REO SERIES RA2000. Application Note for Creating a Disk-to-Disk (D2D) Backup Strategy Utilizing the RA2000 with VERITAS Backup Exec 8.

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1 Overland Storage REO SERIES RA2000 Application Note for Creating a Disk-to-Disk (D2D) Backup Strategy Utilizing the RA2000 with VERITAS Backup Exec 8.6

2 Overland Storage REO SERIES RA2000 Creating a D2D Backup Strategy with VERITAS Backup Exec 8.6 The Overland Storage REO SERIES RA2000 Backup Server Accelerator lets you create and send backup save-sets directly to disk instead of tape, which dramatically increases the speed at which each backup job is processed and thus reduces the time associated with backup windows. Keeping your backup save-sets on disk also provides the opportunity for performing almost instantaneous restores. Backing up to a save-set on disk instead of tape requires a shift in the backup strategy, and this document discusses that strategy and provides instructions on how to implement the strategy with VERITAS Backup Exec 8.6. A typical tape backup strategy might include: Step 1 A daily differential backup job that backs up to tape everything that has changed since the previous weekly full backup. This strategy might also require the creation of a different physical tape for each day of the week and stipulate that the Monday tape be overwritten each Monday, and so on. Step 2 A weekly backup job that backs up everything to tape and resets the archive bit. This strategy might be further defined such that there is a different physical tape for each week of the month and that the first Friday tape is overwritten each month, and so on. Step 3 A monthly backup job that runs in place of the weekly backup job, backs up everything to tape, and resets the archive bit. This strategy could also specify that a different physical tape be created for each month of the year and that the April tape is overwritten every year, and so on. Performing a restore under this strategy means looking at the appropriate catalog for the save-set that contains the applicable files or folders and starting the job, whereupon the selected content is restored to the specified location. Delays occur if the tape needed for the restore must be retrieved from an off-site location. The RA2000 offers not only the opportunity to reduce backup windows dramatically by copying data directly to disk instead of tape, it also allows you to keep a certain number of save-sets on the appliance itself so that files can be restored very quickly. However, you must carefully think through the backup strategy needed to make this work. To create the best strategy for your organization, you must first answer the following questions: How much data will be created each day on the RA2000 for the disk-to-disk save-set? How much data will be created during the entire week? The number of days or weeks worth of data that can be stored on the RA2000 depends on how much data each save-set requires and how much space is available on the RA2000. The amount of space available on the RA2000 depends on how you configure the connected targets (disks). When you create a backup-to-disk folder on the RA2000 and then execute a backup job to that new folder, Backup Exec backs up the files to a single file in that folder, which represents the save-set. Backup jobs configured to Append will cause the single-file save-set to continue to increase in size. Backup jobs configured to Overwrite will strip the original file and begin to populate it again, which means that any data previously written 2 Creating a D2D Backup Strategy with VERITAS Backup Exec 8.6

3 Application Note to that save-set will be lost. To avoid a potential loss of data in a backupto-disk strategy, Overland recommends that you use the Append option instead of the Overwrite option. Use care when working with disk-to-disk backup save-sets. The goal for a disk-to-disk backup strategy is that when a file restore is requested, the save-set that contains the files still resides on the RA2000. If there is a single backup-to-disk folder and backup jobs are allowed to append to that single file save-set, the RA2000 disk will eventually become full, the backup job will fail, and you will need to copy the save-set to tape and delete it from the disk to make room for the next backup job. The drawback with this scenario is that when you delete the save-set from the RA2000, there will be no data on the RA2000 to facilitate quick restore operations. Overland Storage recommends that you create smaller save-sets of shorter time-length and develop a strategy to migrate save-set files from the RA2000 at intervals. This ensures that the REO SERIES Appliance never completely runs out of space and yet still provides a reasonable amount of data on disk for restore operations. Following is an example of this strategy using VERITAS Backup Exec 8.6. This examples uses a Windows 2000 Server with Backup Exec 8.6 installed and an Overland Storage PowerLoader tape device connected to a REO SERIES RA2000 with an iscsi connection to a 250 GB drive that is presented to the operating system as drive G. The basic process you will following is shown in the following diagram: Start Create Backup-to- Disk Folders Create the Weekly Full Backup-to-Disk Job Create the Weekly Backup-to-Tape Job A A Create the Daily Differential Backupto-Disk Job Create the Daily Backup-to-Tape Job End The strategy in this example is to perform daily differential backup jobs to a backup-to-disk folder on the RA2000, and then perform a weekly full backup to the same folder. For the purpose of this example, Overland has determined that one week of daily backups and three weeks of weekly backups can fit on the RA2000, which equates to the current full save-set plus two previous weeks. After every disk-to-disk backup completes, another backup job is scheduled to back up the disk-to-disk save-set to tape, and then the current save-set needs to be copied to another backup folder. When the next backup job runs and finds no save-set in the backup-to-disk folder, it creates a new save-set with an incremented file name. Use DOS batch (.bat) files to migrate the save-sets to archiveready backup-to-disk folders. To implement this strategy, use the following instructions. 3

