Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you?
That is correct, I am on 6.0 and I did receive BMR license from Symantec From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 7:56 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you? I heard today that if you are a maintenance paying customer and on 6.0, you can actual request this 6.5 feature for 6.0 and they will send the license. From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed Wilts Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 12:54 PM To: Curtis Preston Cc: veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu; Hadrian Baron Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you? On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 11:45 AM, Curtis Preston [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I couldn't agree with Ed more. In addition, I BELIEVE under the new pricing model, BMR is included in the base product. As of 6.5, BMR is included. However, you need to get your upgraded license keys from Symantec before you can even install the pieces on your master server. The key upgrades are free if you're under contract. Client-side encryption is also free with 6.5. If you have a very small number of clients and they've got extra processing power, this might be an option. It won't replace an appliance for high-volume work though. .../Ed -- Ed Wilts, Mounds View, MN, USA mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential information of Northwestern Mutual. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, be aware that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of this e-mail and any attachments is prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify Northwestern Mutual immediately by returning it to the sender and delete all copies from your system. Please be advised that communications received via the Northwestern Mutual Secure Message Center are secure. Communications that are not received via the Northwestern Mutual Secure Message Center may not be secure and could be observed by a third party. Thank you for your cooperation. _ This message (including any attachments) contains confidential information intended for a specific individual and purpose, and is protected by law. If you are not the intended recipient, you should delete this message. Any disclosure, copying, or distribution of this message, or the taking of any action based on it, is strictly prohibited. ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you?
Can anyone chime in on if an Ops or OS person can handle running a BMR restore? -Rusty From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of rusman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 2:26 PM To: VERITAS-BU@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you? I was very interested in these replies and so far, like the answers. I have one more question: Are BMR recoveries simple enough for a non-NBU admin (such as DC or OS Support personnel) to handle, with proper documentation of course? Our team won't want to implement BMR if it means that each time a system needs to be recovered a call goes out to the on-call backup admin. -Rusty +-- |This was sent by [EMAIL PROTECTED] via Backup Central. |Forward SPAM to [EMAIL PROTECTED] +-- ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you?
Ops or OS? By OS you mean Operating System i.e. System Administrator? Having been a SysAdmin for over 14 years I'm a bit miffed at comparing that job to operator. In the U.S. at least many SysAdmins ARE the backup admins as well. Operators on the other hand typically monitor things and/or kick off specific tasks. So the answer to your question is yes I believe OS person could do BMR (as noted by others there were already OS specific tools for OS recovery on some platforms). For Operators I'd say if you could document it well enough to wear it tells them exactly what buttons to push and when then yes they could do it. My experience with Operators says that the bright ones are few and far between so I typically don't expect much of them. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 11:52 AM To: VERITAS-BU@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you? Can anyone chime in on if an Ops or OS person can handle running a BMR restore? -Rusty From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of rusman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 2:26 PM To: VERITAS-BU@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you? I was very interested in these replies and so far, like the answers. I have one more question: Are BMR recoveries simple enough for a non-NBU admin (such as DC or OS Support personnel) to handle, with proper documentation of course? Our team won't want to implement BMR if it means that each time a system needs to be recovered a call goes out to the on-call backup admin. -Rusty +-- |This was sent by [EMAIL PROTECTED] via Backup Central. |Forward SPAM to [EMAIL PROTECTED] +-- ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu -- CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail may contain privileged or confidential information and is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s). If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution, or use of the contents of this information is prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this electronic transmission in error, please reply immediately to the sender that you have received the message in error, and delete it. Thank you. -- ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you?
With proper documentation, and a demonstration of the process, I would say yes. The steps to create or prepare the BMR might be a little bit of a mystery for a non-netbackup person, but the process to boot the cd and answer the questions is a lot easier than installing the OS from media. It would be an easy task to educate Ops or OS on what is happening in the background. I would entrust this role to someone who can navigate through the NBU console with some degree of skill, so you can ask general questions at 3:00 a.m. and get informative answers. You'll probably be getting out of bed and driving in anyway, but having someone do prep work before you arrive would be handy. Maybe this would be a tier2 operation. You'll need someone you can trust inside the NB admin, who knows what to select when preparing BMR, how to make a CD or verify PXE booting, and this person better know for darn sure that the system they are about to BMR restore is indeed the one that is crashed. Formatting the wrong system for a reload creates extra problems you don't need. I saw it happen once, and heard it from others over the years. -Jon Can anyone chime in on if an Ops or OS person can handle running a BMR restore? -Rusty ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you?
