can you first tell us what and how they are doing the backups?

server or pc

local agent/console

or main avamar console

The query relates to on-demand backup requests generated from the main Avamar GUI - version 7.0.1-61

This could be any type of O/S such as Windows, Linux or VM server.

In the future this customer may also permit their own clients to generate on demand backups.  They want to ensure that Data Domain is selected by default.

There are two mcserver.xml parameters that control whether backups are forced to go to Data Domain or not:

dd_only_mode = ALL | SUPPORTED | DATASET   ALL – all backups not in dd_only_exclusion list go to DD; those that are not supported will fail   SUPPORTED – all backups that are supported by DD go to DD except for those in exclusion list   DATASET – controlled by dataset – default value dd_only_exlusion = plugin ID’s   All plugins in this list sent to GSAN in dd_only_mode=ALL or SUPPORTED.

Generally speaking, these parameters are set at install or upgrade time. Under normal circumstances, these settings should only be changed from a less restrictive setting to a more restrictive setting (from DATASET to SUPPORTED, from DATASET to ALL, etc.). In particular, Avamar / Data Domain integrated systems with high metadata capacity often have the dd_only_mode set to a more restrictive value (SUPPORTED or ALL) by the RCM team during upgrades and this must not be undone because it is likely to cause metadata capacity issues on the Avamar system.

Well as I see it...

there are 2 ways to do an ondemand backup from the Avamar gui.

1) go to backup and restore window..... choose...yada yada yada - pick DD

2) go to the policy window, find the server, click backup now, you get a pull down, choose the policy (normally NOT the default one) that it would backup under normally.  this then makes the backup follow the dataset that's in the policy, and that dataset should already say - send to DataDomain. as well as it will follow the retention that is set in the policy.
  -

We don't allow client side start of backups from servers - because the admins don't know when we are doing maintenance

or not, we make the ask us to do it.

Thanks Ian, that is very helpful indeed !

As a matter of interest, the tag for exclusions is  "dd_only_mode_plugin_exclusions"  - at least it is on the system I am currently working on (v 7.0.1)

It seems when changing this file, an MCS restart is needed.

Really appreciate the assistance, this is exactly what the customer was looking for - cheers !!

My customer is now reporting this.

"Backup request initiating...

Failed to initiate backup.

No Data Domain system."

When I initiate a file or vm backup.

So this issue remains that on-demand backups need to have an action taken to "tick a box" to ensure DD is the backup target.  The customer doesn't want to have to perform that action each time.  Any thoughts?