Bare Metal Restore Boot Servers

[gumbo]

I'm new to backup and restore so bare with me. :) I'm using NetBackup 7.0 with BMR on a Windows machine and I'm having trouble understanding where the boot server should be installed and how much space does it needs. From my understanding, with NBU 7.0 the boot server can reside on it's own seperate machine, or it can reside on the same machine as the master server since it doesn't need a dedicated server. In the BMR admin guide, it states "A client may also be a server for other applications or data, a NetBackup media server, or a BMR boot server." However, if the client and boot server were on the same machine, how is the BMR restore image/configuration fetched if the client (which is also the boot server) goes down? How large a space should be allocated to a boot server? Since BMR is capable of network restores and media restores, it appears not a lot of space needs to be allocated since it's possible to access a SRT from a CD. In that case, would it be wise to allocate only a small portion of machine to be a BMR boot server or is it recommended that the boot server resides on a dedicated machine with the master server? Lastly, this has nothing to do with boot servers but my understanding is a little fuzzy so if someone can help me clear it up, that would be great. The BMR master server should be installed in the same machine with the NBU master server, which is installed with NBU server software. The client must individually be installed with NBU client software. Since these two components are on different machines, what establishes the connection between them? Thanks!

[Claudio_Veronez]

here We use a Solaris 10 (master and media server)
and another windows server as BMR server

we set that BMR server as PXE boolt server.

it works fine.


about the space it will depend on how many SRT you will have,

here We have just 2, win2003 32bits and win2003 64bits

think about 2 GB for each SRT.


I hope it helps

:wq!

[gumbo]

To my understanding, the client is referring to the systems that we're trying to protect. Bare Metal Restore backup and recover the client system. The NetBackup master server and the BMR master server are on another system. What happens when the client system is fine but the system with the NetBackup server and the BMR master server goes down? Would we still have control of backup and recovery of the client servers? Is there a BMR recovery for the master server?

Thanks.

[mandar_khanolka · Accepted solution]

However, if the client and boot server were on the same machine, how is the BMR restore image/configuration fetched if the client (which is also the boot server) goes down?
<ans> In case you intend to do BMR media based restore; you can prepare BMR BS on one of the client and create BMR SRT on it. Using bmrsrtadm available on the BMR boot server; prepare SRT ISO using the SRT created. This BMR SRT ISO is now option to your boot server.
Even though your client running BMR Boot server goes down; using this ISO you can restore your client back. Please refer BMR Admin guide for more details on media based restore.

How large a space should be allocated to a boot server?
<ans> it depends on operating system. BMR SRT size varies on difference OS. If you are referring windows here then total BMR BS size (including 32-bit as well as 64-bit SRTs) would be around 500 MB.
In case you are using BMR media based restore then BMR BS is completely optional.

The BMR master server should be installed in the same machine with the NBU master server, which is installed with NBU server software. The client must individually be installed with NBU client software. Since these two components are on different machines, what establishes the connection between them?
<and> In case of 7.0 version; BMR master server gets automatically deployed with NBU master server. But it is not by default enabled. You need to run "bmrsetupmaser" in order to setup bmr master database and start bmr master server service.
BMR client binaries automatically gets deployed with NBU client installation. Even 7.0 onwards BMR Boot server binaries also get deployed along with NBU client installation. You need to run "bmrsetupboot -register" to enable it.

What establishes the connection between them?
<ans> During NBU client setup it prompts user details about NBU master server. This are updated in bp.conf on your client machine. In case of windows these details are available in registry. BMR uses the same stuff internally to communicate. I hope this answers your question.

What happens when the client system is fine but the system with the NetBackup server and the BMR master server goes down? Would we still have control of backup and recovery of the client servers?
<ans> You can not recover client without having masters up.

