Granular Restore Technology (GRT) support for NetBackup with PureDisk (PDDO/PDDE)

Problem

Statement of support for
Granular Restore Technology (GRT) for NetBackup with PureDisk (PDDO/PDDE)

Solution

The support of Exchange and SharePoint GRT backups using PureDisk (Either PDDO and PDDE) has been initiated for the following NetBackup versions:  

• NetBackup 7.1

To achieve optimal backup performance on the PureDisk configured storage unit, the default fragment size should be decreased to a size of 15GB.

Exchange recommendations:  

The number of Exchange transaction logs that are being backed up on a given Exchange system can greatly impact the performance of granular processing required on the media server.   If a PureDisk based storage Unit is being used, it has been noticed that this performance decrease can be compounded because of the way the GRT processing has to access these files from the PureDisk data store.  

To minimize the number of transaction logs that are included in the data set that granular processing needs to operate on, only Exchange snapshot backups should be used when using a PureDisk based storage unit. This can include basic local snapshot backups, replication backups (using CCR or Exchange 2010 DAG passive copies), off-host backups and in combination with any of the supported VSS providers.  

During a snapshot backup, the set of logs that will be backed up remains fixed.   Of this set of transaction logs, there are only a fraction of logs that are not yet committed to the Exchange database and would be required to create a consistent Database.   For a snapshot backup, NetBackup can track and use only this required subset when performing these granular operations.   This greatly increases the expected performance for the granular processing at the end of the data portion of the backup.   This increase in granular operations will also be present on browsing, duplicating and restore operations with NetBackup.

Selecting the Exchange client options Back up only uncommitted log files or Back up all log files should not greatly impact the granular processing portion of backup or restore.   The set of transaction logs needed for granular processing will be similar.

SharePoint recommendations:

If the total SharePoint GRT content (that is, the sum of all Web Application content databases plus Shared Services Application content) is above 500 GB, it is recommended that GRT backups of SharePoint resources be staggered.  This can be accomplished by configuring multiple policies with different schedules.  Wildcards can be used to set up these policies.

Examples:

Suppose policies need to be created to back up a Web Application with over thirty (30) content databases.  The following Backup Selections could be specified in separate MS-SharePoint policies:

Note:  The Backup Selections in these policies are file directives for SharePoint 2007:

Policy 1:

Microsoft SharePoint Resources:\Windows SharePoint Services Web Application\<Web Application Name>\Content-DB 1*

Policy 2:

Microsoft SharePoint Resources:\Windows SharePoint Services Web Application\<Web Application Name>\Content-DB 2*

Policy 3:

Microsoft SharePoint Resources:\Windows SharePoint Services Web Application\<Web Application Name>\Content-DB 3*

Policy 4:

Microsoft SharePoint Resources:\Windows SharePoint Services Web Application\<Web Application Name>\Content-DB 4*

Microsoft SharePoint Resources:\Windows SharePoint Services Web Application\<Web Application Name>\Content-DB 5*

Microsoft SharePoint Resources:\Windows SharePoint Services Web Application\<Web Application Name>\Content-DB 6*

Microsoft SharePoint Resources:\Windows SharePoint Services Web Application\<Web Application Name>\Content-DB 7*

Microsoft SharePoint Resources:\Windows SharePoint Services Web Application\<Web Application Name>\Content-DB 8*

Microsoft SharePoint Resources:\Windows SharePoint Services Web Application\<Web Application Name>\Content-DB 9*

With the above configuration, Policy 1 will capture content databases 1, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19.

Policy 2 will capture content databases 2, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 and 29.

Policy 3 will capture content databases 3, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38 and 39 (presuming they all exist).

Policy 4 will capture content databases 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.

This example is similar to the above example but uses SharePoint 2010 file directives:

Policy 1:

Microsoft SharePoint Resources:\Windows SharePoint Foundation Web Application\<Web Application Name>\Content-DB 1*

Policy 2:

Microsoft SharePoint Resources:\Windows SharePoint Foundation Web Application\<Web Application Name>\Content-DB 2*

Policy 3:

Microsoft SharePoint Resources:\Windows SharePoint Foundation Web Application\<Web Application Name>\Content-DB 3*

Policy 4:

Microsoft SharePoint Resources:\Windows SharePoint Foundation Web Application\<Web Application Name>\Content-DB 4*

Microsoft SharePoint Resources:\Windows SharePoint Foundation Web Application\<Web Application Name>\Content-DB 5*

Microsoft SharePoint Resources:\Windows SharePoint Foundation Web Application\<Web Application Name>\Content-DB 6*

Microsoft SharePoint Resources:\Windows SharePoint Foundation Web Application\<Web Application Name>\Content-DB 7*

Microsoft SharePoint Resources:\Windows SharePoint Foundation Web Application\<Web Application Name>\Content-DB 8*

Microsoft SharePoint Resources:\Windows SharePoint Foundation Web Application\<Web Application Name>\Content-DB 9*

With the above configuration, Policy 1 will capture content databases 1, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19.

Policy 2 will capture content databases 2, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 and 29.

Policy 3 will capture content databases 3, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38 and 39 (presuming they all exist).

Policy 4 will capture content databases 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.

Note:   To avoid typographical errors when entering Backup Selections, it is recommended that SharePoint resources be selected using remote browse capability in the Windows NetBackup administration console and then modified with the wildcard character ("*").