Dell NetWorker 19.9 Administration Guide

Creating a traditional backup action

A traditional backup is a scheduled backup of the save sets defined for the Client resources in the assigned group for the workflow.

1. In the expanded left pane, select the policy's workflow, and then perform one of the following tasks in the right pane to start the Policy Action wizard:
   • If the action is the first action in the workflow, select Create a new action.
   • If the workflow has other actions, right-click an empty area of the Actions pane, and then select New.
   The Policy Action wizard opens on the Specify the Action Information page.
2. In the Name field, type the name of the action.
   The maximum number of characters for the action name is 64.

   • Legal Characters: _ - + = # , . % @
   • Illegal Characters: /\*:?[]()$!^;'"`~><&|{}
3. In the Comment field, type a description for the action.
4. To ensure that the action runs when the policy or workflow that contains the action is started, in the Enabled box, select the option. To prevent the action from running when the policy or workflow that contains the action is started, clear this option.
   NOTE:When you clear the Enabled option, actions that occur after a disabled action do not start, even if the subsequent options are enabled.
5. From the Action Type list, select Backup.
6. From the secondary action list, select the backup type, for example, Traditional.
7. (Optional) From the Force Backup Level list select a backup level.

   For workflows that have more than one scheduled backup within a 24-hour period, use the Force Backup Level attribute to allow more than one backup to occur at two different backup levels in a 24-hour period. When you select a backup level in the Force Backup Level attribute, the first backup is performed at the scheduled backup level. Each subsequent occurrence of the backup action in the next 24 hours occurs at the level defined in the Force Backup Level attribute. For example, if the level defined by the schedule is Full and the Force Backup Level attribute is set to Incr, the first backup started by the action occurs at a level full and subsequent backups, within 24 hours of the start of the full backup are incremental. By default this option is cleared, which means that if the action runs multiple backup operations in a 24 period, all the backups occur at the scheduled backup level.

8. If you create the action as part of the workflow configuration, the workflow appears automatically in the Workflow box and the box is dimmed.
9. Specify the order of the action in relation to other actions in the workflow:
   • If the action is part of a sequence of actions in a workflow path, in the Previous box, select the action that should precede this action.
   • If the action should run concurrently with an action, in the Previous box, select the concurrent action, and then select the Concurrent checkbox.
10. Specify a weekly, monthly, or reference schedule for the action:

    • To specify a schedule for each day of the week, select Define option under Select Schedule and period as Weekly by day.

    • To specify a schedule for each day of the month, select Define option under Select Schedule and period as Monthly by day.
    • To specify a customized schedule to the action, select Select option under Select Schedule and choose a customized schedule using the drop-down menu that is already created under NSR schedule resource.
11. To specify the backup level to perform when Define option under Select Schedule is selected, click the icon on each day. If it is Select option under Select Schedule, choose the customized NSR schedule using the drop down, after specifying the backup level within the NSR schedule resource.

    The following table provides details about the backup level that each icon represents.

    Table 1. Schedule iconsThis table describes schedule icons.

    Icon	Label	Description
    	Full	Perform a full backup on this day. Full backups include all files, regardless of whether the files changed.
    	Incr	Perform an incremental backup on this day. Incremental backups include files that have changed since the last backup of any type (full or incremental).
    	Cumulative Incr	Perform a cumulative incremental backup. Cumulative incremental backups include files that have changed since the last full backup.
    	Logs Only	Perform a backup of only database transaction logs.
    	Incremental Synthetic Full NOTE:Not supported for NDMP.	Perform an incremental synthetic backup on this day. An incremental synthetic full backup includes all data that changed since the last full backup and subsequent incremental backups to create a synthetic full backup.
    	Skip	Do not perform a backup on this day.

    To perform the same type of backup on each day, select the backup type from the list and click Make All.

    NetWorker does not support the use of synthetic full backup levels for NDMP data.

    Celerra, Isilon, VNX, Unity, and NetApp filers with NDMP version 4 or later support token-based backups (TBB) to perform NDMP full and incremental backups. NetWorker supports the same number of incremental levels that the NAS vendor supports. Celerra, Isilon, and NetApp documentation provide the maximum number of incremental levels that the TBB incremental backup can support.

    When you configure TBB after you update the NetWorker server from 7.6 SP1 or earlier, the first incremental backup does not occur until after one complete full backup.

    Filers that do not support TBB, do not support incremental backups. If you select the level Incr, the NetWorker server performs a full backup.

    Verify that the NAS storage vendor supports NDMP incremental backups before you use this feature.

12. Click Next.
    The Specify the Backup Options page appears.
13. From the Destination Storage Node box, select the storage node with the devices on which to store the backup data.
14. From the Destination Pool box, select the media pool in which to store the backup data.
15. From the Retention boxes, specify the amount of time to retain the backup data.
    After the retention period expires, the save set is removed from the client file index and marked as recyclable in the media database during an expiration server maintenance task.

    When you define the retention policy an NDMP client, consider the amount of disk space that is required for the client file index. NDMP clients with several thousands of small files have significantly larger client file indexes on the NetWorker server than a non-NDMP client. A long retention policy for an NDMP client increases disk space requirements on the file system that contains the client file indexes.