Is there a BMR recovery for the master server?
<ans> NO. You may want to protect your master using another master in that case. :)



Thanks.
-Mandar

[gumbo]

More questions below! Bold marking are previous quotes. :)

If the client and boot server were on the same machine, how is the BMR restore image/configuration fetched if the client (which is also the boot server) goes down?
<ans> In case you intend to do BMR media based restore; you can prepare BMR BS on one of the client and create BMR SRT on it. Using bmrsrtadm available on the BMR boot server; prepare SRT ISO using the SRT created. This BMR SRT ISO is now option to your boot server.
Even though your client running BMR Boot server goes down; using this ISO you can restore your client back. Please refer BMR Admin guide for more details on media based restore

So if I understand correctly, if the boot server was installed on the same machine as the client, only a Media restore (with a CD/DVD) is possible since the boot server would also be unavailable if the client's system went down. However, if the boot server was installed on a seperate machine (assuming all network connections work), both a network and a media restore is possible? What if the boot server was installed on the master server? I'm assuming both a network restore and a media restore is still possible.  

Given that media restore was only possible on a client machine, how often does one have to prepare the SRT CD/DVD media to ensure best system coverage from failure? I'm imagining everytime a full system restore is done, a new CD has to be made. Please correct me if I'm wrong. :)


Is there a BMR recovery for the master server?
<ans> NO. You may want to protect your master using another master in that case. :)

And protect that master with another master?  :)
So BMR boot server can''t be installed on the master server utilizing media restore? Are there any alternatives to protecting the master server with BMR?

Thanks! Your responses were really helpful! :D
 

[mandar_khanolka]

So if I understand correctly, if the boot server was installed on the same machine as the client, only a Media restore (with a CD/DVD) is possible since the boot server would also be unavailable if the client's system went down. However, if the boot server was installed on a seperate machine (assuming all network connections work), both a network and a media restore is possible?
What if the boot server was installed on the master server? I'm assuming both a network restore and a media restore is still possible.
<ans> YES
So BMR boot server can''t be installed on the master server utilizing media restore?
<ans> It can be. Why not?
Are there any alternatives to protecting the master server with BMR?
<ans> Some customers protect their master server using BackupExec solution if it is windows OS.
You can also consider preparing cluster of NBU master server.
Also having NetBackup catalog backup available, you can build your master back and can restore the clients using BMR.

Thanks.
-Mandar

[gumbo]

Given that media restore was only possible on a client machine, how often does one have to prepare the SRT CD/DVD media to ensure best system coverage from failure? I'm imagining everytime a full system restore is done, a new CD has to be made.

So BMR boot server can''t be installed on the master server utilizing media restore?
<ans> It can be. Why not?
I was referring to using the BMR boot server with media restore to protect the master server. Is this possible to have a boot server installed on the client to back the client up and a seperate boot server installed on the master server to back that up?

Is BMR also backward compatible? Meaning NetBackup 7.0 is able to protect any client with the same or lower BMR client version installed?

Thanks!

[mandar_khanolka]

Given that media restore was only possible on a client machine, how often does one have to prepare the SRT CD/DVD media to ensure best system coverage from failure? I'm imagining everytime a full system restore is done, a new CD has to be made.
<Mandar> BMR Media SRT is not required to be created everytime to do client recovery. Once you create SRT media, it can restore all the clients belonging to that OS and arch/version family.
E.g. In case of BMR UNIX a general rule is,
BMR BS OS version >= BMR SRT OS version ~= Client OS version.
In case of BMR Windows,
32 bit SRT media can restore all win2k3/win2k8 32-bit clients. Where in order to restore win2k3/win2k8 64-bit arch os, you need to create another SRT of 64-bit architecture.
I would recommend you to go through BMR Admin guide quickly to understand BMR media restore in detail.

I was referring to using the BMR boot server with media restore to protect the master server. Is this possible to have a boot server installed on the client to back the client up and a seperate boot server installed on the master server to back that up?
<Mandar> BMR Boot server does back-up client data. The job of BMR Boot server is to create system recovery critical software i.e. Shared Resource Tree (SRT). Actual data gets backed-up to NBU master/media.

Is BMR also backward compatible? Meaning NetBackup 7.0 is able to protect any client with the same or lower BMR client version installed?
<Mandar> YES. Backward level compatibility is there.

