PowerProtect Data Manager 19.14 File System User Guide

Software compatibility

Software compatibility information for the PowerProtect Data Manager software and the File System agent is provided in the E-Lab Navigator.

Windows, Linux, and AIX limitations

• File-based backup (FBB) cannot be performed in parallel for a large file system when the entire data is present in a single folder. Because, instead of creating multiple chunks, the system creates one chunk causing the backup runs through a single stream.

Windows and Linux limitations

• File System agent block-based backups exclude the following:

  • Application files such as Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Exchange Server files.

    NOTE:For file-based backups, application data such as Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Exchange Server data is backed up, but you can explicitly exclude the data through the exclusion filters in the policy. It is recommended that you exclude the application data from file system backups if you use the corresponding application agent to back up the data. File System agent backups do not involve any database writer, regardless of whether or not the application data is excluded. The backups do not interfere with the database backup chaining.
  • HyperVisor files. You cannot run a Hyper-V server in a VMware virtual machine.
  • Data belonging to individual application writers.
  • Unsupported application writer files.
• It is recommended to use different mount points for each drive. Reusing mount points might cause unexpected issues during file system discovery.
• If a Windows or Linux file system host is unregistered from PowerProtect Data Manager and then reregistered with a different FQDN, because PowerProtect Data Manager recognizes the registration as a new host by its new name, duplicate asset entries appear in the UI—those for the host that is registered earlier, as well as for the host that is registered by the new name. This does not impact backup and restore functionality on the new host.
• The File System agent and application agents use the FQDN for registration. If the File System agent coexists with the Microsoft SQL, Oracle, or SAP HANA application agent, both agents must use the FQDN.
• For a protection policy backup with assets from different hosts, the backup status appears as Failed in the UI if the backup of one asset within the policy fails.
• Running the ddfssv and ddfsrc commands to perform self-service backup and restore of file systems fails if you provide the DD hostname (instead of IP) for the DFA_SI_DD_HOST variable.
• PowerProtect Data Manager does not support block-based image recoveries if the sector sizes (in bytes) for the source and target volumes are different. For example, you cannot perform a block-based image recovery of a volume with 4096-byte sectors to a volume with 512-byte sectors, and vice versa.

Windows Limitations

• The file-level restore of a folder can result in the loss of the sparse flag of any sparse files within the folder. To preserve the sparse flag of these files, restore the files individually.

Linux limitations

• On the Linux hosts that have the UEFI Secure Boot option enabled, block-based backup drivers do not load, and the error message insmod: ERROR: could not insert module /lib/ modules/ 3.10.0-693.el7.x86_64/ extra/nsrbbb.ko: Required key not available appears. As a workaround, you can disable the Secure Boot option.
• A file system backup might fail with the error Insufficient space exists in the volume group for creating shadow of the volume when there is not enough space in the volume group for a block-based backup to succeed. Each volume group on LVM2 or VxVM must have at least 10% free space.
• On Linux, performing an image-level restore of a block-based backup volume to an alternate location changes the GUID for the volume. As a result, PowerProtect Data Manager displays duplicate assets on the Infrastructure > Assets pane, where the older asset has a status of Deleted or Not Detected. To ensure continued protection, replace the old asset in the protection policy with the new asset.
• On Ubuntu Linux systems, if an agent push update to 19.13 is performed, the value of the PowerProtect Data Manager IP address field in the config.yml file is removed. This results in backup and restore operations failing with the following error messages:

  APU0001: Unable to Update host because an internal server error occurred while processing the request.
  APU0007: Unable to Return host to normal operation because the status of the host is invalid.

  As a workaround, perform the following steps to update the PowerProtect Data Manager IP address field:
  1. Open the config.yml file using vi /opt/dpsapps/agentsvc/config.yml.
  2. Enter the PowerProtect Data Manager IP address after ppdm_address: and save the file.
  3. Reregister the agent service using ./register.sh --start.

AIX limitations

• On AIX, PowerProtect Data Manager supports only file-based backups. Block-based backups are not supported.