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I’ve started working on a new eBook, Turbocharged EMC NetWorker, aimed squarely at NetWorker administrators who want to get more out of the product from the command line. It’s not designed to be a...
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What’s new in 8.2?
NetWorker 8.2 entered Directed Availability (DA) status a couple of weeks ago. Between finishing up one job and looking for a new one, I’d been a bit too busy to blog about 8.2 until now, so here goes…...
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Windows block based backup with Linux AFTDs
One of the new features of NetWorker 8.2 is the expansion of Windows Block Based Backups (BBB) to support additional backup targets. When the feature was originally introduced into NetWorker 8.1, it...
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Basics – Force incremental
In one of those “old dogs can learn new tricks” scenarios, or perhaps more correctly, “never believe it until you’ve read it in the manual”, I recently learnt what force incremental really does in...
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Basics – Customising the NMC login screen
Most companies will have their own standard-usage policy. Log into most Unix, Linux or Windows servers these days and you’ll see some message regarding who can be authorised to access the system, and...
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Understanding Client Direct
Client direct is a (relatively) new feature, introduced in the 8.x series, (8.0 to be exact) which allows for a client to communicate directly with the backup device rather than going through a storage...
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Centralising Data Domain Logging
If you’ve got a Data Domain in your NetWorker environment, you obviously need to monitor it, just as you would any other appliance. The two main forms of monitoring everyone is aware of with Data...
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External NetWorker Authentication without AD
One of the least used features in NetWorker is the option for external authentication of user accounts for use with NMC. This is normally discussed in the context of integrating NMC authentication into...
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Architectural implications of in-flight Data Domain Boost encryption
Between the Boost libraries included in NetWorker 8.2, and the in-flight encryption functionality added in Data Domain OS 5.5, it’s now possible to configure Boost-encrypted backups – and there’ll be...
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Basics – Workflow for adding a new client
A question I get asked from time to time is “How do I do X in NetWorker?”, and by how, I mean what’s the order of steps, rather than a general description. To me, the configuration steps in NetWorker...
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Seeing in-flight encryption with Data Domain and NetWorker at work
As I mentioned in an earlier article, Data Domain OS 5.5 introduced a new feature, in-flight encryption. This applies to Data Domain Boost connections, and requires v3 of the DDBoost Libraries, which...
View ArticleThe current state of virtual machine backups in NetWorker
Introduction There’s currently three distinct and still-supported mechanisms for backing up virtual machines in NetWorker. These are: Traditional (in-guest agent) VADP (image level, previous generation...
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Backing up renamed directories
Long-term NetWorker administrators may remember that NetWorker used to have a somewhat odd mechanism of dealing with renamed directories. Nowadays the default option for any new client is to enable...
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Parallel Save Streams for HDFS Performance Gains
One of the great features in NetWorker 8.1 was Parallel Save Streams (PSS). This allows for a single High Density File System (HDFS) to be split into multiple concurrent savesets to speed up the backup...
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Not so squeezy
It’s funny, the little tools you build up over the years as someone heavily involved in backup, particularly when it comes to testing. I have two tools that help me with filesystem and performance...
View ArticleNetWorker Usage Survey, 2014-2015
It’s that time of the year again where I ask my readers to set aside 5 minutes or so to answer some questions about how they’re using NetWorker within their environment. These results get compiled into...
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A locale problem
I had a doozy of a problem a short while ago – NetWorker 8.2 in a big environment, and every now and then the NMC Recovery interface would behave oddly. By oddly: Forward/Back buttons might stop...
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Records retention and NMC
For those of us who have been using NetWorker for a very long time, we can remember back to when the NetWorker Management Console didn’t exist. If you wanted reports in those days, you wrote them...
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The Data Protection Manifesto
In my last post for 2014, I want to touch briefly on a few rules I think everyone in our industry ought to follow. We work in data protection, and that creates certain obligations on us to do our jobs...
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Turbocharged EMC NetWorker
A while ago, I set out to update the nsradmin micromanual I’d released originally in 2009. In short order though I realised there were a lot of other topics that I’d like to include in a comprehensive...
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