If they're already capable of doing regular restores then probably so, but someone more familiar with NetBackup and BMR may need to step in if something goes awry. Most of the BMR complication is front-loaded, when you configure the client in a policy that uses BMR. -- gabriel rosenkoetter Radian Group Inc, Unix/Linux/VMware Sysadmin / Backup Recovery [EMAIL PROTECTED], 215 231 1556 -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 11:52 AM To: VERITAS-BU@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you? Can anyone chime in on if an Ops or OS person can handle running a BMR restore? -Rusty From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of rusman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 2:26 PM To: VERITAS-BU@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you? I was very interested in these replies and so far, like the answers. I have one more question: Are BMR recoveries simple enough for a non-NBU admin (such as DC or OS Support personnel) to handle, with proper documentation of course? Our team won't want to implement BMR if it means that each time a system needs to be recovered a call goes out to the on-call backup admin. -Rusty +-- |This was sent by [EMAIL PROTECTED] via Backup Central. |Forward SPAM to [EMAIL PROTECTED] +-- ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you?
Jeff, I think you might be reading too much into it. I certainly wasn't intending to demean anyone's position. My team, backup and storage, is separate from the Sys Admins so I was merely asking if the feature was or could be made easy enough for a non-NBU person to handle. Typically, the Ops team lays down the OS, then Sys Admins finalize it, so I don't know where the responsibility would lie if we implement BMR. As I stated, I don't want it to end up on my team. From the couple of responses received so far, it sounds like it should be fairly straightforward, as long as there is some education and documentation. Thanks, Rusty From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jeff Lightner [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 11:40 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; VERITAS-BU@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you? Ops or OS? By OS you mean Operating System i.e. System Administrator? Having been a SysAdmin for over 14 years I'm a bit miffed at comparing that job to operator. In the U.S. at least many SysAdmins ARE the backup admins as well. Operators on the other hand typically monitor things and/or kick off specific tasks. So the answer to your question is yes I believe OS person could do BMR (as noted by others there were already OS specific tools for OS recovery on some platforms). For Operators I'd say if you could document it well enough to wear it tells them exactly what buttons to push and when then yes they could do it. My experience with Operators says that the bright ones are few and far between so I typically don't expect much of them. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 11:52 AM To: VERITAS-BU@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you? Can anyone chime in on if an Ops or OS person can handle running a BMR restore? -Rusty From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of rusman Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 2:26 PM To: VERITAS-BU@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you? I was very interested in these replies and so far, like the answers. I have one more question: Are BMR recoveries simple enough for a non-NBU admin (such as DC or OS Support personnel) to handle, with proper documentation of course? Our team won't want to implement BMR if it means that each time a system needs to be recovered a call goes out to the on-call backup admin. -Rusty +-- |This was sent by [EMAIL PROTECTED] via Backup Central. |Forward SPAM to [EMAIL PROTECTED] +-- ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu -- CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail may contain privileged or confidential information and is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s). If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution, or use of the contents of this information is prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this electronic transmission in error, please reply immediately to the sender that you have received the message in error, and delete it. Thank you. -- ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you?
Probably comes down to what ops means. In many environments ops is helpdesk, or creating AD accounts, etc. Some places, it's processing restores and monitoring backups. Sounds like in your shop the sys admins are considered ops. -- -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: February 22, 2008 2:57 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; VERITAS-BU@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you? Jeff, I think you might be reading too much into it. I certainly wasn't intending to demean anyone's position. My team, backup and storage, is separate from the Sys Admins so I was merely asking if the feature was or could be made easy enough for a non-NBU person to handle. Typically, the Ops team lays down the OS, then Sys Admins finalize it, so I don't know where the responsibility would lie if we implement BMR. As I stated, I don't want it to end up on my team. La version française suit le texte anglais. This email may contain privileged and/or confidential information, and the Bank of Canada does not waive any related rights. Any distribution, use, or copying of this email or the information it contains by other than the intended recipient is unauthorized. If you received this email in error please delete it immediately from your system and notify the sender promptly by email that you have done so. Le présent courriel peut contenir de l'information privilégiée ou confidentielle. La Banque du Canada ne renonce pas aux droits qui s'y rapportent. Toute diffusion, utilisation ou copie de ce courriel ou des renseignements qu'il contient par une personne autre que le ou les destinataires désignés est interdite. Si vous recevez ce courriel par erreur, veuillez le supprimer immédiatement et envoyer sans délai à l'expéditeur un message électronique pour l'aviser que vous avez éliminé de votre ordinateur toute copie du courriel reçu. ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you?
