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Installing NFS Client service on Exchange Server for GRT browse and restores

CadenL
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

Am I correct in thinking that an Exchange 2016 server (running on Windows 2012 R2) that will be used for GRT restores only needs the Client for NFS service installed? And not the Server for NFS service?

Documentation suggests installing both and then disabling the Server for NFS service as this is only required on the media servers - is there any need to install Server for NFS just to disable it afterwards?

Also do I need to run the sc config portmap start= auto command on the client or is this again only needed on the media servers?

thanks

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

No, and yes. It depends on your Exchange version. No for Exchange 2007 or 2010, yes for 2013 or 2016.

With Exchange 2013 and 2016, GRT requires the client host properties to have the Exchange service account so that nbdisco can gather mailbox information before the VMware backup ASC job. With older Exchange versions, the credentials are needed only on the destination client used for browse and restore.

Details:
There is nothing in the application state capture (ASC) job that directly needs to access the Exchange environment. However, beginning with Exchange 2013, the mailbox information we need for GRT restore is no longer in the database. Text such as the mailbox alias, SMTP address, and UPN are only in AD. That means NetBackup can't harvest this information from the database on the backup image. The ASC job has to catalog it at backup time.

To support GRT for Exchange 2013 and 2016, NetBackup 7.6.0.3 started discovering and caching the mailbox information before the backup. This is done by the NetBackup Discovery Framework service (nbdisco) on the client. Nbdisco needs your Exchange service account credentials for the PowerShell commands it executes.

At snapshot time for a non-VMware backup, if the discovered mailbox information is not present, bpfis goes and gets it. This is not ideal because the PowerShell takes time and CPU, but it works. On a VMware backup, however, the ASC job does not go get the mailbox list if they don't exist. With Exchange 2010, that just meant extra processing on GRT browse and restore. It also meant the backup did not need Exchange credentials. They weren't needed until the browse and restore, which could occur on a different Exchange server.

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3 REPLIES 3

Lowell_Palecek
Level 6
Employee

You need only the Client for NFS service on the Exchange server / NetBackup client. The port mapper consideration applies only to the NetBackup media server.

CadenL
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

Great - thanks for the info

Just one more question on this please - with VMware backups for Exchange with GRT selected do I still need to add the Exchange credentials in the 'Client Properties' on the master server? We have just a single Exchange server with all roles and so I don't need the Distributed mappings but think I may still need to add the credentials to the client properties?

thanks

No, and yes. It depends on your Exchange version. No for Exchange 2007 or 2010, yes for 2013 or 2016.

With Exchange 2013 and 2016, GRT requires the client host properties to have the Exchange service account so that nbdisco can gather mailbox information before the VMware backup ASC job. With older Exchange versions, the credentials are needed only on the destination client used for browse and restore.

Details:
There is nothing in the application state capture (ASC) job that directly needs to access the Exchange environment. However, beginning with Exchange 2013, the mailbox information we need for GRT restore is no longer in the database. Text such as the mailbox alias, SMTP address, and UPN are only in AD. That means NetBackup can't harvest this information from the database on the backup image. The ASC job has to catalog it at backup time.

To support GRT for Exchange 2013 and 2016, NetBackup 7.6.0.3 started discovering and caching the mailbox information before the backup. This is done by the NetBackup Discovery Framework service (nbdisco) on the client. Nbdisco needs your Exchange service account credentials for the PowerShell commands it executes.

At snapshot time for a non-VMware backup, if the discovered mailbox information is not present, bpfis goes and gets it. This is not ideal because the PowerShell takes time and CPU, but it works. On a VMware backup, however, the ASC job does not go get the mailbox list if they don't exist. With Exchange 2010, that just meant extra processing on GRT browse and restore. It also meant the backup did not need Exchange credentials. They weren't needed until the browse and restore, which could occur on a different Exchange server.