[gumbo]

All of these questions are In reference to a media restore:

Say I have two disk drives on one system: a C: drive and a D: drive. If I performed a full system backup to ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES and saved that SRT iso into a media CD, is it possible to do a restore to just one of the disk drives? If not, does restoring to a specific drive require creating a new policy with the option to just backup a specific drive and then going through the whole SRT process again to burn the iso to a CD?

The BMR admin guide recommends performing a full backup after a restore. Why is a full backup necessary after a restore if the configuration of the drives is the same? 

Also, I'm having a little trouble understand restoring to a disimmilar Windows system. Is this sort of like backing up Windows 03 and restoring it onto Windows 08? How is this possible if during a media restore of BMR, the targeted disk in which we are restoring to is being reformatted and the system is being restored to the OS of the backed up system? If it is possible, won't the configuration betweens the OSes be different, resulting in  some applications not work because of comptibility issues?

Just for clarification purposes, a iso image of the client system or a 'prepare to restore' can be initialized at any time (even when the client is down) as long as a full system restore was done beforehand correct?

Sorry for all the questions and thank you for taking the time to answer them. :)

[mandar_khanolka]

Say I have two disk drives on one system: a C: drive and a D: drive. If I performed a full system backup to ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES and saved that SRT iso into a media CD, is it possible to do a restore to just one of the disk drives?
<Mandar> Looking at your questions I am guessing that you are confused on SRT role and its contents. The SRT is a system recovery critical software where clients boots temporarily (either on media or NW) and then BMR logic within the SRT drives restore part as user directed to BMR. The SRT does not contain actuall backup of client and instead BMR restores the file data from NBU master once it configures clients drives/volumes/fs in restore environment. In other words once you prepare a SRT for a family of clients (OS/arch/version) then you can use the SRT infinite times to do restore of any client belonging to that family.
To give you answer of your question, yes, only C:\ disk drive restore is possible using BMR. Using BMR admin GUI, user can select the disks/volumes restore wishlist and even you can map volumes to diff disk than original. Also you can make volume length and type modifications. This is BMR Dissimilar Disk Restore feature.
Please refer BMR admin guide for detail information.

The BMR admin guide recommends performing a full backup after a restore. Why is a full backup necessary after a restore if the configuration of the drives is the same?
<Mandar> In case it is Dissimilar System restore scenario, there will be differences in win registry and driver configuration as the hawrdware changed. BMR and Windows both do tuning to older OS settings. Hence before you take any incremental backup, recommendation is to take a full one before to start with a benchmark.

Also, I'm having a little trouble understand restoring to a disimmilar Windows system. Is this sort of like backing up Windows 03 and restoring it onto Windows 08?
<Mandar> It is not Dissimilar OS restore. Instead Dissimilar hardware system restore. Like original system was on Dell 2950 and you are restoring to IBM 3650 or VMware instance (P2V). OS+APPs+data never changes.

Just for clarification purposes, a iso image of the client system or a 'prepare to restore' can be initialized at any time (even when the client is down) as long as a full system restore was done beforehand correct?
<Mandar> This is correct. SRT can be created just when cilent machine recovery need arises.

[gumbo]

The BMR admin guide is a little confusing to me when talking about how to do a restore to just one drive using a media restore, so if you could shed some light into what I'm doing wrong, that would be much appreciated!

From my understanding, in order to perform a restore to just one drive, a dissimilar disk restore must be used. Given that assumption, I have two disk drives, C: and D:, and two empty disk drives, E: and F:. I backed up drive C: and D: and want to do a restore of drive C: into drive E:. There are the following steps I attempted to perform a restore to a single disk:

