Backup The VNXe Shared Folder (CIFS File Server) Data

This is certainly a solution, but what of the elephant in the room.

It is my understanding that NDMP backup of a cifs share on a vnxe has the following limitations

- must backup entire volume/share (cannot backup a single directory or file within cifs share)

- must restore entire volume/share (cannot restore a single directory or file within cifs share)

- cannot restore to an alternate device or staorage system, data has to go back onto the same vnxe (what happens in case of disaster and one needs data immediately)

If my undertsanding is correct these are major and render NDMP as a *not* viable alternative. I would be happy if I am wrong in this assessment as I have a vnxe3100 with over 50TB of data which currently I do not have a timely backup solution. Again suggestions with this would be appreciated...

Marco

Backup Exec can selectively backup and restore files or folders.

I dont think this is a VNXe or NDMP restriction

Any “decent” NDMP capable backup software should be able to do that – backup just a subdir and do a directed restore

If your backup softwareware supports passing NDMP variables you can also exclude directories and/or files from the backup

Of course – as typical with NDMP – the restore has to be done to a device that understands the backup data format – in this case a VNXe, VNX or Celerra

I heard that some of the low-end backup software (Backup Exec?) would only let you configure a NDMP backup for the complete file system

Rainer

With NDMP?

Selecting backup is not a straight forward way.

You will have to use Exclude/Include options while backing up. See the screenshot.

In the above example, i am exluding the folder 'Reju2'. And as you can see in the restore option, for the second backup set, Reju2 is not available, becase we told it to exclude it.

And for restore, you can select the folders directly.

In my earlier reply, a small correction..

Selecting backup is not a straight forward way.

Selecting source directories for backup is not a straight forward way.

We are using backupexec 12.5 and are *unable* to do selective backup/restore with ndmp. How are you doing this?

Marcoa, you posted in 2012 and we are 2015 now, what solution did you pick to backup your VNXe? I am having the same issue.

Backup using NDMP with dump as the backup type as opposed to smTape which doesn't allow for individual file restores. We have Networker and NetBackup and backup NetApp and VNX using NDMP dumps.

Minimum configuration on the VNX client in Networker

Remote User: username

Password: userpassword

Backup command: nsrndmp_save -T dump

NDMP Array Name: aka_file_server_name_or_storage_array_name

Application Information:

OPTIONS=NT

SNAPSURE=y

UTF8=y

Hi,

     I am trying to setup a VNX5600 for NDMP backups using netbackup, however, all the documentation says use the "datamover" name for the connection, however, the Datamover, server_2, does not have an IP address, it facilitates the VDM where the Ip address are assigned.

What do i specify as my NDMP host in Netbackup ?

You want to use the name of the CIFS servers on your VNX.  For example, I have two VDMs on my array, each with it's own CIFS server and one CIFS server on the physical datamover, server_2.  Each CIFS server is named uniquely, i.e. vdm1.corp, vdm2.corp and global-cifs.corp.  In NBU, I have configured a Global NDMP authentication credential (the NDMP password on the VNX), and I have created an NDMP host in NBU for each of the CIFS server names.  I can then create a policy for each CIFS server, specifying the filesystems mounted on each VDM or physical datamover.

Depending on your layout, you could backup multiple filesystems with a single NDMP host, if your filesystems are all only mounted on the physical datamover.  However, if you have multiple VDMs, you will need to specify at least one CIFS server per VDM to facilitate filesystem backups.

Let us know if that helps!

Karl