting and monitoring - and best of all, the the central backup team can grant  the right level of permission so you can do youre work, and they don't have grant you a access to the core part of Netbackup.

http://www.symantec.com/opscenter-analytics/

http://eval.symantec.com/mktginfo/enterprise/white_papers/b-nbu_7_opscenter_analytics_WP.en-us.pdf 

[Marianne]

Unfortunately no reports from client side will give you duration of backup.

Only reports and commands on the master will give that type of info.

Seems you have 2 choices:

1) Build a better relationship with backup team.

2) Create bpbkar log and increase logging level to 1.
At the end of each backup, you will see "Elapsed time" and total size of backup in the log.

[sdo]

Do you have admin level access to the backup client?

If so, there might be a couple of things that you can do.

[ProblemFinder]

Hi guys,

I've been a few days on holidays.

About the relationship with the backup team ... Sorry about that. That's a bit ... complicated.

And yes, I have admin access to the backup clients. No problem with domain admin rights.

Cheers and thanks again,

[sdo · Accepted solution]

I think you could determine backup start, duration, end, size, and throughput all from the client side.  It would take some scripting - or a well devised manual process.  As long as:

- Client side logging is set to at least level 1 (or BKBKAR_VERBOSE is set to 1)

- And the bpbkar log folder exists.

...then, you could do something along the lines of...

1) use a find command on \log\bpbkar\MMDDYY.log to pick out the start of the backup job (look for the "lpCmdLine" log entry), and also get the process ID - to create file a.lis.

2) then for each entry in a.lis

3) then use find to select only the entries for that process ID - to create b.lis

3) use a find command to search b.lis for "called with" to show what that job was attempting to backup.

4) search b.lis for 'Exiting' entry - which would give you the end time.  You can now work out the duration.

5) convert ths ctime of the backup image to a date time, and then use the blclimagelist with -s and -e of the same date time to get the size of the backup.  Now you have size and duration, you can calculate throughput.

6) then use bplist, again with -s and -e of the same date time, to get the top path of the what is in the backup image - i.e. what was actually backed-up.

7) loop back to step 2) (i.e. next entry in a.lis).

...the tricky part would appear to be converting the ctime to a date time - but it's not that tricky, you can do this with one line of VBscript.

HTH.