Learn about Networker

Ah, I fogot one part.  NetWorker has several databases and most important are:

• res - or resource database (this is where configuraion lives)
• index - this where each file which has been backed up for your client is stored - for how long it stay inside dependes on browse policy
• mm - media database which contains information about where you backup set (save set) went (which media and location within media) and for how long data is retained depends on retention policy

Logs are places withing logs folder and these days to read them you need to render them with nsr_render_log tool if reading so called raw log. Usually all backup/restore actions are logged within daemon.raw. Configuration changes are logged within rap.log, but this logging is not enabled by default (can be done from server resource itself in GUI for example).

Hello Sriram and Welcome to Networker!

The best place for accessing the documentations for NetWorker is on EMC Powerlink. Go to http://powerlink.emc.com and login. If you do not have an account yet, you should be able to create one.

Once you have logged in, look for Support in the bar about a quarter of the way down. Hover over support and a drop down menu shows up. Go to the following path:

Support NULL&internalId=0b01406680024e1b> > Technical Documentation and Advisories NULL&internalId=0b01406680024e23> > Software ~ J-O ~ Documentation > NetWorker Family

Look to the left column and NetWorker, then find the version of the software you have and click on the link. In the main section will be the documentation for NetWorker.

Scroll down just a little a bit and look for NetWorker 7.6 Service Pack 2 Documentation Portfolio. This download has the most common guides for NetWorker.

The 3 that I recommend as initial documents is:

NetWorker Administration Guide

NetWorker Command reference guide - read about mminfo and scan utilities

NetWorker Disaster Recovery guide - especially Domain Controllers and Exchange systems

I hope this helps some!

Mark Bellows

I'm not sure which docs would be quick and dirty guide into NW world (perhaps I should read one), but I will try to summerize it quickly.

In NetWorker concept you have following building blocks:

• backup server (application brain and manages databases)
• storage node (media server which manages robotics and/or devices)
• client (your backup/restore victim)

Storage node includes client and backup server includes storage node role.

Different resources within NetWorker are grouped around different categories and mostly (but not all) are shown separately in NetWorker's front end - NMC (NetWorker Management Console). I won't go through all of them, but just touch few of them which will get you going.

First one is - group.  In group you you place clients you wish to backup and in group resource you set when backup should start. Other features people like to use from this resource is parallelism of group (total number of streams allowed for group no matter how many clients they are), backup schedule or level (mutually excluding each other) and... hm - that would be all. There are many option there apart from what I said, but this is basic. In summary, you put your clients in group and you set when backup group kicks in.

Second one is - client. You define client either by hostname or FQDN. I prefer second one and I believe that is also best practice. Of course, you can rename client if you want and preserve older backups under new name, but that is out of the scope now. In client most important features are:

• save set - what you backup. By default is All which translates all local data. For most people that is more than enough.
• schedule - when does backup run and with what level
• browse policy - for how long you keep your backup browsable for restores
• retention policy - for how long you keep your backups retained on media (disk or tape)

Again, there is much more, but these are most important. You might be a bit confused by the fact that schedule can be set on client and group and wonder what happens when is set differently on both.  In that case - group wins. This is why I always set schedule at client level and leave group for eventual overrides (have to be honest and say I never used that though it may come handy)

Third schedule - you assign it to either group or client or both - depending what your goal is. Inside schedule you have either weekly or monthly view and you set what kind of backup happens (full, differential, incremental and in latest release I believe synthetic full too).

Fourth - policy. How long do you retain something. This policy is assigned at client level to browse and retention policies. Usually people use same policy for browse and retention period. When it comes to archiving or long term backups, usually retention may be longer than browse policy.

Fifth - media pool. Here you group your media devices or volumes. People tend to make mistake here believing they should click something as they can, but major point of pools is group media by some characteristic. The only which makes sense is time retention (if using different retentions) or media types (if you wish to assign different media types to separate volumes). I have seen people restricting inidividual pools to devices and unless you know what you are doing this may create hell of configuration.  The only way I restrict my pools is through group names.

Of course, there is many many more things to say, but if you plan to install it on your laptop or computer and play with it, I would assume you would create disk device to play wish and add few clients to see how it works.  In such case, above should be enough to get you going.