Alas, more and more reasons to push to go to 6.5.1. Thanks for the input guys. - Hadrian From: Curtis Preston [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 9:45 AM To: Ed Wilts; Hadrian Baron Cc: veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: RE: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you? I couldn't agree with Ed more. In addition, I BELIEVE under the new pricing model, BMR is included in the base product. --- W. Curtis Preston Backup Blog @ www.backupcentral.comhttp://www.backupcentral.com VP Data Protection, GlassHouse Technologies From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed Wilts Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 4:47 PM To: Hadrian Baron Cc: veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you? On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 4:11 PM, Hadrian Baron [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Does BMR really speed up recovery significantly? Reading through the documentation it seems that between the multiple reboots, reinstalling windows, restoring the data files, reformat time, it seems like it doesn't save much time over a typical restore (manually reformat the system, load nic drivers + Netbackup, and kick off restore). Disclaimer: I've seen the demos but we don't have it running yet. I know the theory though. I've seen a full system restore from bare metal in 20 minutes. Our Windows admins take a day or 2 to rebuild a server...and even then, they don't always get it right. One of the key things to consider, though, is how important it is to get the server back to the exact same configuration it was before it died. If it's important, and it probably should be, BMR is far more critical than a simple re-install. Don't forget that not only do you have to re-install Windows, you'd have to apply all of the identical server paks you had on the system to begin within, all of the exact same versions and patches to the applications, identical drivers, identical registry settings, local user configurations, share configurations, and only then can you worry about the application data. If you try the rebuild approach, the odds are almost 100% that what you end up with will not be the same as what you started with. One missed setting and your application could crash, fail, or corrupt data. You may not even partition the drives the same as what you had. .../Ed -- Ed Wilts, Mounds View, MN, USA mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you?
I couldn't agree with Ed more. In addition, I BELIEVE under the new pricing model, BMR is included in the base product. --- W. Curtis Preston Backup Blog @ www.backupcentral.com VP Data Protection, GlassHouse Technologies From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed Wilts Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 4:47 PM To: Hadrian Baron Cc: veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you? On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 4:11 PM, Hadrian Baron [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Does BMR really speed up recovery significantly? Reading through the documentation it seems that between the multiple reboots, reinstalling windows, restoring the data files, reformat time, it seems like it doesn't save much time over a typical restore (manually reformat the system, load nic drivers + Netbackup, and kick off restore). Disclaimer: I've seen the demos but we don't have it running yet. I know the theory though. I've seen a full system restore from bare metal in 20 minutes. Our Windows admins take a day or 2 to rebuild a server...and even then, they don't always get it right. One of the key things to consider, though, is how important it is to get the server back to the exact same configuration it was before it died. If it's important, and it probably should be, BMR is far more critical than a simple re-install. Don't forget that not only do you have to re-install Windows, you'd have to apply all of the identical server paks you had on the system to begin within, all of the exact same versions and patches to the applications, identical drivers, identical registry settings, local user configurations, share configurations, and only then can you worry about the application data. If you try the rebuild approach, the odds are almost 100% that what you end up with will not be the same as what you started with. One missed setting and your application could crash, fail, or corrupt data. You may not even partition the drives the same as what you had. .../Ed -- Ed Wilts, Mounds View, MN, USA mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you?
On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 11:45 AM, Curtis Preston [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I couldn't agree with Ed more. In addition, I BELIEVE under the new pricing model, BMR is included in the base product. As of 6.5, BMR is included. However, you need to get your upgraded license keys from Symantec before you can even install the pieces on your master server. The key upgrades are free if you're under contract. Client-side encryption is also free with 6.5. If you have a very small number of clients and they've got extra processing power, this might be an option. It won't replace an appliance for high-volume work though. .../Ed -- Ed Wilts, Mounds View, MN, USA mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you?
