Dell NetWorker 19.9 Administration Guide

This chapter uses the following terms to describe NetWorker support for Windows BMR technology:

Bare Metal Recovery (BMR)

The operation that restores the operating system and data on a host after a catastrophic failure, such as a hard disk failure or the corruption of critical operating system components. A BMR is an automated process that does not require the manual installation of an operating system. NetWorker provides an automated BMR solution for Windows that uses the Windows ASR writer and other Microsoft VSS writers to identify critical volumes and perform a full recovery on a disabled computer.

Offline recovery

A restore operation that is performed from the NetWorker Windows BMR boot image. A BMR recovery is an offline recovery. You cannot select specific files or save sets to recover during an offline recovery. You must perform an offline recover to the same or similar hardware.

Online recovery

A restore operation that is performed from the NetWorker User interface or recover command. An online recovery requires you to start the computer from an installed operating system and enables you to recover only specific files or save sets. The topic Recovering file system data provides more information about online recoveries.

Application data

User data that an application creates, such as log files or a database. For example, the application data of a SQL server includes databases and log files. You cannot use Windows BMR to recover the application data. You must back up and recover application data with NetWorker Module for Microsoft (NMM).

ASR writer

The Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) writer that identifies the critical data that NetWorker must back up to perform an offline recovery.

Boot Configuration Data (BCD)

A data store that contains a description of the boot applications and boot application settings that start the Windows operating system. To perform an offline recovery, you must back up this ASR writer component.

Critical volume

One of the following:

• Any volume that contains files for an installed service. The volume can be mounted as an NTFS directory. Exchange 2010 is an example of an installed service, but the Exchange database and log files are not considered critical.
• Any parent volume with a mounted critical volume.
  NOTE:NetWorker considers all volumes on all dynamic disks critical if at least one of the volumes is critical.

  A Windows BMR recovery requires a current backup of all critical volumes.

Recovery

The restoration of the operating system and data for a host after a catastrophic failure, such as a hard disk failure or the corruption of critical operating system components. The recovery operation might be an offline recovery (Windows BMR) or an online recovery.

NetWorker Windows BMR image

A bootable image that contains the NetWorker binaries and a wizard to control the Windows BMR recovery process.

Non-critical volume

A volume that contains user data and does not contain installed applications that run as a service.

System State data

All the files that belong to VSS writers with a usage type of BootableSystemState or SystemService. You require these files to perform an offline recovery.

User data

Data that users generate, typically for the purposes of a business function. For example, a Microsoft Word document or an Excel spreadsheet. Windows BMR does not back up or recover user data unless the data resides on a critical volume. The simplest way to back up all user data is to specify the keyword All in the backup save set of the client resource. You can recover user data online at any time (on demand) or after a Windows BMR recovery operation.

WinPE

A bootable stripped-down version of the Windows operating system. The NetWorker Windows BMR image contains a customized WinPE with NetWorker binaries and a wizard to control the offline recovery process. WinPE does not support writers, except for the ASR writer. Therefore, VSS writers are not available with a NetWorker Windows BMR.