NetBackup 7.5 VM Backup Guidance

[CrystalHew]

Hello,

     I was named the NetBackup administrator with no experience or training after our backup administrator left the organization.  I've learned the little that I know from forums, Symantec tech support calls, and manuals so my apologies in advance.  Our NetBackup environment consists of one master (virtual) and two media servers (one physical and one virtual) all Windows 2008 R2 and NB version 7.5.0.4.  VCenter version is 5.0.  Both of my Media servers are configured as VMware Access and Backup Hosts.  I have been administering the environment for about 6 months now and my backups have been doing ok since I switched my VM policies to query based.  I have downloaded and reviewed the NB administrator's guide,  NB for VMware adminstrator's guid, and NB troubleshooting guide and I still have several best practice questions:

1.     Are there any disadvantages to having a mix of physical and virtual media servers?    If I'm not mistaken, I think I read that the VMware Access Host should be on the same SAN as the VMs?  If this is true, should I specify only my virtual media server as a VMware Access and Backup host?

2.    I have my VM policies configured for a weekly full and daily differential.  When I go to the BAR and click on restore from VM Backup I see all my fulls but I have to click on restore from Normal Backup to see my differentials.  Is this because the full VMDK must be restored first and each differential will perform a file level restore?  I haven't found any guidance on performing a compound VM backup (fulls and diffs).  I was advised not to use BLIB however, the VM manual states that BLIB will reduce the size of backups by tracking changed blocks.  Should I be creating two seperate polices for my VMs, one for full and one for differential?  If so, would this allow me to see fulls and diffs available for restore under the restore from VM Backup?

[Jaykullar · Accepted solution]

The backup host only needs your ESX LUNS presented to it if you are using SAN transport. If your backup host is also your media server, you can use it for backing up any type of client. I wouldnt use your virtual media server for this, use your physical.

Regards your second question, you can only restore a VM image from an incremental backup if it is using BLIB, CBT is only supported with VMX-07 onwards.

You may have to have sperate policies to backup your older VMs which do not support CBT and cannot have BLIB.You can keep one policy for Full and Incremental backups using BLIB allowing you VM image restore from both backups schedules.

[CrystalHew]

My backup host is also my media server and I've confirmed that ESX LUNS are presented to it.  I just created a new VM policy added a vmx-08 client, checked the use BLIB, ran a full and then a differential job.  Both differential and full backups are now appearing under the restore from VM Backup in the BAR.  The full took 11 minutes and was 35 GB, the differential took 3 minutes and was the same size, 35GB.  The duration of the differential backup led me to believe it was a differential however, the size is the same as the full.  Is this typical?  Thanks so much!

[Jaykullar]

Hi, are you looking in BAR at the sizes? They should be same as the BLIB restores a full images.

Please mark my response as solution.

Thanks,

Jay

[CrystalHew]

Yes I'm looking at sizes in the BAR however, BLIB is for incrementals not fulls right?  Are you implying that I can restore an entire VM via a differential BLIB image?  I was thinking I would have to restore the full and then the diff?

[Jaykullar]

A BLIB policy can have a full and incremental schedule in it. Yes you can restore the entire VM from a differential incremental aslong as the policy is active for BLIB. Give it ago :)