Veritas NetBackup™ Administrator's Guide, Volume I
- Section I. About NetBackup
- Section II. Configuring hosts
- Configuring Host Properties
- About the NetBackup Host Properties
- Access Control properties
- Bandwidth properties
- Busy File Settings properties
- Client Attributes properties
- Client Settings properties for UNIX clients
- Client Settings properties for Windows clients
- Data Classification properties
- Default Job Priorities properties
- Encryption properties
- Exchange properties
- Exclude Lists properties
- Fibre Transport properties
- Firewall properties
- General Server properties
- Global Attributes properties
- Logging properties
- Login Banner Configuration properties
- Media properties
- Network Settings properties
- Port Ranges properties
- Preferred Network properties
- Resilient Network properties
- Restore Failover properties
- Retention Periods properties
- Scalable Storage properties
- Servers properties
- SharePoint properties
- SLP Parameters properties
- Throttle Bandwidth properties
- Universal Settings properties
- User Account Settings properties
- Configuration options for NetBackup servers
- ECA_CERT_PATH for NetBackup servers and clients
- PREFERRED_NETWORK option for NetBackup servers
- THROTTLE_BANDWIDTH option for NetBackup servers
- Configuration options for NetBackup clients
- IGNORE_XATTR option for NetBackup clients
- VXSS_NETWORK option for NetBackup clients
- Configuring server groups
- Enabling support for NAT clients and NAT servers in NetBackup
- Configuring host credentials
- Managing media servers
- Configuring Host Properties
- Section III. Configuring storage
- Configuring disk storage
- Configuring robots and tape drives
- About configuring robots and tape drives in NetBackup
- Adding a robot to NetBackup manually
- Managing robots
- Adding a tape drive to NetBackup manually
- Adding a tape drive path
- Correlating tape drives and device files on UNIX hosts
- Managing tape drives
- Performing device diagnostics
- Configuring tape media
- About NetBackup volume pools
- About WORM media
- About adding volumes
- Configuring media settings
- Media settings options
- Media type (new media setting)
- Media settings options
- About barcodes
- Configuring barcode rules
- Configuring media ID generation rules
- Adding volumes by using the Actions menu
- Configuring media type mappings
- Managing volumes
- About exchanging a volume
- About frozen media
- About injecting and ejecting volumes
- About rescanning and updating barcodes
- About labeling NetBackup volumes
- About moving volumes
- About recycling a volume
- Managing volume pools
- Managing volume groups
- Inventorying robots
- About showing a robot's contents
- About updating the NetBackup volume configuration
- About the vmphyinv physical inventory utility
- Configuring storage units
- About the Storage utility
- Creating a storage unit
- About storage unit settings
- Absolute pathname to directory or absolute pathname to volume setting for storage units
- Maximum concurrent jobs storage unit setting
- Staging backups
- Creating a basic disk staging storage unit
- Configuring storage unit groups
- Section IV. Configuring storage lifecycle policies (SLPs)
- Configuring storage lifecycle policies
- Storage operations
- Index From Snapshot operation in an SLP
- Snapshot operation in an SLP
- Retention types for SLP operations
- Capacity managed retention type for SLP operations
- Storage lifecycle policy options
- Using a storage lifecycle policy to create multiple copies
- Storage lifecycle policy versions
- Section V. Configuring backups
- Creating backup policies
- Planning for policies
- Policy Attributes tab
- Policy storage (policy attribute)
- Policy volume pool (policy attribute)
- Take checkpoints every __ minutes (policy attribute)
- Backup Network Drives (policy attribute)
- Cross mount points (policy attribute)
- Encryption (policy attribute)
- Collect true image restore information (policy attribute) with and without move detection
- Use Accelerator (policy attribute)
- Enable optimized backup of Windows deduplicated volumes
- Use Replication Director (policy attributes)
- Schedule Attributes tab
- Type of backup (schedule attribute)
- Frequency (schedule attribute)
- Multiple copies (schedule attribute)
- Retention (schedule attribute)
- Media multiplexing (schedule attribute)
- Start Window tab
- Include Dates tab
- How open schedules affect calendar-based and frequency-based schedules
- About the Clients tab
- Backup Selections tab
- Adding backup selections to a policy
- Verifying the Backup Selections list
- Pathname rules for UNIX client backups
- About the directives on the Backup Selections list
- ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES directive
- Files that are excluded from backups by default
- Disaster Recovery tab
- Active Directory granular backups and recovery
- Synthetic backups
- Using the multiple copy synthetic backups method
- Protecting the NetBackup catalog
- Parts of the NetBackup catalog
- Protecting the NetBackup catalog
- Archiving the catalog and restoring from the catalog archive
- Estimating catalog space requirements
- About the NetBackup relational database
- About the NetBackup relational database (NBDB) installation
- Using the NetBackup Database Administration utility on Windows
- Using the NetBackup Database Administration utility on UNIX
- Post-installation tasks
- About backup and recovery procedures
- Managing backup images
- Configuring immutability and indelibility of data in NetBackup
- Creating backup policies
- Section VI. Deployment Management
- Deployment Management
- Adding or changing schedules in a deployment policy
