cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

NBU "Open File Backup" feature or VSS

manatee
Level 6

NBU 7.6.0.3

in our license of NBU, one of the listed feature is "Open File Backup". as i've come to realized in other threads, namely:

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/cant-open-file-shadow-copy-components-0
https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/how-do-you-restore-files-alllocaldrives-backup

that backup of open files is not NBU responsibility but belongs to VSS, why then are we made to believe that buying the "Open File Backup" feature in NBU will handle backing up of open files?

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

sdo
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Certified

No one buys "Open File Backup" as a distinct licensed feature anymore - there is no specific license anymore.  Instead, OFB comes with NetBackup Enterprise Server.

.

This next statement is probably true for all general purpose OS and all general purpose file-systems:

If an application opens a file and places a restrictive lock on a file (aka a blocking lock, or a dis-allow read lock) then there's nothing anyone, even an OS, let alone a backup product, can do about it.

.

The term OFB is old and no longer relevant.  It comes from the very early days when Windows was young and didn't have the feature of allowing a file to be "locked for write, allowed for read" - i.e. in the old days, if a file was locked then it was locked, end of story, and no backups could be taken - and so third party backup product developers started looking at how to backup these locked files, and spent much time and effort developing neat tricks to get around the problem of locked files and read them - and so, because the backup software vendors spent so much time and money developing these tricks, they needed to recoup their investment and so made it a chargeable licensed feature, hence the "NeatBackup feature" name of "OFB".  All this is no longer relevant.

.

What is relevant these days, is to get your application users to close their files before backups.  If NetBackup cannot read a locked file, then some other aplication has placed a very hard lock on a file and there's nothing that you or I or VSS can do about it - and so, one has to change one's working practices (i.e. your users), or go back to the vendor/developers of the application which is placing the hard lock (effectively a dis-allow read) on files - and get them to modify their code.

View solution in original post

6 REPLIES 6

sdo
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Certified

No one buys "Open File Backup" as a distinct licensed feature anymore - there is no specific license anymore.  Instead, OFB comes with NetBackup Enterprise Server.

.

This next statement is probably true for all general purpose OS and all general purpose file-systems:

If an application opens a file and places a restrictive lock on a file (aka a blocking lock, or a dis-allow read lock) then there's nothing anyone, even an OS, let alone a backup product, can do about it.

.

The term OFB is old and no longer relevant.  It comes from the very early days when Windows was young and didn't have the feature of allowing a file to be "locked for write, allowed for read" - i.e. in the old days, if a file was locked then it was locked, end of story, and no backups could be taken - and so third party backup product developers started looking at how to backup these locked files, and spent much time and effort developing neat tricks to get around the problem of locked files and read them - and so, because the backup software vendors spent so much time and money developing these tricks, they needed to recoup their investment and so made it a chargeable licensed feature, hence the "NeatBackup feature" name of "OFB".  All this is no longer relevant.

.

What is relevant these days, is to get your application users to close their files before backups.  If NetBackup cannot read a locked file, then some other aplication has placed a very hard lock on a file and there's nothing that you or I or VSS can do about it - and so, one has to change one's working practices (i.e. your users), or go back to the vendor/developers of the application which is placing the hard lock (effectively a dis-allow read) on files - and get them to modify their code.

WVT
Level 4
Partner Accredited Certified
VSS will absolutely produce a crash consistent view of any file that is not VSS aware regardless of any locking method employed.

sdo
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Certified

WVT have you got a doc/URL which states that?

From what I've seen personally, and I've seen postings on here, is that that isn't always the case, even in the absence of errors from either or both of NetBackup Client and/or VSS.

For plain situations where VSS is not pre-configured for regular rolling (client side) snapshots, then sometimes even VSS fails to give us a consistent view of some files, i.e. files are skipped and not copied.  What I'm trying to say is that, if a hard lock is placed on a file before NetBackup calls VSS, then sometimes even VSS cannot rescue the situation and give us a "pre being opened point in time" copy of a file.

 

WVT
Level 4
Partner Accredited Certified
We can always find instances where something doesnt work as intended due to user error, resource constraints, bugs...but if all those are eliminated then VSS will work as designed. If it is skipping files then something is telling it to skip files, which would make that entity VSS aware, and for security reasons wont allow certain files to be included in snapshot. This is normal behavior.

WVT
Level 4
Partner Accredited Certified

@sdo 

I dont want to get too deep into this but there are registry keys that allow for skipping of files from VSS snapshots and backups. There are also windows internals that have this ability.

manatee
Level 6

so it seems the industry is still in the 20th century when it comes to backing up open files. this would be hard to explain to management specially vendor sales talked them into this feature.

for the meantime, i have asked my users to close everthing before leaving office to be sure backups are done for all files