Veritas NetBackup 8.

0 Blueprint
Accelerator
Backup and Recovery Technical Education Services
Attention
Disclaimer

ATTENTION
This forward-looking indication of plans for products is preliminary and all future release
dates are tentative and are subject to change.
Any future release of the product or planned modifications to product capability, functionality
or feature are subject to ongoing evaluation by Veritas, and may or may not be implemented
and should not be considered firm commitments by Veritas, and should not be relied upon in
making purchasing decisions.

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Important Notice
Diagrams containing objects representing 3rd-party platforms and applications

This NetBackup Blueprint presentation includes example diagrams that contain objects that
represent applications and platforms from other companies such as Microsoft and VMware.
These diagrams may or may not match or resemble actual implementations found in end
user environments. Any likeness or similarity to actual end user environments is completely
by coincidence.
The goal of the diagrams included in this blueprint presentation is not to recommend specific
ways in which to implement applications and platforms from other companies such as
Microsoft and VMware; the purpose of these diagrams is to illustrate NetBackup best
practices only.
For guidelines and best practices on installing and configuring applications and platforms
from other companies, please refer to best practice documentation and other resources
provided by those companies.

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NetBackup Blueprints
How to use

NetBackup Blueprints are designed to illustrate key customer data protection challenges
and to demonstrate how NetBackup solves them.
Each Blueprint consists of:
• Pain points - current challenges a customer faces
• Whiteboards/example diagrams – illustrations of the NetBackup solution
• Configuration walkthrough – step-by-step configuration guide of the NetBackup
solution
• Best practices - NetBackup best practices to avoid common pitfalls
Use Blueprints to present NetBackup best practice implementation examples.

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Contents

1 Today’s Challenges

2 NetBackup Advantages

3 Fundamentals

4 Whiteboards & Example Diagrams

5 Best Practices & Limitations

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Today’s Challenges
Today’s Challenges

• Existing technologies, such as snapshots and replication, are

not fast enough to meet backup timeframe targets. They are
also expensive, complex, aren't centralized across vendors,
and cannot be deduplicated.
• Number of virtual machines on each physical server (the
density of VMs) is increasing as hardware gets faster.
• Difficult to meet demanding service level agreements.
• Pressure of exponential data growth.

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NetBackup Advantages
Advantages
• Intelligent, streamlined backups
– Made possible by change detection techniques on the client
– Synthesizes a new full backup image based on only changed file segments which is
more efficient than previous Optimized Synthetic backups
– Full backups done in nearly the time it takes to do an incremental
– Takes advantage of OST-based features
• Supports following storage units:
– NetBackup Deduplication : MSDP, NetBackup Appliances
– Cloud storage plug-ins (are only supported when writing directly from the backup client
to the cloud storage unit.)
– OST vendors must be qualified for NetBackup Accelerator Support

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What Is Accelerator?

• Dramatically reduces the time required to run full backups.

• Reduces overhead on client: CPU, Memory, I/O, and OS file system cache
• Acceleration of backup, files and folders and VMware with NetBackup 7.6
and later.
• Eliminates the need to read and write, to backup unchanged files and file
segments for each full backup
• Eliminates the need to walk-through entire file system during the backups
when using Change Journal for Windows NTFS or ReFS
• Creates a compact backup stream that uses less network bandwidth
between client and server.

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Fundamentals
Requirements and Notes

• NetBackup Accelerator requires the Data Protection Optimization Option

license.
• Supports specific disk storage units only. Supported storage unit types are
PureDisk (MSDP, PureDisk, appliance), cloud storage, and qualified third-
party OST storage
• Supports all platforms, file systems, and logical volumes that NetBackup
supports
• Supports full backups and incremental backups.
• Supports MS-Windows and Standard policy types only
• Supports VMware policy in NetBackup 7.6 and later
– HP OpenVMs client does not support NetBackup Accelerator.

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Configuration Notes
• Add the license on master server for Data Protection Optimization Option
• REQUIRED – a storage unit that officially supports Accelerator
• Configure a Standard or MS-Windows backup policy
– Select the following on the policy Attributes tab:
• A disk storage unit that supports Accelerator.
• The Use accelerator option.

• For even faster backups of Windows clients, select the Use Change
Journal attribute under Host Properties > Clients >Windows Client > Client
Settings.
– “NOTE: Change Journal will automatically be turned on and is not turned off if
Accelerator is disabled”
• To establish a new baseline of change detection on the client, create an
additional schedule to periodically do an “Accelerator forced rescan”
maybe , on a monthly basis
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Whiteboards & Example Diagrams
Policy Configuration

1. Configure 2. Optional: Configure

NetBackup Accelerator file system change
in the policy. journaling.

A warning message results if

Use accelerator is enabled with
an unsupported OST storage
unit.

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Configuring Client Settings

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How NetBackup Accelerator works ?
• During the first backup:
1. A full backup is performed
2. A client track log is created
• During successive backups:
1. Changes since the previous backup are identified
o The client’s file system is compared to the track log from the previous backup
o If enabled, the Windows NTFS change journal is used
2. The client sends the media server a data stream consisting of:
o Data for changed blocks
o Metadata for unchanged blocks (previous backup ID and data extents)
3. The media server creates a optimized synthetic backup
o Changed blocks are read and unchanged data is located in existing backups.
o The storage server/unit intelligently combines the existing full backup with the changed segments from the
client with minimal data movement on the storage unit

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Full Backup + Accelerator
Master Server
Client 1 Step 1: File system content
NBU table is scanned for
Catalog changes
Application
2 Step 2: Accelerator
intelligently compares files
Backup Server metadata with previous
5 backup

