NMM 2.4

I believe NMM 2.4 is RA, but with NMM 2.3 there was no nsrsqlsv command - that was with NMSQL module. You can't compare NMSQL and NMM when it comes to SQL as one uses VDI and the other VSS so if you used NMM you could not make transcation log backups for example. I believe plan was for 2.4 to include VDI interface too, but I haven't seen 2.4 officially released yet (at least not GA version) so I didn't check for changes inside. Bottom line is that with 2.3 you shouldn't have seen nsrsqlsv command - as otherwise that would imply you did run NMSQL module instead. Of course, you could have NMSQL and NMM installed in parallel.  With 2.4 it looks as if NMSQL is included with NMM and -A option is documented to be now used with clusters. I agree intallation guide should be updated to warn users about the change (especially in already existing chapter about update from NMSQL module which exists in installation guide). What is the exact error that you get when using -A option?

When the NetWorker Module for SQL (NMSQL) was merged with the NetWorker Module for Microsoft (NMM) we had a design decision to make. In addition to merging NMSQL with NMM, we also added Client Direct to Data Domain and Avamar deduplication support for SQL VDI based backups. For NMM 2.3, the -a command option was already used for specifying deduplication. So the same -a that NMSQL used for virutal server names could not also be used in NMM 2.4. Since deduplication is very popular with NMM, and the use of the -a option is not very common with NMSQL customers, we made the choice to change the NMSQL -a command option to -A. This is noted in the NMM 2.4 Release Notes on page 58:

"Migrating from VSS solution to VDI solution for SQL server data protection - If you have been using a previous NMM release to recover SQL Server data with VSS technology, and would like to use NMM 2.4 to backup and recover SQL Server data with VDI technology, ensure to take care of the following:

• Clear the snapshot checkbox under Backup Group Properties
• Specify the Backup Command as nsrsqlsv. For SQL virutal server in a cluster environment, specify nsrsqlsv -A.
• Keep the application information field blank.
• Change the saveset to MSSQL: for instance level backup,  or MSSQL: dbname for database level backup."

We will review the NMM 2.4 documentation to see if we can make this information easier to find. Thank you for the suggestion!