Basics – Force incremental
In one of those “old dogs can learn new tricks” scenarios, or perhaps more correctly, “never believe it until you’ve read it in the manual”, I recently learnt what force incremental really does in...
View ArticleUnderstanding Client Direct
Client direct is a (relatively) new feature, introduced in the 8.x series, (8.0 to be exact) which allows for a client to communicate directly with the backup device rather than going through a storage...
View ArticleThe current state of virtual machine backups in NetWorker
Introduction There’s currently three distinct and still-supported mechanisms for backing up virtual machines in NetWorker. These are: Traditional (in-guest agent) VADP (image level, previous generation...
View ArticleBacking up renamed directories
Long-term NetWorker administrators may remember that NetWorker used to have a somewhat odd mechanism of dealing with renamed directories. Nowadays the default option for any new client is to enable...
View ArticleParallel Save Streams for HDFS Performance Gains
One of the great features in NetWorker 8.1 was Parallel Save Streams (PSS). This allows for a single High Density File System (HDFS) to be split into multiple concurrent savesets to speed up the backup...
View ArticleNetWorker Usage Survey, 2014-2015
It’s that time of the year again where I ask my readers to set aside 5 minutes or so to answer some questions about how they’re using NetWorker within their environment. These results get compiled into...
View ArticleVirtualised servers and storage nodes
A little over 5 years ago now, I wrote an article titled, Things not to virtualise: backup servers and storage nodes. It’s long past time to revisit this topic and say that’s no longer a recommendation...
View ArticleService catalogues and backups
Service catalogues are sometimes seen as an unwieldy way of introducing order with a substantial risk of introducing red tape. That being said, I’m a big fan of them for backup and recovery systems,...
View ArticleWorld backup day misses the point
It’s fair to say I’m a big fan of backup and recovery. So much so that a substantial part of the last 19 years of my career have been devoted to it in some form or another. Yet here’s the rub: World...
View ArticleOne target to rule them all
Introduction It’s true there are some data types that broadly aren’t suitable to sending to Data Domain – any more than they’re suitable for sending to any other deduplication appliance or system...
View ArticleMelbourne DPUG and VMware Data Protection
Recently a colleague and I initiated the Melbourne Data Protection User Group (DPUG). If you’re interested in joining and participating and based in Melbourne, you can find details for the user group...
View ArticleLTO-7 and the Streaming Conundrum
The LTO consortium has announced: That the LTO Ultrium format generation 7 specifications are now available for licensing by storage mechanism and media manufacturers. LTO-7 will feature tape...
View ArticleClient Load: Filesystem and Database Backups
A question I get asked periodically is “can I backup my filesystem and database at the same time?” As is often the case, the answer is: “it depends”. Or, to put it another way: it depends on what the...
View ArticleWho should handle your database backups?
I’ve been working with backups for 20 years, and if there’s been one constant in 20 years I’d say that application owners (i.e., DBAs) have traditionally been reluctant to have other people (i.e.,...
View ArticleHow many copies do I need?
So you’ve got your primary data stored on one array and it replicates to another array. How many backup copies do you need? There’s no doubt we’re spawning more and more copies and pseudo-copies of our...
View ArticleBetting the company
Short of networking itself, backup and recovery systems touch more of your infrastructure than anything else. So it’s pretty common for any backup and recovery specialist to be asked how we can protect...
View ArticleBacking up to Recover: PSS, BBB and VBA
I’ve recently been doing some testing around Block Based Backups, and specifically recoveries from them. This has acted as an excellent reminder of two things for me: Microsoft killing Technet is a...
View ArticleBacking up Oracle with NMDA
In previous posts I’ve talked about options around database backups – specifically whether you’d use a NetWorker module or say, DDBoost for Enterprise Applications. There’s a lot of architectural...
View ArticleFalling in love with the IRS
Years ago when NetWorker Management Console was first introduced, Australians (and no doubt people in other countries with a similarly named tax law) found themselves either amused or annoyed having to...
View ArticleMy cup runneth over
How do you handle data protection storage capacity? How do you handle growth – regular or unexpected – in your data protection volumes? Hey, just as an aside, the NetWorker 2016 Usage Survey is up and...
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