4 Overland Storage REO SERIES RA2000 Creating the Backup-to-Disk Folders 1 On the Devices tab of VERITAS Backup Exec, create a new backup-todisk folder. 2 To create a folder on the RA2000 that is connected to the system, enter the path and folder name in the Path box. Backup Exec automatically creates the folder in the specified location. 3 Create two additional backup-to-disk folders, one for each week. The following shows an example for the first week s archive folder. Create the second week s folder called Archive 2 and point it to G:\Archive2. 4 Creating a D2D Backup Strategy with VERITAS Backup Exec 8.6

5 Application Note 4 Create backup-to-disk folders for each daily backup archive, Monday through Friday. An example of the first folder is shown in the following; create this folder and the other daily folders. For the DOS batch command to function properly, the folder names must follow a similar pattern as shown here (the DOS batch file is described later under Creating the Daily Backupto-Tape Job). Creating the Weekly Full Backup-to-Disk Job 1 On the toolbar, click Backup. 2 On the Selections tab, select the files that will be backed up every week. Creating the Weekly Full Backup-to-Disk Job 5

6 Overland Storage REO SERIES RA Create the full backup job that backs up all files to the primary backupto-disk folder on a weekly basis. 4 Click Schedule, and set the schedule for the weekly full backup job to execute. 6 Creating a D2D Backup Strategy with VERITAS Backup Exec 8.6

7 Application Note Creating the Weekly Backup-to-Tape Job 1 On the toolbar, click Backup. 2 On the Selections tab, select the primary backup-to-disk folder that you want to back up to tape. 3 Create a backup-to-tape job that will back up the save-set created by the weekly backup-to-disk job. Set this job to execute on a weekly basis. Creating the Weekly Backup-to-Tape Job 7

8 Overland Storage REO SERIES RA Create a DOS batch file that moves the current save-set to the applicable weekly-archive folder that you created earlier. 5 To ensure that the file is in the system path, place the file in the \WINNT\System32 folder. 6 On the Advanced tab of the Backup Job Properties window, in the After backup box, enter the name of the batch job that you want to execute at the end of the backup job to move the current save-set to the appropriate archive folder (for example, ArchiveD2DWeekly.bat). 7 In the Backup Job Properties window, click Schedule, and set the schedule for the weekly backup-to-tape job to execute. 8 Creating a D2D Backup Strategy with VERITAS Backup Exec 8.6

9 Application Note Creating the Daily Differential Backup-to-Disk Job 1 On the toolbar, click Backup to access the Backup Job Properties window. 2 On the Selections tab, select the files that you want backed up on a daily basis. 3 On the General tab, create a daily backup job that will perform a differential backup to the main backup-to-disk folder on the RA2000. Name the backup job as a backup-to-disk job, and point the destination to the main backup-to-disk folder. Creating the Daily Differential Backup-to-Disk Job 9

10 Overland Storage REO SERIES RA Click the Schedule button, and then set the schedule for this daily backup job. Creating the Daily Backup-to-Tape Job 1 On the toolbar, click Backup. 2 On the Selections tab, select the primary backup-to-disk folder that you want sent to the tape. 10 Creating a D2D Backup Strategy with VERITAS Backup Exec 8.6

11 Application Note 3 Create a backup job that backs up the save-set file from the RA2000 to tape on a daily basis. 4 Create a DOS batch file that moves the current save-set to the applicable daily-archive folder that you created earlier. Note: The %DATE:~0,3% variable returns the first three characters of the System Date variable, which represents the first three characters of the name of the day of the week. In this example, the day of the week is Tuesday, so the path name would equate to G:\ArchiveTue. 5 To ensure that the file is in the system path, place the file in the \WINNT\System32 folder. Creating the Daily Backup-to-Tape Job 11

