Backup Exec 21.1 Best Practices
- Backup Exec Best Practices
- Best practices for Backup Exec software encryption
- Best practices for Backup Exec installation
- Best practices for Backup Exec tape management
- Best practices for Backup Exec disk-based storage
- Best practices for Backup Exec data lifecycle management (DLM)
- Best practices for Backup Exec catalogs
- Best practices for Backup Exec backups
- Best practices for Backup Exec backing up critical system components
- Best practices for Backup Exec Agent for Microsoft Exchange Server
- Best practices for Backup Exec Agent for Microsoft SQL Server
- Best practices for Backup Exec Agent for Linux
- Best practices for Backup Exec Agent for Microsoft SharePoint
- Best practices for Backup Exec Central Admin Server Option
- Best practices for Backup Exec Agent for Oracle on Windows and Linux Servers
- Best practices for Backup Exec NDMP Option
- Best practices for Backup Exec reports
- Best practices for Backup Exec and Veritas Update
- Best practices for Backup Exec Simplified Disaster Recovery
- Best practices for Backup Exec Agent for Enterprise Vault and the Backup Exec Migrator
- Best practices for Backup Exec Granular Recovery Technology
- Best practices for Backup Exec Remote Media Agent for Linux
- Best practices for Backup Exec Agent for Microsoft Hyper-V
- Best practices for Backup Exec Agent for VMware
- Best practices for using Backup Exec with server clusters
- Best practices for Backup Exec Deduplication Option
- Best practices for using Backup Exec Deduplication Option with the Central Admin Server Option
- Best practices for using hot-pluggable devices such as USB devices in a drive rotation strategy
- Best practices for Backup Exec database encryption keys
- Best Practices for Using the Backup Exec Cloud Connector
Best practices for Backup Exec Granular Recovery Technology
Best practices include tips and recommendations to help you use Backup Exec and Granular Recovery Technology (GRT) effectively. For more information about Granular Recovery Technology, see the Backup Exec Administrator's Guide.
The following best practices can help ensure the effective operation of Granular Recovery Technology:
Ensure that GRT is enabled before you run backups if you intend to be able to restore individual items.
GRT is enabled by default for the following resources. It can be enabled or disabled in the Backup Options dialog when you create a backup job:
Microsoft Active Directory
Microsoft Exchange Server
Microsoft SharePoint
VMware
Hyper-V
Back up your current or most recent GRT-enabled backup jobs to disk. It is more convenient to work with GRT-enabled jobs on the volumes that do not have file size limitations. You can create duplicate backup jobs and send copies of your backups to tape for archival purposes.
Use disk storage on a volume that does not have file size limitations as the destination for any backups that are enabled for GRT. An NTFS drive is an example of a volume without file size limitations. Some examples of volumes that have file size limitations include FAT and FAT32 volumes.
Review the requirements for staging locations in the Administrator's Guide.
You must use a staging location for GRT-enabled jobs in the following scenarios:
You back up to or restore from a volume with file size limitations.
You back up to tape.
Tape backups require a staging location that is at least as large as the data that you back up. Backup Exec extracts the granular data to the staging location while it is being cataloged. When you restore granular data from a tape backup, you must specify a staging location to store all of the backup sets that are required for the restore job as well as a separate staging location of at least 1 GB for the GRT processing.
You back up Active Directory data or Exchange data to a disk.
Use a volume that is not your system volume for a staging location. The volume on which the staging location resides should have at least as much available space as the size of your largest GRT-enabled backup job. You can change the default staging locations in the Backup Exec Settings.
Do not allocate the maximum size for backup files. If you enable the Preallocate disk space incrementally up to the maximum file size option in the storage details, Backup Exec creates a file that is as large as the maximum file size that you specified. Since GRT information is stored in IMG media, the file does not hold backup data. The extra space that the file occupies can often lead to failed jobs because of low disk space.
Run a full GRT-enabled backup job periodically if your backup strategy uses frequent incremental GRT-enabled jobs. Each incremental GRT-enabled job requires a small amount of internal storage. If this storage amount increases too much, it can negatively affect your system resources.
Duplicate GRT-enabled backup sets to disk storage first and then run the restore jobs from the disk-based backup sets, if you must run multiple restores from the same backup set on tape. GRT restores from backup sets on tape must be staged to disk first. The staged data is not retained after the restore completes. Duplicating the backup sets to disk storage eliminates the need to stage the data multiple times and improves the performance of the restore jobs.
Monitor your processor, disk, and memory usage if you experience any performance issues. Recovery and staging of GRT data may require more than the minimum system requirements, depending on the volume of data in the backup sets.
Do not use software compression or encryption for GRT-enabled backup jobs. The compression and encryption processes are resource-intensive. Enabling either software compression or encryption can result in degraded performance for GRT-enabled backup jobs.
Backup Exec does not store the granular backup sets on disk in encrypted form when you enable encryption for the GRT-enabled backup jobs that are sent to disk, deduplication, and disk cartridge devices. Only the backup sets for the backup sources that do not support GRT are stored in encrypted form. All the backup sets for the backup jobs that are sent to cloud, OpenStorage, and tape devices are stored in encrypted form.