NetWorker: How to Configure Concurrent or Parallel VM Backup Sessions

Summary: NetWorker 19.9 introduced concurrent or parallel VMware Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK) backup operations when a Virtual Machine (VM) contains multiple disks.

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Instructions

Prior to NetWorker 19.9, VMs with multiple disks backed up with the NetWorker VMware Protection (NVP) vProxy appliance were performed serially, one VMDK at a time. NetWorker 19.9 introduces functionality which allows a backup administrator to configure a VMware Protection Policy's backup action with backup parallelism. This means that if there are available Hot Add or Network Block Device (NBD) sessions available, a VM containing multiple disks can backup multiple VMDKs simultaneously.
 

Considerations:

Parallelism capabilities are determined through the configured vProxy HotAdd or NBD sessions:

Parallelism Capabilities Screen
Figure 1: Parallelism Capabilities Screen

  • When Max Parallelism is enabled, the vProxy appliance must be configured with a minimum of two sessions, this is considered the Threshold Parallelism.
NOTE: If the vProxy is only configured with one session and the Max Parallelism box is checked, the job remains in a running state until manually cancelled.
  • If the wanted number of sessions is not available, the parallelism count is recursively decreased by one, until the HotAdd NBD sessions become available.
  • Max Parallelism default is 12, because the recommended (default) value of HotAdd sessions for vProxy is 13. 

Process:

  1. Connect to the NetWorker server through the NetWorker Web User Interface (NWUI): https://NWUI_SERVER_ADDRESS:9090/nwui
NOTE: NWUI must be used, the configuration options shown do not exist in the NetWorker Management Console (NMC).
  1. Create a Protection Policy from Protection > Policies.
  2. Under the newly created Policy, create Workflow.
  3. Under the newly created workflow, create a new VMware Protection Group, or assign a previously configured (but unassigned) group. 
  4. Create the backup action.
    1. Check the Max Parallelism checkbox:
Check the Max Parallelism Checkbox:
Figure 2: Check the Max Parallelism checkbox:
  1. Complete the backup action configuration. 
  1. Perform VM backups.

 

Command Line:

The command nsrvproxy_save backup session-related changes with an additional -k attribute are added in the CLI which triggers the parallelism.

The best vProxy for a backup is selected based on the number of VM disks and available HOT add NBD sessions on the vProxies at selection time.

Syntax: 
nsrvproxy_save -p PolicyName -w WorkflowName -A ActionName [ -s NetworkerServerName ] [ -V vProxy ] [ -j Jobid ] [ -l LogDirectory ] [ -L Level ] -k

Example:
nsrvproxy_save -p Gold -w VMware -A backup -L Incr -k
Logs from the backup session are found under the default policy logs location if no -l argument is specified.
  • Linux: /nsr/logs/policy/PolicyName/WorkflowName/ActionName
  • Windows: C:\Program Files\EMC NetWorker\nsr\logs\policy\PolicyName\WorkflowName\ActionName

Additional Information

Related information:

Affected Products

NetWorker

Products

NetWorker Family, NetWorker Series
Article Properties
Article Number: 000212931
Article Type: How To
Last Modified: 26 Mar 2025
Version:  3
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