Having just dealt with the licensing for this, BMR is included, as of 6.5, as part of the *Enterprise* server license. (It's completely unclear to me whether you can still buy a non-enterprise license, but an upgrade of our 5.1MP5 systems, which didn't have the BMR feature enabled, happily used the old keys but didn't enable BMR, despite the meatspace permission to use it; you have to go dance with licensing.symantec.com to get an updated key.) I also agree with Ed, Curtis, Jon, and anybody else who said the same thing that hasn't made it to me in a digest yet. Note that you may not save wall-clock time if you're fast and reliable about laying down the OS, configuration, and NBU client, but you definitely do save man hours because you don't have to take all the interim steps manually. That said, I haven't seen any reason to switch from an existing, documented, and internally-understood HP-UX systems recovery that relies on the (HP) vendor-supplied sys_recover bits, but BMR's definitely a win for OSes with less mature ways to do this (Windows, Linux) and probably for places where you aren't already doing something that works. -- gabriel rosenkoetter Radian Group Inc, Unix/Linux/VMware Sysadmin / Backup Recovery [EMAIL PROTECTED], 215 231 1556 _ From: Curtis Preston [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 12:45 PM To: Ed Wilts; Hadrian Baron Cc: veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you? I couldn't agree with Ed more. In addition, I BELIEVE under the new pricing model, BMR is included in the base product. --- W. Curtis Preston Backup Blog @ www.backupcentral.com VP Data Protection, GlassHouse Technologies _ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed Wilts Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 4:47 PM To: Hadrian Baron Cc: veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you? On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 4:11 PM, Hadrian Baron [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Does BMR really speed up recovery significantly? Reading through the documentation it seems that between the multiple reboots, reinstalling windows, restoring the data files, reformat time, it seems like it doesn't save much time over a typical restore (manually reformat the system, load nic drivers + Netbackup, and kick off restore). Disclaimer: I've seen the demos but we don't have it running yet. I know the theory though. I've seen a full system restore from bare metal in 20 minutes. Our Windows admins take a day or 2 to rebuild a server...and even then, they don't always get it right. One of the key things to consider, though, is how important it is to get the server back to the exact same configuration it was before it died. If it's important, and it probably should be, BMR is far more critical than a simple re-install. Don't forget that not only do you have to re-install Windows, you'd have to apply all of the identical server paks you had on the system to begin within, all of the exact same versions and patches to the applications, identical drivers, identical registry settings, local user configurations, share configurations, and only then can you worry about the application data. If you try the rebuild approach, the odds are almost 100% that what you end up with will not be the same as what you started with. One missed setting and your application could crash, fail, or corrupt data. You may not even partition the drives the same as what you had. .../Ed -- Ed Wilts, Mounds View, MN, USA mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you?
Gabe said: That said, I haven't seen any reason to switch from an existing, documented, and internally-understood HP-UX systems recovery that relies on the (HP) vendor-supplied sys_recover bits, but BMR's definitely a win for OSes with less mature ways to do this (Windows, Linux) and probably for places where you aren't already doing something that works. HP-UX system recovery, AIX mksysb, Solaris Flasharchive are all well-documented systems that work very well for recovering the OS to its current state. (Ahem, all covered very nicely in my book, BTW. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596102461/backupcentral0d ) The advantage to BMR is not having to do a separate backup for that purpose, and being much more automated. My experience has been that, even though those methods work very well, the fact that you have to do a separate backup for them to work makes them usually out of date very quickly. With BMR, your system recovery info gets updated every time you do a backup. That's as good as it's going to get. --- W. Curtis Preston Backup Blog @ www.backupcentral.com VP Data Protection, GlassHouse Technologies ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
[Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you?
I was very interested in these replies and so far, like the answers. I have one more question: Are BMR recoveries simple enough for a non-NBU admin (such as DC or OS Support personnel) to handle, with proper documentation of course? Our team won't want to implement BMR if it means that each time a system needs to be recovered a call goes out to the on-call backup admin. -Rusty +-- |This was sent by [EMAIL PROTECTED] via Backup Central. |Forward SPAM to [EMAIL PROTECTED] +-- ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you?
