Advanced Backup - NAS iDataAgent
- Full Backup
- Incremental Backup
- Performing an On-Demand Backup
- Scheduling a Backup
- Managing Jobs
- Additional NAS Features
- Backup Quotas
- Backup Offline Data
- Performing Volume Based Backups
- Performing Exclusive Backups
- Performing Block Backups
- Backup from a Snapshot
- Fast Incremental Backup
- Backup Snapshots
- Setting Snapshot Expiration
- Optimizing Backups Using Readahead Process
- ZFS-NDMP Backup
- Additional Backup Options
Full Backup
Full backups provide the most comprehensive protection of data.
- From the CommCell Browser, navigate to <Client> | NAS | defaultBackupSet.
- Right click the <Subclient> and click Backup.
- Select Full as backup type and Immediate to run the job immediately.
- Click OK.
You can track the progress of the job from the Job Controller. When the backup has completed, the Job Controller displays Completed.
Incremental Backup
An incremental backup contains only data that is new or has changed since the last backup, regardless of the type. On average, incremental backups consume less media and use less resources than full backups.The illustration clarifies the nature of full and incremental backups.
Follow steps given below to perform an incremental backup:

When browsing data from NAS incremental backup jobs, deleted items are not marked as deleted.
To mark items deleted during NAS incremental backup jobs, add the following Additional Setting (see Add or Modify an Additional Setting) to the MediaAgents used to run the NAS incremental backups:
- Name: sIdxProcessDeletedFiles
- Category: NAS
- Type: STRING
- Value: Y
- From the CommCell Browser, navigate to <Client> | NAS | defaultBackupSet.
- Right click the <Subclient> and click Backup.
- Select Incremental as backup type and Immediate to run the job immediately.
- Click OK.
You can track the progress of the job from the Job Controller. When the backup has completed, the Job Controller displays Completed.
Performing an On-Demand Backup
An On-Demand backup provides the flexibility of specifying content each time you perform a backup operation.
Follow the steps given below to perform an On-Demand backup:
- From the CommCell Console, navigate to <Client> |
NAS | <On Demand Backup Set>. - Right click the subclient and click Backup.
- Click Browse.
- Navigate to the Content file (created while configuring the Agent) you want to use.
- Click OK.
- Select Immediate to run the job immediately.
- Click OK.
You can track the progress of the job from the Job Controller.
Scheduling a Backup
Follow the steps given below to schedule a data protection operation:
- From the CommCell Browser, expand Client Computers | <Client> | NAS, and then click defaultBackupSet.
- Right-click the <Subclient>, and then click Backup.
- Select the Backup type.
- Select Schedule to schedule the backup for a specific time.
- Click Configure to set the schedule for the backup job.
The Schedule Details dialog displays.
- Select the appropriate scheduling options. For example:
- Click Weekly.
- Check the days you want the run the backup job.
- Change the Start Time to 9:00 PM.
- Click OK to close the Schedule Details dialog.
- Click OK to close the Backup Options dialog.
The backup job executes as per the schedule.
See Scheduling for a comprehensive information on scheduling jobs.
Managing Jobs
Jobs can be managed in a number of ways. See Job Management for a comprehensive information on managing jobs.
The following sections provide information on the different job management options available:
Restarting Jobs
Jobs that fail to complete successfully are automatically restarted based on the job restartability configuration set in the Control Panel. Keep in mind that changes made to this configuration will affect all jobs in the entire CommCell.
To Configure the job restartability for a specific job, you can modify the retry settings for the job. This will override the setting in the Control Panel. It is also possible to override the default CommServe configuration for individual jobs by configuring retry settings when initiating the job. This configuration, however, will apply only to the specific job.
Backup jobs for this agent are resumed from the beginning of the last failed or suspended subclient path. Any subclient paths that have been successfully backed up will not be backed up again. For NetApp traditional backups (not SMtape), jobs are resumed from the point of failure within the last failed or suspended subclient path.
Configure Job Restartability at the CommServe Level
- From the CommCell Browser, click Control Panel icon.
- Under System, click Job Management.
- Click Job Restarts tab and select a Job Type.
- Select Restartable to make the job restartable.
- Change the value for Max Restarts to change the maximum number of times the Job Manager will try to restart a job.
- Change the value for Restart Interval (Mins) to change the time interval between attempts for the Job Manager to restart the job.
- Click OK.
Configure Job Restartability for an Individual Job
- From the CommCell Browser, navigate to <Client> | NAS | defaultBackupSet.