- Deployment Management
- Section VII. Configuring replication
- About NetBackup replication
- About NetBackup Auto Image Replication
- Viewing the replication topology for Auto Image Replication
- About the storage lifecycle policies required for Auto Image Replication
- Removing or replacing replication relationships in an Auto Image Replication configuration
- About NetBackup replication
- Section VIII. Monitoring and reporting
- Monitoring NetBackup activity
- About the Jobs tab
- About the Daemons tab
- About the Processes tab
- About the Drives tab
- About the jobs database
- About pending requests and actions
- Reporting in NetBackup
- Email notifications
- Monitoring NetBackup activity
- Section IX. Administering NetBackup
- Management topics
- Accessing a remote server
- Using the NetBackup Remote Administration Console
- Run-time configuration options for the NetBackup Administration Console
- About improving NetBackup performance
- About adjusting time zones in the NetBackup Administration console
- Alternate server restores
- About performing alternate server restores
- Managing client backups and restores
- About client-redirected restores
- Powering down and rebooting NetBackup servers
- About Granular Recovery Technology
- About configuring Services for Network File System (NFS)
About incremental backups
The following examples show how data is included in a series of full and incremental backups.
A differential incremental backup backs up the data that changed since the last full or differential incremental backup.
Note:
You must run a full backup before an incremental backup. If no full backup is run, the incremental performs the role of a full backup.
Figure: Full and differential incremental example shows how data is included in a series of full and differential incremental backups between January 1 and January 4.
The January 1 full backup includes all files and directories in the policy backup selections list. The subsequent differential incremental backups include only the data that changed since the last full or differential incremental backup. If the disk fails sometime on January 4 (after the backup), the full backup and all three of the incremental backups are required for the recovery.
A cumulative incremental backup backs up the data that changed since the last full backup. Figure: Full and cumulative incremental example shows how data is included in a series of full and cumulative incremental backups between January 1 and January 4. The January 1 full backup includes all files and directories in the policy backup selections list. Each of the cumulative incremental backups includes the data that changed since the last full backup. If the disk fails sometime on January 4 (after the backup), the full backup and the last cumulative incremental backup are required for the recovery.
Table: Retention requirements for incremental backups describes how to determine the retention of differential and cumulative incremental backups to prevent a gap in backup coverage.
Table: Retention requirements for incremental backups
Type | Retention requirement | Comments |
---|---|---|
Differential |
Longer |
To restore all files requires the last full backup and all the differential incremental backups that occurred since the last full backup. Therefore, all the differentials must be kept until the next full backup occurs. |
Cumulative |
Shorter |
Each cumulative incremental backup contains all the changes that occurred since the last full backup. Therefore, a complete restore requires only the most recent cumulative incremental in addition to the full backup. |
Table: Relative backup and restore times for incremental backups compares the advantages and disadvantages of using differential or cumulative incremental backups based on possible backup and restore times.
Table: Relative backup and restore times for incremental backups
Type | Backup time | Restore time | Comments |
---|---|---|---|
Differential |
Shorter |
Longer |
Less data in each backup, but all differential incremental backups are required since the last full backup for a restore. This results in a longer restore time. |
Cumulative |
Longer |
Shorter |
More data in each backup, but only the last cumulative incremental backup is required for a complete restore (in addition to the full). |
You can use a combination of cumulative and differential incremental backups together to get the advantages of both methods. For example, assume a set of schedules with the following backup frequencies and retention periods. (Notice that the differential incremental backups occur more often.)
Table: Example frequencies and retention periods
Backup type | Frequency | Retention period |
---|---|---|
Full |
6 days |
2 weeks |
Cumulative incremental |
2 days |
4 days |
Differential incremental |
1 day |
2 days |
The schedules that are described in Table: Example frequencies and retention periods result in the following series of backups:
The example produces the following results:
Every other day a differential incremental backup occurs, which usually has a minimum backup time.
On alternate days, a cumulative incremental backup occurs, which requires more time than the differential backup, but not as much time as a full backup. The differential backup can now be expired.
To recover all files may require (at most), two incremental backups in addition to the most recent full backup. The combination of backups usually means less restore time than if all differential incremental backups were used. The full backups can be done less often if the amount of data being backed up by the incremental backups is small.