Networker 9.1.x disaster recovery with CloudBoost

Question

Anyone who has Networker 9.1.x and is using CloudBoost, how are you protecting your Networker server? Are you sending the bootstrap and index backups to the cloud?

CloudBoost requires Networker to retrieve data from the cloud. In a DR scenario it is relatively straightforward to recover the CloudBoost appliance, but what about the Networker server? Has anyone here tested recovering Networker by the following:

1) Install a new Networker server

2) DR the CloudBoost appliance and connect it to the new Networker

3) Recover the bootstrap and indexes from the cloud

4) Use the recovered bootstrap and indexes to restore the new Networker to the old Networker

5) Recover your data via CloudBoost

In 3) if I know the exact SSIDs of the bootstrap and index backups, can I use CloudBoost to recover them without having to scan every single backup that's in the cloud?

Thanks.

ble1 · Answer

In case that you are able to restore your appliance (because you restore metadata; your data is still on object storage of cloud provider so in essence if there was major cloud incident - depending on your case - you may or may not have data any longer - but this is the same as in DC - this is why people make copies and/or replicate).

Anyway, you install the server, define cloudboost device and run dr. Nothing different in procedure than what you would do elsewhere. I normally export bootstrap info and send it to myself via email and copy it over to different locations around the globe. So, to answer your question - yes you can do that. Note only that your server should be Linux in that case so that you have locally attached devices (due to client direct support; I believe Windows support is coming in next release) as otherwise you would have CB devices on Linux storage node to support Windows clients for example.

Diego.Palopoli · Answer

At the Administration Guide (version 9.1), recovering from cloudboost devices is allowed, but with the following exception:

- for bootstrap backup, you must manually clone to another device. (page 106)

Because of that, I think that a better DR design would be, send bootstrap backup to an AFTD devices (local or NFS filesystem) and then, maybe, clone it to Cloudboost device as a secondary level protection.

Please Hrvoje Crvelin, correct me if I am wrong; in case you perform a Networker DR with bootstrap from an AFTD device, you will not need to configure again the CloudBoost device on Networker because it was part of resource database, so it should be there after "nsrdr" command completion.

ble1 · Answer

My CB devices are not attached to backup server so I didn't test it, but AFTD should be fine.  You don't have to configure NSR part after nsrdr, but you still need to restore CB (unless CB was left intact by disaster).

Diego.Palopoli · Answer

Great! Thanks a lot Hrvoje Crvelin!

NetWorker

Networker 9.1.x disaster recovery with CloudBoost

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