Running multiple NDMP backups from one host

[MillSymantec]

I'm just wondering if anyone has successfully got this working ? 

My NAS host is a Bluearc (now HDS) attached to a Scaler i500 with 3 LTO6 drives and I'm running NetBackup 7.5

It seems that no matter how much I try, I can never get a policy to stream to multiple tape drives at once. 

A Typical NDMP Policy:

Policy Name:       NDMP_A

  Policy Type:         NDMP

  Active:              yes

  Effective date:      12/20/2012 17:01:07

  Mult. Data Streams:  yes

  Client Encrypt:      no

  Checkpoint:          no

  Policy Priority:     0

  Max Jobs/Policy:     Unlimited

  Disaster Recovery:   0

  Collect BMR info:    no

  Residence:           veritas-ny-hcart-robot-tld-0-bmf-01-ny

  Volume Pool:         archive

  Server Group:        *ANY*

  Keyword:             (none specified)

  Data Classification:       -

  Residence is Storage Lifecycle Policy:    no

  Application Discovery:      no

  Discovery Lifetime:      0 seconds

  ASC Application and attributes: (none defined)

  Granular Restore Info:  no

  Ignore Client Direct:  no

  Enable Metadata Indexing:  no

  Index server name:  NULL

  Use Accelerator:  no

  HW/OS/Client:  NDMP          NDMP          bmf-01-ny

  Include:  /__VOLUME__/fs2/ads/FOLDER1

               /__VOLUME__/fs2/ads/FOLDER2

  Schedule:              Full

    Type:                Full Backup

    Frequency:           every 7 days

    Maximum MPX:         1

    Synthetic:           0

    Checksum Change Detection: 0

    PFI Recovery:        0

    Retention Level:     9 (infinity)

    Number Copies:       1

    Fail on Error:       0

    Residence:           (specific storage unit not required)

    Volume Pool:         (same as policy volume pool)

    Server Group:        (same as specified for policy)

    Residence is Storage Lifecycle Policy:         0

    Schedule indexing:     0

    Daily Windows:

          Sunday     18:00:00  -->  Monday     05:00:00

          Monday     18:00:00  -->  Tuesday    05:00:00

          Tuesday    18:00:00  -->  Wednesday  05:00:00

          Wednesday  18:00:00  -->  Thursday   05:00:00

          Thursday   18:00:00  -->  Friday     05:00:00

          Friday     18:00:00  -->  Saturday   05:00:00

          Saturday   18:00:00  -->  Sunday     05:00:00

For some reason, starting this job will only stream data to 1 tape and with 250TB+ to back up it's a little time consuming. 

Any pointers or insights as to what I'm doing wrong? 

[Zackariah]

Mill,

Have you set the "Maximum jobs per client" setting under Host Properties > Master Servers > Master Server > Global Attributes to more than "1"?

Another part that you'll need to include is the "NEW_STREAM" directive in your policy. Unless you have that between your two folders, it'll all be backed up in a "row" as one stream which won't be split into multiple jobs. (Which is why you also need to up the "Maximum Jobs per Client") Each stream will be ran with it's own job, with a parent job for both.

[smurphy]

Does it only spawn one job or does a second one sit in a Queued state in the Activity Monitor, waiting for the first one to end? 

Check Host Properties --> Master Server and bring up the Properties dialog.

In 'Global Attributes', make sure 'Maximum jobs per client' is something greater than 1.

Also check storage unit  veritas-ny-hcart-robot-tld-0-bmf-01-ny to make sure number of drives and  Max concurrent jobs are greater than 1 also.

You could try using the NEW_STREAM directive, although you should not have to:

NEW_STREAM

 /__VOLUME__/fs2/ads/FOLDER1

NEW_STREAM/

/__VOLUME__/fs2/ads/FOLDER2

[MillSymantec]

Yessir, I've set the Maxiumum Jobs Per Client. 

Not entirely sure what you mean by the NEW_STREAM directive. What my backup client selection looks like now is

/__VOLUME__/fs2/ads/DIRECTORY1

NEW_STREAM

UNSET_ALL

UNSET

/__VOLUME__/fs2/ads/DIRECTORY2

Does that sound correct ?

[smurphy]

Try it my way once:

NEW_STREAM
 /__VOLUME__/fs2/ads/FOLDER1
NEW_STREAM
/__VOLUME__/fs2/ads/FOLDER2

[MillSymantec]

Aha, this is looking promising. 

I'm getting 3 jobs running now, one master and two underneath. The only issue now is that the 2nd set of folders is telling me that there are no drives available for the backup.

[MillSymantec]

It works! I can't thank you enough. I've had multiple calls to my storage + backup vendors and come up empty. 

[smurphy]

Good to hear!  The first job is the parent job, to look after the child jobs.  It will stay running as long as any of the child jobs are runnng.