"initialize" in bare-metal restore?

[Magnifico]

What exactly means "initialize"? Does it means client disks mappings only while restore operation or does it means also disk mappings while restored Windows is booted up?  

[Nick_Morris]

The initialize button in BMR with regards to disks is importing a configuration that has previously been saved (either from a backup or a discovered configuration). This will be the layout of the disks at the time of a backup or the disk layout when it was discovered. This can then be modified if needed for the client you are requiring to restore. This can include both the boot disks and non-boot disks.

Regards,

Nick

[Magnifico]

Sorry, I was meant this "import" feature (instead of restore).

[Marianne]

Have you tried to find answers in the manual?

Extract from NBU BMR manual  http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC5163:

About BMR disk recovery behavior

BMR either restores or imports disks during a restore, as follows:

■ To restore a disk means that BMR formats the disk and restore files to it. No

attempt is made to retain any data on the disk.

■ To import a disk means that BMR tries to reuse the volumes on it (that is,

mount the file systems after restore). BMR tries to reuse rather than format

the disk and restore files to it.

[Magnifico]

But what means "mount the file system after restore"? After restore windows usually boots up when I restart machine. So, if windows os was restored 1:1 from backup, then windows mounts all drives by itself automatically exactly the same letters those was befor backup. What NetBackup mounts there? What settings I must use if I dont want any modifications to windows os, I just want to restore exactly as it was before backup. 

[Linette_V]

So, let's say your windows machine has a c: drive and a d: drive on different physical disks. With BMR we could restore everything and wipe over the top of the data on both drives, or we could leave the information on D intact and only wipe out and restore to the  C: drive. 

I hope that makes things more clear.

[Magnifico]

Its not clear jet. When I want only restore C drive and let D intact, then I must mount D drive with NetBackup or not mount it with NetBackup or even restrict its access? Or let windows mount it itself after boot? 

[Marianne]

Have another look at the extract from the manual:

To import a disk means that BMR tries to reuse the volumes on it (that is,

mount the file systems after restore).

Surely the above answers your question?

[mandar_khanolka · Accepted solution]

I will try to explain,

1. On "Initialize":

    This operation is generally required when you want your BMR protected client to be restored over different system/hw than origianl machine where it was running over.

    In this case, using BMR SRT (shared resource tree), user does BMR discovery operation on target hardware (which can be absolutely raw w/o any os on it). This discovery sends a new BMR config (called as discovered config) to BMR master server.

   Now you have original BMR client config and new one i.e. discovered where recovery is intended. Using BMRCONFIG GUI mapping "Initialize" operation, you can have origianl client config mapped to target config automatically. BMR does its best to auto-map, device drivers, nw details, disks, volumes, fs over target config. Make a note that this is pre-recovery logical mapping step. Here user can tune config as per requirement. Like, moving original fs on disk1 to disk2 or increase its size or change layout etc.

 After you prepare target BMR config, you can select it and do Prepare to Restore operation and boot your target hw for actual recovery.

2. On "IMPORT" referred above:

If you can guess from above explanation, using BMR you can tune your recovery like, you can also choose which file systems to be recovered. Obviously OS fs are must to be present.

You can also do OS_ONLY recovery by choosing option in PTR wizard.

As Marianne mentioned above, in case where you do not want to recover whole system but only os file systems as you might have your data in-tact (lets say over SAN LUN which you had connected to your original client). Now you can select OS_ONLY recovery option and also choose "import' for other fs while doing PTR; in this case, post-recovery when machine comes up over target HW, BMR will try to auto-import any SAN LUN based fs (obviously if SAN LUN is connected to target).

Read BMR admin guide for more details.

Thanks.

Mandar

[Magnifico]

Thanx, but this GUI for changing configuration to newly discovered state dont work. I readed documentation, but there is nothing about it. The first configuration is named "current". It is read-only, and I must clone it to be able to edit it. Yes, if I make clone from "current", then I can edit it and set compatible with new configuration just discovered and all is OK. BUT! I dont want just this "current", as it means the last incremental point. I want example some earlier point. So, when I now make clone from some earlier incremental point, then this new clone of "current" (I name it example "cur1") is still read-only and still it dont allow me to modify it. 

[Linette_V]

It sounds like cur1 is a 'point in time' configuration (a restore from a specific time/backup).  These are read only by default, however you should now be able to right click on cur1, select new configuration (using cur1 as the base) and this newest configuration will be editable.

[Magnifico]

Yes, the new one (I named it cur2) is editable, but for it "prepare for recovery" dont work anymore. With "current" and "cur1" it worked. The whole concept is not normal. I can make backups, but never cant be sure about restoration.