Windows 2008 R2 Backup and Recovery

[DPeaco]

Greetings,

Master server - Netbackup 5230 appliance - 7.6.1.1 and all applicable patches for the appliance.

Windows 2008 R2 client - 7.6.1.1 client version

We've had many issues with trying to backup and recovery a Windows server. We can't do BMR because we'd have to have MANY BMR servers just to recover the various Windows boxes we support. My team supports over 1,200 Windows backup clients, 1,100 Linux clients, and over 600 Unix clients. We backup about 3.4 PB per month. Now that this is all out of the way.....back to the issue I'd like to find an answer for.

I've been told that Netbackup can both backup and recover a Windows server in 7.6x just by using the normal Windows backup policy, which is supposed to backup the system state and such. I'm not a Windows engineer so I'm having to work with our Windows team to try and find a true Netbackup solution to this.

Historically, the windows team would run a windows backup of the system state and have that on a data drive attached to the windows server. We'd run a backup of that server (all local drives), to include the system state. They would format the server, lay down a the same O/S and patches, install the exact same Netbackup client software and we'd run the restore as found in the old 2003 recovery doc. Restore of the server, it's applications, and the system state back to how it was before the rebuild has NEVER been successful.

I've been tasked with finding out how to backup a windows box and be able to restore it without having 500 different BMR servers sitting on the data center floors. 

Please advise.

Thanks,

Dennis Peacock

[sdo · Accepted solution]

Someone else had a failed Windows system restore using the overlay method:

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/system-state-restore-incomplete-programs-cannot-be-started-0xc0000142

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Someone else was considering not using BMR:

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/full-linux-and-windows-restore-without-bmr-option

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I have previously posted a comparison of two tech notes regarding system recovery for Windows using the overlay method:

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/system-state-restore-using-command-line

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I've twice witnessed colleagues attempting the overlay method for Windows, and not seen it work on either occassion.  I've had discussions with Unix/Linux admins who were adamant that the overlay method would work for RHEL - and they never got it to work.

Last week, I performed three NetBackup BMR restores of Windows 2012 R2 servers, from plain client backups, to re-create some VMs in Hyper-V the - all worked, first time.

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You only need one BMR boot server if you have your network admins enable PXE helper on the gateways.  You only need one SRT per NetBackup Client version for Windows.

If all/most of your machines are VMs, then you don't even need a BMR boot server - just use ISO based SRT, and you still only need one ISO per NetBackup Client version for Windows.

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There's a link to a nice overview here, look for the NetBackup v7.6 Blueprint for BMR on this page:

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/list-netbackup-blueprints

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At one customer, I just recently put in NetBackup BMR to backup several hundred mostly Windows 2012 R2 (a few 2012, some 2008 R2) virtual Hyper-V guest VMs - across multiple highly segregated VLANs.  I could have used one network based BMR boot server for them all - but in the end we weren't comfortable opening up tcp/445/smb across the VLANs - so opted for ISO based SRT.  There are only two ISOs, one for Windows 2008 R2/2012/2012 R2 for NetBackup Client v7.6.1.1, and another for Windows blah and NetBackup v7.6.1.2.

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Top tip:

Be sure to calculate the space/capacity demand that TIR will place upon your catalog.  You could be in for an unpleasant surprise if you don't forecast the catalog space impact of several days of TIR across your entire estate.  Post another question if you want more detail on this.

[sdo]

FYI - It took me about 1.5 man days effort to test and produce a very detailed site specific re-usable procedure document for BMR.  Once this was done the two production BMR recoveries for Windows servers that I had to do worked first time.

[Jaime_Vazquez · Accepted solution]

I need to understand your contention about not being able to recover using BMR.

We can't do BMR because we'd have to have MANY BMR servers just to recover the various Windows boxes we support.

I've been tasked with finding out how to backup a windows box and be able to restore it without having 500 different BMR servers sitting on the data center floors.

The BMR environment needs one BMR Master per NBU Master. If set up properly, only one BMR Windows Boot Server is required for ALL of the client recoveries, regardless of the Windows OS levels in use.

For recovery of Windows clients, a Prepare To Restore process in not strictly required if using media boot (CD/DVD/ISO) as the recovery method. Each SRT is generic by default and one copy can recover ANY supported Windows client as long as the SRT HW architecture (64 versus 32 bit) of the backup image matches the SRT. The installed NBU client code in the SRT should be as high or higher than the version of the recovery client.

As such, if all 1,200 Windows clients can be booted from physical or virtual CD/DVD drives, then a single 64 bit and 32 bit CD/DVD/ISO can be used to recover all of them.

So, if you can, please explain why you think you need 500 BMR servers. Because, from my extensive experience working with BMR, you only really need 1 per NBU domain.

[Jaime_Vazquez]

One thing I need to add. For your Unix/Linux environments, it is a little bit more complicated. The Prepare To Restore action is required and as such each Master Server needs to have a definition for a OS appropriate BMR Boot Server and SRT image. Each SRT is OS specific to OS release of the recovery client. But again, each SRT image is still generic in content and each can recover all clients of the correct OS level. And the Boot Server used to create the image can create SRT images at its OS level and lower. The OS of the Boot server does not have to match the SRT image created. The Boot Server needs are significantly lower than what you appear to think.