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Networker 7.6.3 experiences
We recently implemented NW 7.6.2 (around October). i am finally getting things under control and getting things to be successful on their own without intervention. I was pretty un-happy with the way the install went. Lots of things left unexplained and not working the way we thought they would. Lots of things that weren't optimized as well.
We're using NMM, VADP and regular clients. Everything gets backed up to a Data Domain 670, then replicated to another DD670. We are using DD Boost.
i worked with NW in 2006 during the branding from Legato to EMC. I worked with v7.3 at the time and had a VERY bad experience with it.
I'm wondering what people's experiences are upgrading to 7.6.3. I don't see anything in the release notes that indicates a reason to upgrade other than it now incorporates a newer version of DD Boost library, but doesn't give any details about what is new about the version.
Thierry101
326 Posts
0
February 2nd, 2012 17:00
we are smiliar ...I left NW to do sth else in 2006 and was using 7.4 and was the first to use NW+Avamar integrated NMC.....networker was good that time from IMHO....now, really not...alot of cosmetics defects etc and needs a lot of baby sitting...what shd/expected to work doesnt work....but at same time NW is dealing with complex apps day to day...like NMM, exchange moved from flat to DAG based, sharepoints, ADs, oracles, SQL etc ....backup product have to integrate with these seamlessly but have many issues along the way...plus with all new releases and upgrades at least 3 years once if not yearly....backup agent have to cope....Backup Admins becoming more ciritcal to recover data ;-)....catching back now...even with basics....6 years way long ago...some product even obsolete...
ondrejpalkovsky
15 Posts
1
February 7th, 2012 04:00
Don't upgrade to 7.6.3.1 if you are using DDBoost; there seem to be quite serious issues, that should be hopefully fixed in 7.6.3.2. Done that and got burned (had to downgrade).
BTW: are you using clone-controlled replication to clone the DD's? Are you using scripts to do it or Clone jobs in networker?
msmenne
8 Posts
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February 7th, 2012 09:00
Glad to know there are major issue with DDBoost in 7.6.3. We'll stay where we're at for now. I am just finally getting the thing to run on it's own without my daily intervention. I don't want to mess that up.
We are using clone-controlled replication, though the reporting and implementation is SEVERLY lacking. Our Exchange clones have been stuck for 2 days and are now all of a sudden 88% done, but stuck again. Our file server full backup didn't completely finish before the clone started. Any full savesets that completed after the clone started never got cloned. They should have been caught on the next clone cycle, but didn't. I was only able to find that out after digging in with MMINFO as a curiosity. GUI reported everything as successful.
Thierry101
326 Posts
0
February 7th, 2012 12:00
HI ondrejpalkovsky
Thanks for the heads up..Btw, what issues you had in 7.6.3 in rgds with DD? would you please elaborate.. thanks..
ondrejpalkovsky
15 Posts
0
February 8th, 2012 01:00
I just gave up on clone jobs; we got stuck clone jobs every other day, a huge backlog of uncloned savesets (in 2 days we get to ~ 10000 savesets). I've just wrotten a script that should be resilient to these things and I am cloning with that. I hope it will work without intervention from now on.
As for the issues with DD and 7.6.3.1 - inability to mount the DDboost devices (sometimes killing some nsrmmd would help, sometimes not), spurius unmounts of DDboost devices. We had 15 DDboost devices, in the morning all of them were unmounted, lots of backups waiting for some device to become available. It might be specific to linux x86_64 build, but the system was basically unusable.
CarlosRojas
1.7K Posts
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February 8th, 2012 02:00
Hi Ondrej,
What DDOS and DD model do you have in place?
Thank you.
Carlos.
ondrejpalkovsky
15 Posts
0
February 8th, 2012 06:00
2x DD880 5.0.2.3-259543. We had an SR opened on this, it was quite a critical situation.
CarlosRojas
1.7K Posts
0
February 8th, 2012 22:00
Thanks Ondrej,
Please let me know the outcome on the SR, ok?
Thank you.
Carlos.
ondrejpalkovsky
15 Posts
0
February 9th, 2012 01:00
Hi Carlos, the outcome was that we downgraded to 7.6.2.7 and obtained a hotfix for an issue, that was the reason we needed an upgrade (which is fixed in 7.6.3.1). We are currently not in need of an upgrade, so the SR is closed.
Ondrej
CarlosRojas
1.7K Posts
0
February 9th, 2012 02:00
Thank you Ondrej.