Sun Storage 7110 Backup Options

[RobFuller]

Another thread to pick people’s brains and see what others are doing, basically what are people doing to backup their current SUN boxes?

 

Are you mounting shares on a backup box and backing up that way or are you using NDMP with a local tape unit or even a remote tape unit perhaps attached to your backup server?

 

The reason I'm asking is because I would like to setup NDMP backups using Backup Exec to snapshot the various LUNS some NTFS some Xen folders etc, then run that all onto tape attached to the backup server (the one running Backup Exec). As far as I can tell this should be more than possible however having some trouble getting Backup Exec to connect to the SUN, any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

Any details of what others are doing would be good to, give people some other ideas!

 

TIA!!

[john]

If I get mine ordered (just awaiting some funding) I will be mapping the unit to a server and just backing up the share over the LAN to a FreeNAS box (or my terrastores if they live that long). Not that elligent but its all on a needs must, so thats this years, in the future, as Phil from Sun knows, I've said that I would look to invest in a second one (who knows 2 years down the line there maybe a 7110 with more storage options at that same price point) so have a pair and use the replication in the SAN to replicate it over once a day to my other building or something along them lines.

[RobFuller]

I get the feeling mounting a XEN file system onto windows would be interesting! Shall do some more investigation and see what I come up with!

[pete]

I'm using OpenFiler to backup the nfs shares atm.

 

Poke Phil or Andy (hebdenlad/linescanner) about this. I can't remember if the cool alternative option thing I'm thinking of is under nda or not.

[Ric_]

I need to get time to sort this... I'm currently just pulling the data off the CIFS shares using retrospect.

 

What I intend to do is use the 'Workflows' feature to script the following:

• Take a snapshot of the projects (NFS targets for VMs and CIFS shares)
  
• Mount the snapshot(s) as new CIFS share(s)
  
• Use Retrospect to pull the data off in the normal manner
  
• Unmount the snapshot
  
• 
  

[Duke]

We're going to be hit by this too. I assumed that as Windows can see and access a S7000 CIFS share then Backup Exec would be able to get data from it too. The fact it can't (from what I understand) is stupid. If NTBackup can do it, why can't Backup Exec?

 

My current (untested) thinking is map the CIFS share as a drive on the Backup Exec server, and add the selection that way. Any idea if this will work?

 

Chris

[Ric_]

We're going to be hit by this too. I assumed that as Windows can see and access a S7000 CIFS share then Backup Exec would be able to get data from it too. The fact it can't (from what I understand) is stupid. If NTBackup can do it, why can't Backup Exec?

 

My current (untested) thinking is map the CIFS share as a drive on the Backup Exec server, and add the selection that way. Any idea if this will work?

 

Why shouldn't a Windows box running Backup Exec be able to see a CIFS share?

 

As long as the permissions are set up OK, your Windows backup server should treat it like any a Windows server.

[Duke]

Why shouldn't a Windows box running Backup Exec be able to see a CIFS share?

 

As long as the permissions are set up OK, your Windows backup server should treat it like any a Windows server.

 

In which case maybe it will work fine and it's just me. I've only had one very brief play with it yesterday and when I tried to connect to the CIFS share it gave me an error. I assumed this was due to the S7000 not having the Backup Exec agent, but I thought you could get away without having the agent, you just didn't get the advanced backup features. Oddly, it can see the correct size of the CIFS share (it has a quota) and how much is used.

 

'An error occured while attempting to browse the contents of \\sun\path$. Access to the device is not authorised with this edition of Backup Exec.'

 

Because I can't select it I can't specify the credentials to use, but the account which runs backup Exec should have access to the share. I'm on a slightly old version of BE if it makes any difference.

 

Any suggestions?

 

Chris

[teejay]

I don't use Backup Exec, but Arcserve and that does work by backing up the CIFS shares. One thing I had to do, and this might work for Backup Exec, is specify the username for the backup software to access the CIFS share as user@domain and not 'user' or 'domain\user'. Edited June 12, 2009 by teejay

[Butuz]

Following this thread closely!

 

I was planning on mirroring my 7110 onto a second 7110, and then backing up all of the data off the second 7110 to D2D2T. Still investigating exactly how to go about it!

 

Butuz

[Duke]

I don't use Backup Exec, but Arcserve and that does work by backing up the CIFS shares. One thing I had to do, and this might work for Backup Exec, is speficify the username for the backup software to access the CIFS share as user@domain and not 'user' or 'domain\user'.