16. From the Browse boxes, specify the amount of time you want to browse the backed-up data.
    After the browse period expires, the client file indexes are deleted and savesets will not be browsable.
17. From the Client Override Behavior box, specify how NetWorker uses certain client configuration attributes that perform the same function as attributes in the Action resource:
    • Client Can Override—The values in the Client resource for Schedule, Pool, Retention policy, and the Storage Node attributes take precedence over the values that are defined in the equivalent Action resource attributes.
      NOTE:If the NetWorker policy action schedule is set to the Skip backup level, the Client can Override option is not honored. For NetWorker to consider the Client can Override option, change the action schedule to a different level.
    • Client Can Not Override—The values in the Action resource for the Schedule, Destination Pool, Destination Storage Node, and the Retention attributes take precedence over the values that are defined in the equivalent Client resource attributes.
    • Legacy Backup Rules—This value only appears in actions that are created by the migration process. The updating process sets the Client Override Behavior for the migrated backup actions to Legacy Backup Rules.
18. Click Next.
    The Specify the Advanced Options page appears.
19. In the Retries field, specify the number of times that NetWorker should retry a failed probe or backup action, before NetWorker considers the action as failed. When the Retries value is 0, NetWorker does not retry a failed probe or backup action.
    NOTE:The Retries option applies to probe actions, and the backup actions for the Traditional and Snapshot action types. If you specify a value for this option for other actions, NetWorker ignores the values.
20. In the Retry Delay field, specify a delay in seconds to wait before retrying a failed probe or backup action. When the Retry Delay value is 0, NetWorker retries the failed probe or backup action immediately.
    NOTE:The Retry Delay option applies to probe actions, and the backup actions for the Traditional and Snapshot action types. When you specify a value for this option in other actions, NetWorker ignores the values.
21. In the Inactivity Timeout field, specify the maximum number of minutes that a job that is run by an action can try to respond to the server.

    If the job does not respond within the specified time, the server considers the job a failure and NetWorker retries the job immediately to ensures that no time is lost due to failures.

    Increase the timeout value if a backup consistently stops due to inactivity. Inactivity might occur for backups of large save sets, backups of save sets with large sparse files, and incremental backups of many small static files.

    NOTE:The Inactivity Timeout option applies to probe actions, and the backup actions for the Traditional and Snapshot action types. If you specify a value for this option in other actions, NetWorker ignores the value.
22. In the Parallelism field, specify the maximum number of concurrent operations for the clone action.The default value is 0 and the maximum value is 1000.
23. From the Failure Impact list, specify what to do when a job fails:
    • To continue the workflow when there are job failures, select Continue.
    • To stop the current action if there is a failure with one of the jobs, but continue with subsequent actions in the workflow, select Abort action.
      NOTE:The Abort action option applies to probe actions, and the backup actions for the Traditional and Snapshot action types.
    • To stop the entire workflow if there is a failure with one of the jobs in the action, select Abort workflow.
    NOTE:If any of the actions fail in the workflow, the workflow status does not appear as interrupted or canceled. NetWorker reports the workflow status as failed.
24. From the Soft Limit list, select the amount of time after the action starts to stop the initiation of new activities. The default value of 0 (zero) indicates no amount of time.
25. From the Hard Limit list, select the amount of time after the action starts to begin terminating activities. The default value of 0 (zero) indicates no amount of time.
26. (Optional) In Start Time specify the time to start the action.
    Use the spin boxes to set the hour and minute values, and select one of the following options from the drop-down list:

    • Disabled—Do not enforce an action start time. The action will start at the time defined by the workflow.
    • Absolute—Start the action at the time specified by the values in the spin boxes.
    • Relative—Start the action after the period of time defined in the spin boxes has elapsed after the start of the workflow.
27. (Optional) Configure overrides for the task that is scheduled on a specific day.
    To specify the month, use the navigation buttons and the month list box. To specify the year, use the spin boxes. You can set an override in the following ways:

    • Select the day in the calendar, which changes the action task for the specific day.
    • Use the action task list to select the task, and then perform one of the following steps:
      • To define an override that occurs on a specific day of the week, every week, select Specified day, and then use the lists. Click Add Rules based override.
      • To define an override that occurs on the last day of the calendar month, select Last day of the month. Click Add Rules based override.
      NOTE:

      • You can edit or add the rules in the Override field.
      • To remove an override, delete the entry from the Override field.
      • If a schedule is associated to an action, then override option is disabled.
28. From the Send Notifications list box, select whether to send notifications for the action:
    • To use the notification configuration that is defined in the Policy resource to send the notification, select Set at policy level.
    • To send a notification on completion of the action, select On Completion.
    • To send a notification only if the action fails to complete, select On Failure.
29. In the Send notification attribute, when you select the On Completion option or On failure option, the Command box appears. Use this box to configure how NetWorker sends the notifications. You can use the nsrlog command to send the notifications to a log file or you can send an email notification.

    The default notification action is to send the information to the policy_notifications.log file. By default, the policy_notifications.log file is located in the /nsr/logs directory on Linux and in the C:\Program Files\EMC NetWorker\nsr\logs folder on Windows.

    Use the default mailer program on Linux to send email messages or the smtpmail application on Windows:

    • To send notifications to a file, type the following command, where policy_notifications.log is the name of the file:

      nsrlog -f policy_notifications.log

    • On Linux, to send an email notification, type the following command:

      mail -s subject recipient

    • For NetWorker Virtual Edition (NVE), to send an email notification, type the following command:

      /usr/sbin/sendmail -v recipient_email "subject_text"

    • On Window, to send a notification email, type the following command:

      smtpmail -s subject -h mailserver recipient1@mailserver recipient2@mailserver...

      where:

      • -s subject—Includes a standard email header with the message and specifies the subject text for that header. Without this option, the smtpmail program assumes that the message contains a correctly formatted email header and nothing is added.

      • -h mailserver—Specifies the hostname of the mail server to use to relay the SMTP email message.

      • recipient1@mailserver—Is the email address of the recipient of the notification. Multiple email recipients are separated by a space.

30. Click Next.
    The Action Configuration Summary page appears.
31. Review the settings that you specified for the action, and then click Configure.