- Right click the <Subclient> and click Backup.
- Click Advanced.
- In the Advanced Backup Options dialog box, click the Job Retry tab.
- Select Enable Total Running Time and specify the maximum elapsed time before a job can be restarted or killed.
Select Kill Running Jobs When Total Running Time Expires to kill the job after reaching the maximum elapsed time.
- Select Enable Number Of Retries and specify the number of retries.
- Click OK.
Controlling Jobs
The following controls are available for running jobs in the Job Controller window:
Suspend |
Temporarily stops a job. A suspended job is not terminated; it can be restarted at a later time. |
Resume |
Resumes a job and returns the status to Waiting, Pending, Queued, or Running. The status depends on the availability of resources, the state of the Operation Windows, or the Activity Control setting. |
Kill |
Terminates a job. |
Suspending a Job
- From the Job Controller of the CommCell Console, right-click the job and select Suspend.
- The job status may change to Suspend Pending for a few moments while the operation completes. The job status then changes to Suspended.
Resuming a Job
- From the Job Controller of the CommCell Console, right-click the job and select Resume.
- As the Job Manager attempts to restart the job, the job status changes to Waiting, Pending, or Running.
Killing a Job
- From the Job Controller of the CommCell Console, right-click the job and select Kill.
- Click Yes when the confirmation prompt appears if you are sure you want to kill the job. The job status may change to Kill Pending for a few moments while the operation completes. Once completed, the job status will change to Killed and it will be removed from the Job Controller window after five minutes.
Throttling Jobs
Modify backup job performance by modifying job throttling. See Throttling Backup Jobs for information on throttling options.
Additional NAS Features
The following sections describe the additional NAS features available for different file servers.
Backup Quotas
Feature | Description | Applies To |
Backup Quotas | Use this option to backup user and group quota information. This is useful for monitoring and controlling the disk usage.
|
BlueArc (Hitachi NAS), Hitachi |
Backup Offline Data
Feature | Description | Applies To |
Backup Offline Data | Use this option to include the original archived files in the backup, rather than the stubs created during the archive operation.
|
BlueArc (Hitachi NAS), Celerra FileMover |
Performing Volume Based Backups
Feature | Description | Applies To |
Volume Based Backup | Use this option to perform block level backup of an entire volume. This can be used to facilitate faster full and incremental backups. When using this option, the entire volume will be backed up ignoring any filters specified in the subclient content.
You can perform a granular restore of individual files and folders from a volume based back up. Files that were de-duplicated using the Celerra file system and were later backed up using the Volume-based backup option may fail to be restored individually. To restore these files, you must perform a full destructive restore. See VBB Full Destructive Restore for more information. |
Celerra / VNX / VNXe |
Performing Exclusive Backups
Feature | Description | Applies To |
Exclusive Backups | Use this option to prevent simultaneous execution of multiple backup or restore operations on the same volume. This is useful as it avoids possible data inconsistency which can be caused by the following operations on the same volume:
|
Hitachi |
Performing Block Based Backups
Feature | Description | Applies To |
Block Based Backup | Use this option to read and backup data blocks directly from the disk or volume rather than the directory tree. Using this option improves performance during backup, however the restore operations may become slower. Direct Access Restore operations will be converted to non-Direct Access Restore operation when this is enabled. For Pillar Data Systems, full backups and restores are supported with this option. The restore operations will overwrite the existing data on the file system.
|
Hitachi, Pillar |
Backing Up from a Snapshot
Feature | Description | Applies To |
Back Up from Snapshot | Use this option to create a snapshot of the file server data and then perform a backup from the snapshot.
|
BlueArc (Hitachi NAS), Celerra, Hitachi, VNX |
Fast Incremental Backup
Feature | Description | Applies To |
Fast Incremental (Backup from Snapshot) | During fast incremental backups, the file server client creates a snapshot and then a backup is performed from that snapshot. For more information about fast incremental backups, see your file server vendor's documentation. The Fast Incremental (Backup from Snapshot) feature is only available when the MediaAgent software has been updated to Service Pack 13 or later. After updating to the latest service pack, you must redetect the file server before this option is available in the CommCell Console:
After you detect the NAS client, the Fast Incremental (Backup from Snapshot) option is enabled by default on supported file servers. See Supported Vendors - NAS Agent. To disable Fast Incremental backups, proceed as follows:
|
Isilon |
Backup Snapshots
Feature | Description | Applies To |
Snapshots to Back-up | Use this option to backup a snapshot. If the snapshot exists, use NDMP_EXISTING_<snapname> format to specify the name of the snapshot. If the snapshot does not exist or the specified name does not start with NDMP_EXISTING_ then a new snapshot will be created during backup.