 

Thanks, I'll give that a go on Monday and let everyone know!

[Ric_]

Following this thread closely!

 

I was planning on mirroring my 7110 onto a second 7110, and then backing up all of the data off the second 7110 to D2D2T. Still investigating exactly how to go about it!

 

Butuz

 

Workspaces

[RobFuller]

That’s the setup I will be going for but was hoping someone might be using NDMP but doesn’t look promising...

 

Symantec keeps giving me “The directory or file was not found, or could not be accessed.” error when selecting the SUN as a NDMP in the selection list. Did a Google search and found some information about changing to port 9000 which didn't help. Phil any advice greatly appreciated.

 

Following this thread closely!

 

I was planning on mirroring my 7110 onto a second 7110, and then backing up all of the data off the second 7110 to D2D2T. Still investigating exactly how to go about it!

 

Butuz

Edited June 15, 2009 by RobFuller

[Duke]

Well the Backup Exec issue doesn't appear to be related to permissions and is more to do with licensing. I tried to specify the account as user@domain and that made no difference, but I also tried accessing a random windows PC share with \\hostname\c$ and got the same error. Does anyone happen to know what licensing is required to access a CIFS share, presumably without the Backup Exec Remote Agent for Windows being installed? If not I'll give Symantec a call tomorrow and see what they say...

 

Cheers,

Chris

[sjl]

This is exactly how i was planning on backing up our CIFS shares on our 7110 when it comes. I just assumed you would be ok to do so - im sure i have done it in the past, i'm sure i just added the shares in as user defined locations and away it went. I decided to minge on buying the NDMP option for backup exec because its so expensive for what it does.

[Duke]

It may simply be that BE knows how many remote devices I'm licensed for and won't let me connect to any more. I can't remove any of the others to find out though as they're all in use. I'm in a meeting most of the morning but plan to call Symantec after that and see if they can shed any light on the problem. I can't believe it just 'won't work' so there's probably a simple explanation here...

[RobFuller]

Duke; let us know how you get on as I'm very keen to get a working solution for the backup.

[Duke]

Not good news on our end unfortunately, but it doesn't mean this isn't possible. Because we've had Backup Exec for so long (since the Veritas days) and have bought various different upgrades through different resellers, Symantec Support has no way of telling me exactly how many remote devices we're licensed for. They didn't really understand my problem either which wasn't a big help.

 

We could have hit the limit for the allowed number of remote devices, but I have no way of really knowing. The fact I can't connect to a C$ share on a Windows PC certainly suggests this isn't a SAN problem. As we're on backup Exec 10d, Symantec have basically turned around and said they won't support us any more as it's an end-of-life product so I'm a little stuck now.

 

I can price-up doing a full upgrade to Backup Exec 12, but it's going to be a big job to do so I'd rather leave it until next summer and tie it in with the virtualisation project (when I'll need VMware backup licenses anyway).

 

My plan for now is to map the CIFS share as a drive on the Backup Exec server and back it up as a local drive from there. I assume this will work but haven't tested it yet.

 

Sorry guys, doesn't look like I'm going to be much help. Would be really good to know if someone else gets it working though, I really can't see a reason why it wouldn't...

 

Chris

[teejay]

@Duke

We were in the same position as you with Backup Exec, plus when we went to buy the upgrade licenses they said we weren't eligible and that we had to buy the full version!

Ended up going with CA Arcserve as you can buy competitive upgrade licences which worked out a lot cheaper and to be honest works really well. You can get a trial version off their website.

[Duke]

@Duke

We were in the same position as you with Backup Exec, plus when we went to buy the upgrade licenses they said we weren't eligible and that we had to buy the full version!

Ended up going with CA Arcserve as you can buy competitive upgrade licences which worked out a lot cheaper and to be honest works really well. You can get a trial version off their website.

 

Cheers mate, I might have to give that a look! Backup Exec has always worked okay for us but it's never blown me away as being particularly user friendly...

[RobFuller]

The pilot thickens...right going to have to sit down and thrash this out and get something working!

[Duke]

You can get a 60-day trial of Backup Exec 12.5. If it'll help anyone then I'm willing to install it on a test machine and try it with a CIFS share on the S7000 if I can get everything working. I know you probably shouldn't virtualise your backup server, but can anyone see any issues with putting Backup Exec on an ESX VM just for testing?