Synthesis
Accelerator 3 Step 3: Send unique data

Engine
agent 3 Backup
segments
2 engine
4 Step 4: Persist unique data
and generate synthetic full
1 backup
4
File System
5 Step 5: Client sends only
metadata for changes to
catalog
Results: Backups complete
quickly, low I/O and CPU cost
on client, network bandwidth
and storage cost minimized

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Accelerator + NTFS Change Journal + Client Side Dedupe

Master Server
Client 1 Step 1: Use NTFS Change
NBU Journal to identify changes.
Catalog Accelerator sends unique
segments (bpbkar)
Application
2 Step 2: Dedup data (Client
Backup Server Direct + Dedup plug-in)
5
3 Step 3: Send unique data

Synthesis
Dedupe

segments (Dedup plug-in)

Engine

Engine
Accelerator 3 Backup
agent Step 4: Persist unique data
engine 4
and generate synthetic full
1 2 backup (bptm)
File System 4 5 Step 5: Client sends only
NTFS Change Journal metadata for changes to
catalog (bpbkar, bpbrm)
Results: Backups complete
quickly, low I/O and CPU cost on
client, network bandwidth and
storage cost minimized

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NetBackup Accelerator Operation Modes

Operation
Windows UNIX Description
mode
• Uses the client track log to identify changes to the
file system between backups
Normal • Is enabled with the Use accelerator option under the
backup policy Attributes tab

• Uses the file system change journal to speed up the

NTFS discovery process for changed files
change • Is enabled with the Use Change Journal option
journal under the master server’s Host Properties > Clients
> Windows Client > Client Settings

• Uses checksums of the file contents during the

backup for change detection to establish a new
Accelerator baseline for the next Accelerator backup
forced rescan • Results in a slower backup
• Is enabled with the Accelerator forced rescan option
under the policy Schedules tab

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Components: Track Log
• Contains information about the client's data, for comparison at the next
backup.
• Created for each policy and each file list entry in the policy
• Entries are protected using checksums & the track log is self healing
• Eliminates the need to read each file during backups
• Is created on the client under the NetBackup directory.
• Is specific for a given policy, client, master server, storage server, and
backup selection to allow for multiple storage server backups independently.
• The track log name is composed of the following components:
– <installdir>\NetBackup\track\<masterserver>\<storageserver>\<client>\<policy_name>\<b
ackup specification>

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Client Track Log Files Details
• Client track logs location:
– UNIX: /usr/openv/netbackup/track/master_server/
storage_server/client/policy_name/backup_selection
– Windows: install_path\NetBackup\track\master_server\
storage_server\client\policy_name\backup_selection
• NetBackup Accelerator track log can be moved to a different location.
Refer to :http://www.veritas.com/docs/000068640
• Client track logs sizing:
– Depends on the number of files and the total amount of used space
– Is approximated using the following formula:
– (Number of files * 200) + ((Total used disk space/128K) * 20)
– Example of 1 TB file system with one million files = ~ 350 MB track logs

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The NTFS Change Journal
• Is an optional feature that can be used with the NetBackup Accelerator on
Windows operating systems (NTFS file systems)
• NetBackup monitors the change journal to determine which files and
directories need to be included in a backup based on USN. This eliminates
the need to perform a full file system scan.
• Because the change journal is a circular database, if entries are overwritten
before the next backup runs, it cannot be used for that next backup. In this
case, NetBackup reverts to a full file system scan. This logs a message in
the Job Details dialog box for that specific backup job.

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Viewing The NTFS Change Journal Databases
There are three database files that are created and maintained by NetBackup
at the root of each NTFS volume where NTFS change journals are used:

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Job Detail Messages
• Standard Mode (Without NTFS change journal)
– 12/3/2013 11:23:19 PM - Info bpbrm(pid=6352) accelerator enabled
– 12/3/2013 11:23:56 PM - Info bpbkar32(pid=6468) change journal NOT enabled for
<C:\data>

• NTFS Change Journal Mode(Accelerator and NTFS change journal)

– 12/3/2013 11:44:06 PM - Info bpbkar32(pid=3064) change journal enabled for <C:\data>
– 12/3/2013 11:44:07 PM - Info bpbkar32(pid=3064) using change journal data for
<C:\data>

• Accelerator Forced Scan

– 12/3/2013 11:46:39 PM - Info bpbrm(pid=5744) accelerator enabled
– 12/3/2013 11:46:39 PM - Info bpbrm(pid=5744) Accelerator enabled backup with
checksum based change detection needs to read each file and calculate the checksum,
and will have longer backup time.
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Best Practices & Limitations
General Best Practices
• NetBackup Accelerator must complete an initial full backup in order to
create the track log for future acceleration.
• Schedules with forced rescan enabled will cause longer backup windows.
It’s recommended to enable forced rescan on a separate schedule to be run
occasionally.
• The Accelerator forced rescan and Use Change Journal options cannot be
combined. If Accelerator forced rescan is selected, the Use Change Journal
option is ignored.
• When using the Accelerator feature, exclude the following files on the root of
each drive from the antivirus scan:
– *:\VxCJInfo.dat
– *:\VxCJDelete.dat
– *:\VxCJMon.dat

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General Best Practices
• Log messages about the Use CJ and Accelerator
http://www.veritas.com/docs/000112392
• How the NetBackup Accelerator works
http://www.veritas.com/docs/000112448
• NetBackup logs for Accelerator
http://www.veritas.com/docs/000065887
• How the NetBackup Accelerator works with virtual machines
http://www.veritas.com/docs/000103257
• Enabling NetBackup Accelerator with cloud storage
http://www.veritas.com/docs/000111881
• How to redirect the NetBackup Accelerator track log to a different location
http://www.veritas.com/docs/000068640

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Thank you!
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