|
IBM |
Snapshots to Back-up | Use this option to backup an existing snapshot.
|
NetApp |
Incremental Backups for SnapMirror to Tape | In order the run incremental backups on an image backup set for SnapMirror to Tape, the previous full backup must have configured the Snapshot to Backup option or moved a snapshot to tape. For more information about how incremental backups work, see Incremental Backup. To perform incremental backups for SnapMirror to Tape:
|
NetApp |
Setting Snapshot Expiration
Feature | Description | Applies To |
Snapshot Expiration | Use this option to specify the retention period for the snapshot created during Snapshot to Back-up operation. This setting applies to snapshots created during the backup and not the existing snapshots. If the snapshot expiration time is reached while the backup is running, the snapshot will not be deleted until the backup completes.
|
IBM |
Optimizing Backups Using Readahead Process
Feature | Description | Applies To |
Readahead Process | Use this option to specify the number of disk blocks to read ahead during the backup operations. If you do not specify a value for this option, the default value from the file server will be used.
|
BlueArc (Hitachi NAS) |
ZFS-NDMP Backup
Feature | Description | Applies To |
ZFS-NDMP Block Based Backup | You can perform a block-based backup of a ZFS file server by performing the following procedure.
A block-based backup is different from a file-level backup. With block-based backups, the following restore operations are not supported:
Refer to your vendor's NDMP documentation for more information. Before You BeginPerform the procedures for configuring a ZFS file server. See Configuring a ZFS File Server. Procedure
|
Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance, SUN |
Additional Backup Options
The following table describes the available additional options to further refine your backup operations:
Option | Description | Related Topics |
Startup Options | The Startup Options are used by the Job Manager to set priority for resource allocation. This is useful to give higher priority to certain jobs. You can set the priority as follows:
|
Refer to Job Priority and Priority Precedence. |
Alerts | This option enables users or user groups to get automatic notification on the status of the data protection job. Follow the steps given below to set up the criteria to raise notifications/alerts:
|
Refer to Alerts. |
Backup Job Summary Report | The Backup Job Summary Report provides you with information about all the backup jobs that are run in last 24 hrs for a specific subclient. You can get information such as status, time, data size etc. for each backup job. It is useful to run this report after performing the backup. Follow the steps given below to generate the report:
|
Refer to Backup Job Summary Report. |
Command Line Backups | Command Line Interface enables you to perform backups or restore from the command line. The commands can be executed from the command line or can be integrated into scripts. You can also generate command line scripts for specific operations from the CommCell Browser using the Save As Script option. |
Refer to Command Line. |
CommCell Readiness Report | The CommCell Readiness Report provides you with vital information such as connectivity and readiness of the Client, MediaAgent, and CommServe. It is useful to run this report before performing a backup or a recovery operation. Follow the steps given below to generate the report:
|
Refer to CommCell Readiness Report. |
Data Path Options | Data Protection operations use a default Library, MediaAgent, Drive Pool, and Drive as the Data Path. You can use this option to change the data path if the default data path is not available. Follow the steps given below to change the default data path:
|
Refer to Change Data Path. |
Start New Media | The Start New Media option enables you to start the data protection operation on a new media. This feature provides control over where the data physically resides. Use the following steps to start the data protection operation on a new media:
|
Refer to Start New Media. |
Mark Media Full | This option marks the media as full, two minutes after the successful completion of the data protection job. This option prevents another job from writing to this media. Follow the steps given below:
|
Refer to Export Media. |
Allow Other Schedules To Use Media Set | The Allow Other Schedules to use Media Set option allows jobs that are part of the schedule or schedule policy and using the specific storage policy to start a new media. It also prevents other jobs from writing to the same set of media.
|
Refer to Creating an Exportable Media Set. |
Extended Data Retention | This option allows you to extend the expiration date of a specific job. This will override the default retention set at the corresponding storage policy copy. Follow the steps given below to extend the expiration date:
|
Refer to Extended Retention Rules. |
Vault Tracker | This feature provides the facility to manage media that is removed from a library and stored in offsite locations. Depending on your Vault Tracker setup, select the required options. Use the following steps to access and select the Vault Tracker options. | Refer to Vault Tracker. |