1. I did a full system back up on ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES and burnt my SRT iso image onto a CD.
2. In the NetBackup administration console, under BMR Management>BMR Clients, I selected my client, right clicked 'current' and created a copy of the client configuration.
3. The next step is to perform a 'Discover'. I didn't make any changes to network properties since I'm using a media restore. When I clicked okay, I assumed my configuration should appear in 'discovered configuration', but it did not. Under 'Task' I was however, able to see that the discover job is Ready to be executed, but I'm not sure how to prompt the execution. Nevertheless, since the BMR guide said this is only necessary if I am restoring to a new system, so I continued onto the next step.
4. Under the copy of the client, I clicked 'Changed' and Initialized all the devices and disks/volumes using the discovered configuration I created in step 3. An error message appeared saying, "There are no discovered configurations available. Please select a configuration from another client." I selected my client server (it was defaultly on my master server), and was finally able to select the 'discover' configuration I made in step 3.
5. Under the 'Volumes'>'Window Disk Management'>'Volumes' selection where the mapping is supposed to occur, my volume layout reflects 2 devices, harddrive0 with my C: drive partition, and harddrive1 with my D: drive partition. In the 'New Volume Layout', I attempted to only have the C: drive mapped to harddisk0, and nothing in harddisk1 however, I get an error saying "The configuration must have a volume containing NetBackup installation directory mapped in order to be saved." My NetBackup client is installed to drive C: so I'm not sure why I was receiving that error message but I ended up adding drive D: to harddrive1 with a "Create and mount file system but do not restore it"
6. After 'Prepare to Restore', I rebooted the client with the media CD inside and was able to get BMR started. However, when BMR got to the dissimilar disk partition part of the restore, it prompted me to redo the mapping of the drives, which I did, using the same steps in step 5.
7. After the complete restore, BMR restored drive C: into E: and it also restored drive D: into F:. How do I make it so only drive C: is restored and drive D: is not restored?

Sorry if that was a little confusing. I hope you're able to follow what I'm trying to do. Thanks!

[mandar_khanolka]

I am bit confused when you say, "restored drive C: into E:" (your point 7). Actually both are mount points. BMR does not support restoring content of one mount point into other mount point. Although you can change the disk drive where mount point (C: here) will be mapped.

But still I understand that you want to do "system only restore" or C: restore. And looking at point 5, you do not want to change c: disk i.e. you want to keep harddisk 0 only as original configuration.
So if you want to do c: restore only and also do not want to change its original disk number then during PTR you will see a option "system only restore". Please select this option and run PTR. In this case, only system drive (C:) will be restored and other volumes will be imported (will be untouched).

Also I am not sure why did you executed "discovery". Do you have destination machine different (system or disks)? Otherwise the discovery option is not required.

I had uploaded a windows 2008 physical machine to virtual machine restore demo which involves BMR DSR and DDR scenario. I hope this will be helpful to you.
https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/videos/netbackup-bmr-701-release-windows-2008-client-physical-machine-virtual-machine-restore-part1


Thanks.
-Mandar

[gumbo]

Thanks, your video was very helpful.

However, I'm encountering a strange issue. I have two disk drives, drives C:\ and drive D:\ in which I did a BMR media restore to. The BMR restore was completed successfully, all the files were also successfully backed up. However, when I'm viewing my disk files under MyComputer->Disk Management, my D:\ drive now contain a Page File on it. I guess somewhere during my BMR restore, an OS dependency was created on my recovered D:\ drive so now I cannot remove that drive without receiving a blue screen. With the original C:\ and D:\ drives before the BMR, I was able to remove the D:\ without problems. I wanted the restored drives to mimic this behavior.

I'm not sure where the problem lies. However, when creating the configuration to prepare to restore, if I just restored system disk C:\, it gave me this error: "The configuration must have a volume containing NetBackup installation directory mapped in order to be saved." I had to map both the D:\ and C:\ drive in order to perform a BMR. Not sure if that gives any clues into what could have happened.

If anyone could shed some light onto what might have happened, that'll be much appreciated!

[mandar_khanolka]

I would recommend opening a SERVICE REQUEST with symantec on this problem as we will need to refer different logs to know more on this problem.
In the begining please provide,
- bmr prepare to restore debug level 6 log
- bmr config edit logs (bmrconfig) in case you made any changes to original configuration.