A shameless plug for your book, but no special discount code for us fellow backupcentral people? ;-) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Curtis Preston Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 2:52 PM To: Rosenkoetter, Gabriel; veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you? Gabe said: That said, I haven't seen any reason to switch from an existing, documented, and internally-understood HP-UX systems recovery that relies on the (HP) vendor-supplied sys_recover bits, but BMR's definitely a win for OSes with less mature ways to do this (Windows, Linux) and probably for places where you aren't already doing something that works. HP-UX system recovery, AIX mksysb, Solaris Flasharchive are all well-documented systems that work very well for recovering the OS to its current state. (Ahem, all covered very nicely in my book, BTW. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596102461/backupcentral0d ) The advantage to BMR is not having to do a separate backup for that purpose, and being much more automated. My experience has been that, even though those methods work very well, the fact that you have to do a separate backup for them to work makes them usually out of date very quickly. With BMR, your system recovery info gets updated every time you do a backup. That's as good as it's going to get. --- W. Curtis Preston Backup Blog @ www.backupcentral.com VP Data Protection, GlassHouse Technologies ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you?
(Except the free raffles when he speaks at vendor-sponsored seminars, of course... ;^) -- gabriel rosenkoetter Radian Group Inc, Unix/Linux/VMware Sysadmin / Backup Recovery [EMAIL PROTECTED], 215 231 1556 _ From: Curtis Preston [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 3:42 PM To: Kevin Whittaker; Rosenkoetter, Gabriel; veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: RE: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you? Sorry. ;) FWIW, none of the special discount programs I've seen have been anything greater than what Amazon does. --- W. Curtis Preston Backup Blog @ www.backupcentral.com VP Data Protection, GlassHouse Technologies _ From: Kevin Whittaker [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 12:39 PM To: Curtis Preston; Rosenkoetter, Gabriel; veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: RE: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you? A shameless plug for your book, but no special discount code for us fellow backupcentral people? ;-) _ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Curtis Preston Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 2:52 PM To: Rosenkoetter, Gabriel; veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you? Gabe said: That said, I haven't seen any reason to switch from an existing, documented, and internally-understood HP-UX systems recovery that relies on the (HP) vendor-supplied sys_recover bits, but BMR's definitely a win for OSes with less mature ways to do this (Windows, Linux) and probably for places where you aren't already doing something that works. HP-UX system recovery, AIX mksysb, Solaris Flasharchive are all well-documented systems that work very well for recovering the OS to its current state. (Ahem, all covered very nicely in my book, BTW. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596102461/backupcentral0d ) The advantage to BMR is not having to do a separate backup for that purpose, and being much more automated. My experience has been that, even though those methods work very well, the fact that you have to do a separate backup for them to work makes them usually out of date very quickly. With BMR, your system recovery info gets updated every time you do a backup. That's as good as it's going to get. --- W. Curtis Preston Backup Blog @ www.backupcentral.com VP Data Protection, GlassHouse Technologies ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you?
Sorry. ;) FWIW, none of the special discount programs I've seen have been anything greater than what Amazon does. --- W. Curtis Preston Backup Blog @ www.backupcentral.com VP Data Protection, GlassHouse Technologies From: Kevin Whittaker [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 12:39 PM To: Curtis Preston; Rosenkoetter, Gabriel; veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: RE: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you? A shameless plug for your book, but no special discount code for us fellow backupcentral people? ;-) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Curtis Preston Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 2:52 PM To: Rosenkoetter, Gabriel; veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you? Gabe said: That said, I haven't seen any reason to switch from an existing, documented, and internally-understood HP-UX systems recovery that relies on the (HP) vendor-supplied sys_recover bits, but BMR's definitely a win for OSes with less mature ways to do this (Windows, Linux) and probably for places where you aren't already doing something that works. HP-UX system recovery, AIX mksysb, Solaris Flasharchive are all well-documented systems that work very well for recovering the OS to its current state. (Ahem, all covered very nicely in my book, BTW. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596102461/backupcentral0d ) The advantage to BMR is not having to do a separate backup for that purpose, and being much more automated. My experience has been that, even though those methods work very well, the fact that you have to do a separate backup for them to work makes them usually out of date very quickly. With BMR, your system recovery info gets updated every time you do a backup. That's as good as it's going to get. --- W. Curtis Preston Backup Blog @ www.backupcentral.com VP Data Protection, GlassHouse Technologies ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you?