 

Let me know if it'd help and I'll try to get it done.

Chris

[Duke]

I come bearing news - hope someone finds this useful!

 

Running Backup Exec 12.5 trial on a VM, all installed and configured fine. I tried to add \\SUNSAN\share$ and it adds okay (like it does in 10d) but when you try to browse it then it says a 'communications error has occurred'.

 

I then tried the same with a Windows PC to see if it was a SAN issue or not. I added \\WINDOWSHOST\C$ fine, but when I tried to browse it I got the same 'communications failure' as I did with the SAN.

 

At this point I'm thinking maybe Backup Exec can't connect to a CIFS share without the agent (which would be moronically stupid as Windows can access it) so I do a bit more hunting on the net and find the following on a couple of forums regarding whether this is possible:

 

Nope, afraid not. The nothing technically preventing it from doing do, but the licensing requires you to have the remote agent license, and since v9/10 the server software itself has refused to backup a remote server without it to ensure all installations are properly licensed. Back in the v8.x days the remote agent was required for licensing, but in practice was only really needed if you wanted to backup the system state. I guess Veritas / Symantec realised they were losing out on potential profits from people not bothering with system state backups, so tightened up the software licensing accordingly.

 

I use bexec 11d and backup the CIFS share via \\CIFS name \vol.

 

I get a warning message that no agent is installed so backup performance is reduced, but it still performs the backup and verify OK. You can not install the agent, because the NetApp does not have a running windows o/s

 

I have restored data also.

 

I also found these threads:

 

Access is denied when creating a user defined selection | Symantec Connect

 

BE 11d and NAS CIFS - access denied error | Symantec Connect

 

I get the impression there are some very mixed messages here and Symantec are doing a poor job of resolving the issue or providing any clear documentation. BE 12.5 happily states at the top of the backup selection screen 'You can back up data from any drive or share that is accessible on this server', which we can see is quite clearly not true.

 

Next step was to try a mapped drive on the BE server, but BE won't see it so that route is out too! You can't share a mapped drive either so it's not like you could map it, share it, then back up it up as a 'local' share on the BE server.

 

My final thought was whether it was simply something stupid like not accessing hidden shares (which the test one on the SAN and the Windows C$ share both are), and here's where we get some success! I made a share on the Windows PC and added it as \\WINDOWSHOST\myshare and it adds, connects and browses fine. I then 'un-hid' the share on the SAN by removing the $ and now I can browse that share too! This also worked on BE 10d.

 

I have yet to try actually backing anything up, but so far it seems like this has resolved this part of the issue. This obviously raises the question of what on earth Symantec are playing at, as there should be no reason it can't back up a hidden share. If you look at the properties of a hidden share in BE then it can see the size/used of the volume so it's clearly able to see the share exists.

 

Looks like I'm not the only one with this issue: Cannot backup hidden share on NAS | Symantec Connect

 

I'm going to go back to testing, is anyone able to shed any further light?

 

UPDATE: I've got backup and restore working fine on 12.5 but I'm still struggling with 10d. It'll see the share and the files fine, but when I try to backup I get 'The media server could not connect to the remote computer', despite the fact that the BE server can see and browse the files fine...

 

UPDATE 2: I've just tried adding \\SUNSAN to Backup Exec rather than a specific share (something I should have tried before really) and in 10d I can see all the shares but only select non-hidden ones. In 12.5 it only shows the non-hidden ones. Suggestions in 10d to resolve the issue include installing the remote agent (not possible) or trying a different logon account (not needed). Anyone know of a fix for the hidden shares problem?

 

Chris

Edited June 18, 2009 by Duke

[RobFuller]

Duke, are you running any storage for virtualisation on your shares? Does it handle locked files ok, just wondered?

[Duke]

Duke, are you running any storage for virtualisation on your shares? Does it handle locked files ok, just wondered?

 

No, I'm doing all my virtualisation through iSCSI currently (still having issues with NFS) and I just picked some testing data for the backup.

 

I think the general answer is that you really shouldn't be backing up your virtual machines through a CIFS share as there's no guarantee you'll get a stable snapshot image of the VM files and they might not boot when you restore them. Backup Exec do make a VMware agent, and while it's not cheap I think it's probably the safest option for backing up VMs as it uses the VMware API to ensure you get a proper snapshot of the VM.

 

Cheers,

Chris