Configuring policies to back up BMR clients
You can use one policy or multiple policies to protect a single client.
The following are the requirements for protecting BMR clients:
A policy must be one of two types: MS-Windows (for Windows clients) or Standard (for UNIX and Linux clients).
A policy must have the Collect disaster recovery information for Bare Metal Restore attribute set.
Note:
Enabling the attribute 'Collect disaster recovery information for BMR" automatically sets the "Collect true image restore information and with move detection" attribute.
These attributes enable NetBackup to restore only those files present on the system at the time of the backup. Move detection enables NetBackup to restore the files correctly that were moved, renamed, or newly installed. These attributes also ensure that all of the restored files fit in the volumes and the file systems that BMR created during the recovery.
Note:
User-initiated backups do not provide BMR protection because true image restore information is not collected during a user-initiated backup.
To ensure complete system recovery, use the ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES directive to back up all local drives. This directive backs up all files on the client and backs up the system objects (SYSTEM_STATE) for Windows clients.
If a client has database or application files to back up using a NetBackup database agent or other policy, you can use an exclude list to exclude them from the policy that specifies ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES. In case some files are excluded in the BMR policy, then post BMR recovery the excluded files need to be explicitly recovered.
Note:
Even if All_Local_Drives is not selected, minimum OS volumes and in case of Windows system state is required.
For clustered clients, the most effective backup strategy uses multiple policies. Each node should have its own policy that backs up local file systems. Shared file systems should be backed up by the additional policies that back up the node that currently owns the resources.
In case of multiple policies configured for the same client for different backup selection, then scheduling all policies to run at the same time will help achieve consistency post recovery.
NetBackup media servers can be protected as BMR clients. Media servers that back up to their own storage devices (either SCSI-attached or SAN-attached) require special procedures for restores. If you understand these procedures, you can configure NetBackup to minimize the time and effort that the restores require.
For information about configuring backup policies, see the NetBackup Administrator's Guides.
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