Master Sever V's Media Server

[Tim_Dile]

As I understand it the Media Server is a "helper" for the Master server. The master server takes care of everything.

However, when does the media server come into play? If using SSO unless one specifies use the media server within the policy it will hardly everbe used..... right?

Tim

[Stumpr2]

Master server = scheduler and keeper of the catalog
Media server = copies data to its attached media
SAN media server = media server that only has itself as a client
Client = any server that is backed up via NetBackup

A master server can be
master server - by definition/default
media server - if it has a storage unit attached
client - it can be backed up by any media server including itself

Normally SSO utilizes SAN media server license in order to keep the $ required for licensing down to a minimum. The properties would be set for MUST_USE_LOCAL_DRIVES

[Troy_Schuler_2]

Think of the master server as a director, a log keeper, and if you want a data mover. The media server merely receives data from clients that are told to use it for its backup. It too keeps track of the data and tapes it has used in its backups.

For your second question, that depends on how you set up the following:

Multiplexing on the backup schedule
max drives per policy
max concurrent drives per storage unit
max multiplexing per drive in the storage unit

For instance we have:
16 Multiplexing per backup schedule
no max drives per policy
2 max concurrent drives per storage unit
8 max multiplexing per drive in the storage unit

and we use in line tape copy allowing us to create onsite and offsite storage simultaneously. Our Unix backups can go to one of two storage units in a storage group. Once one fills up with media multiplexing, the next one in the storage group takes the next 8.


Troy

[Troy_Schuler_2]

"Normally SSO utilizes SAN media server license in order to keep the $ required for licensing down to a minimum. The properties would be set for MUST_USE_LOCAL_DRIVES"

5.1 MP3 was supposed to make that feature work properly but it doesn't. At the storage unit level you check the On Demand Only box. That means it is a SAN Media Server.

I believe they intended the MUST_USE_LOCAL_DRIVES feature so that media servers wouldn't go across the LAN to backup their data to another media/master server. In practice it uses the following order for preference:

Media Server with a tape from the tape pool needed already mounted first.
Its own drives second.

Troy

[Stumpr2]

5.1 MP3 was supposed to make that feature work properly but it doesn't. At the storage unit level you check the On Demand Only box. That means it is a SAN Media Server.
No...the licensing is the only determinating factor
On Demand Only ...can be used with/without SSO and SAN.

LOL
Yes the MUST_USE_LOCAL_DRIVES was a fix for keepin the servers from going across the network to another media server when its storage unit was not available. I just kinda threw that in as a freebie to get Tim excited enough to do some "Knowlege Base" searches :)

[Tim_Dile]

Nice one Bob.

Troy, whats your fragment size on the storage unit? Doesn't it take an awful long time to do restores?

[Troy_Schuler_2]

For our Windows fileshare/Exchange boxes we have an entirely different setup. But for the Oracle backups (which tend to be large chunks of data in our shop) we use 2000 MB chunks. We can recover DB's pretty quickly actually.

Troy