12 Overland Storage REO SERIES RA On the Advanced tab, in the After backup box, enter the name of the batch file (for example, ArchiveD2DDaily.bat) that will be executed at the end of the backup job to move the current save-set to the appropriate archive folder. 7 In the Backup Job Properties window, click Schedule and set the schedule for the daily backup-to-tape job to execute. 12 Creating a D2D Backup Strategy with VERITAS Backup Exec 8.6

13 Application Note Performing a Disk-to-Disk Restore Operation Remember, after every daily and weekly backup-to-tape job completes, the current save-set is moved to the applicable archive folder. Even though the save-set files have been moved from the primary backup-todisk folder, their original catalogs are still in place. The first step in a restore operation to retrieve files from save-sets that are still on the RA2000 is to locate the save-set location. 1 In Backup Exec, click the Restore Selections tab to examine the catalog listing to determine the date of the catalog that contains the files you want to restore. Notice that the backup save-set name is B2D The creation date for this catalog is 9/30/2003, which was a Tuesday. This means that if the save-set is still located on the RA2000, it should be located in the G:\ArchiveTue folder. A quick look at the Devices tab confirms that B2D is in fact still located on the RA2000. But the Catalog listing does not know that the location of the file has changed to another backupto-disk folder. To remedy this, create a Catalog job to synchronize the ArchiveTue backup-to-disk folder with the catalog listing. This job should take less than one minute to complete, after which you can restore files from that save-set. Tip: To view the applicable information, you might need to right-click the folder and click Refresh. Performing a Disk-to-Disk Restore Operation 13

14 Overland Storage REO SERIES RA On the Devices tab, right-click the save-set name, and click Catalog. 3 To ensure that the correct save-set is cataloged, in the Catalog Storage Media dialog box, enter an appropriate Job Name, select the applicable Device (for example, ArchiveTuesday), and then click Run Now. 4 After the catalog has been generated for the archived save-set, click the Restore button to access the Restore Job Properties window and begin a restore operation. 5 Select the applicable backup-to-disk device (for example, ArchiveTuesday) as the source for the restore. 14 Creating a D2D Backup Strategy with VERITAS Backup Exec 8.6

15 Application Note 6 Click the Selections tab, and choose the folders or files you want to restore. 7 To begin restoring files immediately, click Run Now. Because the save-set is still on the RA2000, the restore operation should complete quickly. Performing a Disk-to-Disk Restore Operation 15

16 Overland Storage REO SERIES RA2000 Performing a Restore Operation from Tape The strategy discussed in this document allows for quick recovery of files from save-sets that reside on the RA2000. However, after a certain period of time, save-sets are removed from the RA2000 to make room for more current save-sets. When this happens, the files to restore must be retrieved from tape. The challenge here is that while every save-set residing on the RA2000 was backed up to tape, there are no catalogs describing the files residing in the save-sets that now reside on tape. The solution is to locate the tape containing the requisite save-set, catalog it (inventory it first, if necessary), and then restore files. The following describes one way of achieving this. 1 On the Restore Selections tab, examine the log file from the backup-totape job that ran after the backup-to-disk job that contains the files that need to be restored. The catalogs for all disk-to-disk backup jobs remain available for review in the Restore Selections tab. Each catalog identifies the save-set name for that catalog entry. 16 Creating a D2D Backup Strategy with VERITAS Backup Exec 8.6

17 Application Note 2 To identify the correct log file, look at the timestamp on the catalog for the save-set name of the tape-backup job. 3 In the Program Files\VERITAS\Backup Exec\NT\Data folder, find the log file for the tape backup job that contains the save-set you want to restore from, and open it. The Media Label line contains the name of the tape you need to retrieve. Performing a Restore Operation from Tape 17

18 Overland Storage REO SERIES RA Choose one of the following: If the required tape is still loaded in the tape drive, execute a Catalog action to bring the catalog of the save-set into focus. If the tape has been removed, execute an Inventory action so that Backup Exec knows which save-sets are located on the tape. After the Inventory job completes, execute a Catalog action on the tape save-set so that you can restore the necessary files or folders. For examples of how to perform a restore operation, review the steps under Performing a Disk-to-Disk Restore Operation. The only difference is the location of the save-set, which is a tape drive in this case. 18 Creating a D2D Backup Strategy with VERITAS Backup Exec 8.6