Netbackup BMR

[Chukwuemeka]

hi

Am using Netbackup 7.0 on Operating system  windows 2008 enterprise

1.Is it compulsory to have ALL LOCAL DRIVES selected on the backup selection of a policy that has BMR enabled.

Attached to this comment are some of the hosts under BMR but most of them have selected drives in their backup selection and not ALL LOCAL DRIVES.

would BMR still work in this case when trying to restore a client.

1a. Must i always create an SRT CD for every client i intend to restore(i am using the option of booting from CD and not PXE)

2. Also attached is a screenshot of a problem i am also facing in my lab when i try to attach the drivers using the wizard, i don't get to see this extension(.inf or TxtSetup.oem) in the smart CD of the server where the drivers are.

[Mouse]

A BMR component is very generic. It collects data essential for OS rebuild, but everything else it recovers from the file backup. If you don't backup all local drives, NBU would recover what you had in back up. It's up to you what to backup and what data is needed for server's recovery.

As far as the second problem is concerned, you need to extract drivers if they are zipped. 

[Andy_Welburn]

backup selection of a policy that has BMR enabled."

It's recommended:

"...To ensure complete system recovery, use the ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES directive to back up all local drives. This directive backs up all files on the client and backs up the system objects (SYSTEM_STATE) for Windows clients. If a client has database or application files to back up using a NetBackup database
agent or other policy, you can do the following: use an exclude list to exclude them from the policy that specifies ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES..."

Symantec NetBackup (tm) 7.0 Bare Metal Restore Administrator's Guide
http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH127064

[mandar_khanolka]

>> 1.Is it compulsory to have ALL LOCAL DRIVES selected on the backup selection of a policy that has BMR enabled.
<Mandar> Not mandatory but recommended as Andy has commented above.

Either you exclude non-required directories in your backup-list with ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES
 OR you need to explicitly add OS drive and system state directories in the policy backup-list.
If any BMR required directory is missing in the backup then BMR Prepare To Restore will error out.

>> 1a. Must i always create an SRT CD for every client i intend to restore(i am using the option of booting from CD and not PXE)
<Mandar> Not required until and unless the SRT contains all the srt-winpe version compatible drivers (NIC and MSD) in it for all those client's hardware.
If your clients belong to same HW family and contains some special NIC/MSD devices for which SRT-WinPE compatible driver needs to be added then using bmrcreatepkg you can add winpe compatible driver in BMR driver repository. Later do BMR prepare to restore for one of the client to that the driver will get added into the SRT. Burn ISO out of this SRT and you can use it (generic restore) to restore all your clients.

2. I quickly tried http://www.bravofiles.com/download/HP-NC320i-PCIe-Gigabit-Server-Adapter-ZT2jUi9SCY.html to download the hp nic driver and found that it contains INF file.

Thanks.
-Mandar

[Chukwuemeka]

Hi, thx for all the comments,

Most of the servers on the network are really HP G5 and G6 servers, i would confirm the models by tommorow, so if i may say, most of them use the same NIC drivers.

I believe that a single SRT Cd should/can do the restore for most of the client..... What do you guys think.

Also most of the servers that have FULL Backup have all their C directory backed up, and i beleive the system state and the OS are usually stored in the C directory.

If i run BMR Prepare To Restore on any client and i get a successful reply, does it confirm that all the needed applications for the restore is available.

[mandar_khanolka]

>>> I believe that a single SRT Cd should/can do the restore for most of the client.

Certainly

>>> If i run BMR Prepare To Restore on any client and i get a successful reply, does it confirm that all the needed applications for the restore is available.

Yes

I think apart from C drive entry you need to explicitly add "/Shadow Copy Components" and "/System State" entries in your backup list.

Thanks.

-Mandar

[Chukwuemeka]

I have been able to extract the LAN drivers and i have added it to the SRT CD via the driver package wizard.

Also i now have a better understanding of the ALL LOCAL DRIVES, but i am also made to believe that once you have a successful report after clicking on Prepare to restore, that means all the needed files for BMR are complete in the directory that was backed up by that particular client.

My challenge now is that, i am trying to do a BMR restore of a physical backed up machine to a VMware client, i am getting this error....Error Networkinitialization Failed. rc=3997697. 

This is the first time i am doing a restore to a VMware client and i have added all the necessary LAN drivers with the driver package wizard. What i dont understand is why i am still getting this error.

Please does anyone have any suggestion or solution to this.

i really want to start using VMware client for my restores and general test.

[mandar_khanolka]

Looks like correct NIC driver is not available in the SRT.

Here is a tech-note on VMWARE network initialization failure. Please check if this helps.

Scenario:

Restores for Windows systems (32-bit only) running on VM Ware (virtual machine) having “AMD PCNET Family PCI Ethernet Adapter” NIC, which is seen as “VMware Flexible NIC” in VM ware properties, using FastBoot restore method.

Issue:

Since new BMR Restore environment (WinPE 2.1 - windows 2008 based) does NOT contain drivers for “AMD PCNET Family PCI Ethernet Adapter”, they need to be added in BMR externally, using “BMR Create Package” wizard, to correctly restore these systems.

Solution:

To correctly restore these windows systems, please follow these steps:

1. Locate the drivers on VM ware tools Media CD.

Usually they are available in following path on Media CD:

“program files\VMware\VMware Tools\Drivers\vmxnet\win2k\vmware-nic.inf”

2. On the BMR-BootServer, run “Create Package” wizard under “Boot Server Administration” wizard and add this package by providing path to the above inf file and other driver details (select operating system as windows 2003).

3. Now for the target client and config, create a copy of the config and associate the newly added driver in the above step with the copied config. For this config, select the SRT and run ‘Prepare to Restore’. This should add the required drivers to the SRT.

4. Now restore the Client using PXE boot or ISO (created out of above SRT). Client should successfully restore.