Thanks.
-Mandar

[gumbo]

This time, I did a full backup on drives C:\ D:\ E:\ F:\. After the full backup, I looked at my Bare Metal Restore Management > Hosts > BMR Client, and under my client>volumes, I was able to see all 4 harddrives.

I attempted another full backup on drives C:\ and D:\. Beforehand, I had removed drive E:\ and F:\ such that the system is unable to detect them. When I looked under my BMR Client, my current configuration still reflects all 4 harddrives instead of just 2 harddrives. Isn't the current configuration supposed to be updated since I had done another full backup with only two drives?

[mandar_khanolka]

Certainly it should get updated. When you removed the two drives, did you confirm if windows disk management administration on that client is not showing these two disks?

Thanks.
-Mandar

[gumbo]

Yes, I have ensured the windows disk management admin is refreshed and only reflects the two diskdrives in the system, not 4.

EDIT:

I've figured out the problem. In my activity log, I was getting a "Error bpbrm Did not recieve bmr client request from  <client_name>. Upon further investigation, using vslogview, I discovered that BmrGetTempFileName() was attempting to access the directory D:\TEMP to create a temporary directory. Which brings me to wonder, since my C:\ and D:\ drive both contains page files of the OS, and my NBU client is installed on my C:\ drive, I can see how I would need to restore both drives for the system to work properly; but why would BMR attempt to access my D:\ drive and create the temp folder there when the client in installed on the C:\ drive?

Another question though is when performing a dissimilar disk restore, I specified the mapping of the volumes before I did a prepare to restore. However, when I boot the client with my SRT media and it goes into the Symantec menus, it would prompt me again to specify the dissimilar disk mapping. Why does this happen twice? Is it because the diskdrives I am restoring to are different from the original disk drives I've backed up?
 

[mandar_khanolka]

Is it because the diskdrives I am restoring to are different from the original disk drives I've backed up?
<Mandar> If destination disk size is different than the original one and volume size can not fit into that then DDR GUI will be popped up during restore time. But if the destination hard drives are different (e.g. harddisk0 original was 100 gb and now you are putting 50 gb) and discovery of that machine is not done prior to DDR mapping (before PTR) then BMR will assume that the destination size is 100 gb only. And in restore environment when we re-checks the configuration there it would fail.

NOTE: If DDR prior to PTR is done correctly then in restore environment DDR gui shouldnt popped up.

Regarding D:\TEMP, Not sure what is happening here exactly. Only bmrsavecfg debug logs would help.
But I guess you might have registered D:\TEMP as your windows temporary folder on your client system. I think BMRSAVECFG uses TEMP dir while doing client config discovery.

Thanks.
-Mandar

[gumbo]

I'm still having a little trouble understanding dissimilar restores. According to the admin guide, dissimilar disks restores are possible if you're restoring the client into new disk drives, or if the volume layout needs to be changed on the same disk drives.

I am able to perform a dissimilar disk restore when I'm restoring to different drives from the original, however, I'm unable to change the volume layout and restore it to the same set of disks that I backed up from. Dissimilar disks are not detected in this case.
i.e. I can back up C:\, D:\, and E:\, put in new disk drives and restore C:\, D;\, E:\ to those disks and even alter the mapping.
I can't back up C:\, D:\, E:\ and restore it to the same disk with a new mapping. It can restore the disk drives to their original location but when i attempt a mapping, it doesn't detect dissimilar disks during the BMR restore process.
Is this the correct behavior or am I misunderstanding? The disk sizes I used were all the same.

[mandar_khanolka]

Are you doing DDR config edit (volume layout change) before executing PTR with this config? OR are you doing that volume mapping changes in BMR restore environment (using auto-DDR that happens in restore environment)?
Please can you elaborate more on:
>>> I can't back up C:\, D:\, E:\ and restore it to the same disk with a new mapping. It can restore the disk drives to their original location but when i attempt a mapping, it doesn't detect dissimilar disks during the BMR restore process.

NOTE: please refer the video link i provided above to know more on DDR volume changes/mapping.

Thanks.
-Mandar