Pro Data Backup and Recovery

CHAPTER 2 ■ BACKUP SOFTWARE

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Symantec NetBackup

History and Background

Symantec NetBackup is currently the holder of the largest market share of the backup software

environment. It too has had a long history and many changes along the way.

Originally, NetBackup was two separate products: BackupPlus and Media Manager. BackupPlus was

developed by Control Data for Chrysler to perform backups of servers within the Chrysler environment.

Control Data began to deploy the software to other customers who liked the functionality that it

provided. Later, Control Data was acquired by a company called OpenVision who added the Media

Manager portion of the product. Eventually the company became Veritas and was later acquired by the

current owner Symantec. As with EMC NetWorker, legacies of its heritage can be found in the software

(the ‘bp’ prefix comes from the BackupPlus days and the default base install path ‘/usr/openv’ from

OpenVision).

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The architecture of NetWorker and NetBackup are very similar. Whereas in a NetWorker

environment the collection of servers and other managed devices under a single NetWorker Server is

called a DataZone, within NetBackup the same collection of devices and servers is known as a backup

domain. A basic backup domain is pictured in Figure 2–8.

Just as with NetWorker, NetBackup contains three basic elements: the NetBackup Master Server,

Media Server, and Client. The Master Server contains all the management and tracking mechanisms for

the backup domain; the Client is the source of the backup data; and the Media Server provides several

services, including moving data from the Client to the target media and providing the method of

scalability within the environment.

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Wikipedia contributors, "NetBackup," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia,

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=NetBackup&oldid=299910524 (accessed July 2, 2009).

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Figure 2–8. Basic NetBackup backup domain

NetBackup Master Servers

The NetBackup Master Server provides all the management of the Clients, Media Servers, and backup

media within the backup domain. The Master Server has a number of responsibilities within the backup

domain for various functions:

• Maintains backup schedules and executing backups on schedule

• Manages backup media devices and status, and media inventory/capacity

• Manages backup media and allocates media resources to backups

• Monitors backup completion and provides basic notifications of errors