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NetWorker 7.6.3 and Windows 2012 R2
Hello everyone
I'm sure that this has been asked before, but I can't seem to find a definitive answer:
Can NetWorker Server 7.6.3 (Windows 2003) successfully backup Windows 2012 R2 (using 8.1 client)?
Before I get flamed for not upgrading the background is that our customer chose their new backup product without consulting us. Long story short, after almost a year of trying to shoe-horn this product to cope with their environment we are still not live and still encountering issues. As a result, I want to use the existing (old, unsupported) version of NW to come to the rescue. Through the forum, I believe that 8.1 client on Windows 2012 R2 may backup successfully to NW server 7.6.3... but will it?
Comments, confirmations and suggestions welcomed.
Thanks
Brian
ble1
14.3K Posts
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February 25th, 2015 02:00
Hard to say as it was never tested and definitely not supported. Best thing you can do is to test it and provide "best effort" support which comes with no guarantee.
ble1
14.3K Posts
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February 25th, 2015 03:00
I no longer use NW7 server so I can't say.
Brian91_4544b4
71 Posts
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February 25th, 2015 03:00
That's great, Hrvoje, thanks - I thought that would be the official line.
Is anyone actually backing it up... and more importantly, have you been able to successfully recover?
Brian
crazyrov
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February 26th, 2015 02:00
Well, the compatibility guide says NetWorker 8.1.x can backup 7.6.x. And 8.1 does support 2012 so officially it should work
Brian91_4544b4
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February 26th, 2015 02:00
Thanks, crazyrov.
However, and I don't mean any offence by this, but saying to the customer "it should work" won't be received well as that is what the supplier of the new backup solution keeps telling them when I report that certain things aren't working
My initial test backup was promising, so I'm running a second now of the entire system. There is the possibility that we can do a full system recovery ourselves as this box is not currently live, but has anyone out there actually done it?
Thanks
Brian
bingo.1
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February 26th, 2015 04:00
Software vendors are testing for backward compatibility (and support).
However, what you want is a 'kind of forward compatibility support'.
Otherwise the number of combinations to test would be endless.
I am afraid but obviously due to that reason you will never receive such statement.
A lot of intelligence is built in the NW Client software.
If you only use the NW 7.6.3 functionality of your NW 8.1 client you should not have any issue. AFAIK, this is by design. And the logic behind it is pretty clear.
The only issue is - how do you find out where the limitations are? There is no such doc.
So the only way to do this is by trial & error.
If you run a server-initiated process, you should be pretty save. Why? - because the Server can only initiate what he has built-in - he does not even know about new client SW capabilities.
However, if you start a client-initiated process you might end up using a command option which the older NW server software does neither know yet nor he can understand it. The consequence is that he 'cannot execute (properly)'. This might result in unpredictable effects like
- No response at all
- Error messages (if you are lucky you receive something like 'not supported' or 'wrong arguments')
- Crashes
- Reboots
Brian91_4544b4
71 Posts
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February 26th, 2015 04:00
Thanks for your response, bingo. As you say, the best way to find out for sure is going to be trial and error.