INCREDIBLE – INLINE BACKUP
HI everyone,
I am going to share my gladdest experience about the Inline technology which is provided by NETBACKUP. The term inline referred as multiple. With the help of this technology we can run multiple copies of a backup with different definitions. I am not very sure about the other backup technologies since I have been working with NetBackup for the past 2 years; it’s really amazing experience that the NetBackup has lot of advanced technologies, one of them is INLINE Backup.
Technically what inline copy will do is, it will write a single backup in to multiple tapes or multiple disk destinations which will rapidly reduce the time window by not initiating the backup copies one-by one.
For example if we need 3 backup copies for a single server, what we will normally do is, will initiate the fist copy. After that we will initiate the second copy once the first copy get completes and then the final copy.
With the help of this inline technology we can run all the 3 copies simultaneously without impacting the server (which is being backed up) performance
The below given pictorial representation will make you to understand something about the sweetness of this inline technology.
Before applying Inline technology:
First Copy
Second Copy
Third Copy
First Copy
Second Copy
Third Copy
Key Points:
There are 3 different process at the client side to initiate each backup copy
The load on the client server would possibly increase due to the processes, if we start the backups in parallel.
The time window would definitely increase if we initiate the backup copies one by one.
In the above considerations the major thing is the time window, how quickly we are able to complete the backup.
After applying Inline technology:
Single copy of the data passing to the master server
First Copy
Second Copy
Third Copy
Key Points:
By the time we apply the inline copy, we are able to run all the copies simultaneously without impacting the performance at the client end.
Plays a major role in VMware Consolidated Backup.
Helps the NetBackup administrator in reducing the time window ofa backup.
It reduces the network utilization
How to use this option:
Double clickon a policy and go to schedules tab.
Select the schedule which you want be run with multiple copies option.
In the Attribute window, we will have to select the multiple copies option which will be available above the policy storage unit selection.
Then click on Configure.
Then we will get the multiple copies configuration window.
There we have to specify the storage unit, Volume pool, Retention for each copy.
By default, we will have 2 copies enabled.
If we need more than 2 copies, we have to set the maximum copies option in the Global attributes of the master server properties window as per our requirement.
We can run up to 10 copies simultaneously with the help of this multiple copies option.
Benefits I got from this technology:
In my environment, we have to run first backup copy for nearly 300 servers. Once the first copy completed, then we will have to initiate the second copy again for the 300 servers. So, it was very complicated. After using this technology we are able to finish both the copies in a time, which was previously utilized for one copy.
VCB backup will generally copy the data (Snapshot image) from the ESX server to the Mount point; from there it will be transferred to the tape. Here again we had problem in running 2 copies. But using this technology we could run multiple copies by taking only one snapshot of the client server from the ESX machine.
I could save nearly 12 hours of time in backing up 2 copies with the help of this technology.
Conclusion:
NetBackup has many number of advanced technologies, the only thing is we need to identify the in-depth concepts and need to apply those advanced concepts in our environment as per our requirement.