I heard today that if you are a maintenance paying customer and on 6.0, you can actual request this 6.5 feature for 6.0 and they will send the license. From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed Wilts Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 12:54 PM To: Curtis Preston Cc: veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu; Hadrian Baron Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you? On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 11:45 AM, Curtis Preston [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I couldn't agree with Ed more. In addition, I BELIEVE under the new pricing model, BMR is included in the base product. As of 6.5, BMR is included. However, you need to get your upgraded license keys from Symantec before you can even install the pieces on your master server. The key upgrades are free if you're under contract. Client-side encryption is also free with 6.5. If you have a very small number of clients and they've got extra processing power, this might be an option. It won't replace an appliance for high-volume work though. .../Ed -- Ed Wilts, Mounds View, MN, USA mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] /prefont face=ArialThis e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential information of Northwestern Mutual. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, be aware that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of this e-mail and any attachments is prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify Northwestern Mutual immediately by returning it to the sender and delete all copies from your system. Please be advised that communications received via the Northwestern Mutual Secure Message Center are secure. Communications that are not received via the Northwestern Mutual Secure Message Center may not be secure and could be observed by a third party. Thank you for your cooperation./fontpre ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
[Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you?
Just wanted to add my voice to the choir here, BMR in 6.5.1 is much better, simpler, free and totally worthwhile. I am already using it for system upgrades, migrations, etc. It's much, much easier now. +-- |This was sent by [EMAIL PROTECTED] via Backup Central. |Forward SPAM to [EMAIL PROTECTED] +-- ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
[Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you?
Hi all, Does BMR really speed up recovery significantly? Reading through the documentation it seems that between the multiple reboots, reinstalling windows, restoring the data files, reformat time, it seems like it doesn't save much time over a typical restore (manually reformat the system, load nic drivers + Netbackup, and kick off restore). Any ideas on this? Thanks! - Hadrian ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you?
On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 4:11 PM, Hadrian Baron [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Does BMR really speed up recovery significantly? Reading through the documentation it seems that between the multiple reboots, reinstalling windows, restoring the data files, reformat time, it seems like it doesn't save much time over a typical restore (manually reformat the system, load nic drivers + Netbackup, and kick off restore). Disclaimer: I've seen the demos but we don't have it running yet. I know the theory though. I've seen a full system restore from bare metal in 20 minutes. Our Windows admins take a day or 2 to rebuild a server...and even then, they don't always get it right. One of the key things to consider, though, is how important it is to get the server back to the exact same configuration it was before it died. If it's important, and it probably should be, BMR is far more critical than a simple re-install. Don't forget that not only do you have to re-install Windows, you'd have to apply all of the identical server paks you had on the system to begin within, all of the exact same versions and patches to the applications, identical drivers, identical registry settings, local user configurations, share configurations, and only then can you worry about the application data. If you try the rebuild approach, the odds are almost 100% that what you end up with will not be the same as what you started with. One missed setting and your application could crash, fail, or corrupt data. You may not even partition the drives the same as what you had. .../Ed -- Ed Wilts, Mounds View, MN, USA mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
Re: [Veritas-bu] Is BMR worth it / How long does it really save you?
I would say yes, it is worth it. A few extra seconds on the backup job to collect BMR data, a BMR server for each of your supported platforms, and you get a simple way to get all your data back along with the configuration. I too witnessed a moderately complex windows system come back to life after booting from a CD, answering a few questions, then walking away while the tapes wrote all the files to disk. I did a proof of concept test on a sun/solaris server, and when completely configured, you type 'boot net' and walk away. A solaris install can take a couple of hours to put down the OS, run the patches, and configure everything to support the application you are trying to recover, so a feature like BMR can save a lot of time. I never got to test out the PXE boot and BMR feature for linux. The windows recovery methods that involve a clean install can take just as long if you have a series of applications that each take their own time and set of skills to install. With BMR, everything you need to get the system operational (assuming you can successfully recover from the last backup) will be put down on disk. BMR is likely to save a bunch of time if your dynamic data (a database for example) lived on a disk and drive letter that did not completely fail. You can add NIC drivers to the bootable CD to support a variety of network and system configurations. It's in the docs. BMR would be handy as a backout method for systems about to be significantly upgraded. -Jon Hi all, Does BMR really speed up recovery significantly? Reading through the documentation it seems that between the multiple reboots, reinstalling windows, restoring the data files, reformat time, it seems like it doesn’t save much time over a typical restore (manually reformat the system, load nic drivers + Netbackup, and kick off restore). Any ideas on this? Thanks! - Hadrian ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
