Disaster Recovery Backup - How To

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Designate the Disaster Recovery User Account

Select a Disaster Recovery Export Destination

Select a Disaster Recovery Backup Destination

Select the Number of Disaster Recovery Backups to Retain on Disk

Select the Number of Disaster Recovery Backups to Retain on Media

Schedule a Disaster Recovery Backup

Start a Disaster Recovery Backup

Browse and Recover Disaster Recovery Backup Data

Add Pre/Post Commands to Disaster Recovery Backup Settings

Designate the Disaster Recovery User Account

Before You Begin

For Disaster Recovery backups to work successfully for the new user, this user must have a minimum of read/write permissions to the Disaster Recovery backup destination directory.

Required Capability: Capabilities and Permitted Actions

To designate the Disaster Recovery account:

1. In the CommCell Browser, right-click the CommServe, click Control Panel, and then click DR Backup Settings.
2. From the DR Backup Settings (Export Settings) dialog box, click the Change button associated with the User Name field.
3. In the Change User Account dialog box, type the user name and password of the Windows user account under which you want the Disaster Recovery backups conducted. Type the password a second time to confirm it, and click OK.

4. The Disaster Recovery program does not attempt to validate the user name and password at the time it is entered/modified through the DR Backup Settings (Export Settings) dialog box. To validate the user name and password, run an immediate Disaster Recovery backup.

Select a Disaster Recovery Backup Export Destination

Before You Begin

• Network drives that are mapped to local drive letters must still be specified using the UNC network path. Mapped drive letters cannot be used because they are only valid for the currently logged in Windows user, who may not be logged in when the Disaster Recovery backup job is run. If you want to access a network path, the CommServe must be in the domain. If the network directory is going to another domain, this domain where the CommServe is must be the trusted domain.
• If you change the destination for the Disaster Recovery backup data, you will be prompted to enter the user name and password information required to access the network share or local directory in the Change User Account dialog box.

Required Capability: Capabilities and Permitted Actions

To select an Disaster Recovery Backup Export destination:

1. In the CommCell Browser, right-click the CommServe, click Control Panel, and then click DR Backup Settings.
2. From the DR Backup Settings (Export Settings) dialog box, select either Use Network Share or Use Local Drive in the Backup Metadata Destination Folder Type field.
3. Enter or use the Browse button to specify a backup path in the Back Up Metadata to this Folder field.

   NOTE

   If you are backing up to a network drive, then this directory must be a valid UNC network path in the UNC format \\<server>\<share>\path. If you are backing up to a local drive, then this drive must be a local CommServe drive.

Select a Disaster Recovery Backup Destination

Before You Begin

• Network drives that are mapped to local drive letters must still be specified using the UNC network path. Mapped drive letters cannot be used because they are only valid for the currently logged in Windows user, who may not be logged in when the Disaster Recovery backup job is run. If you want to access a network path, the CommServe must be in the domain. If the network directory is going to another domain, this domain where the CommServe is must be the trusted domain.
• When specifying a network location:
  • The destination computer must either be in the same domain of the CommServe, or in a domain that has a proper two-way trust relationship with the CommServe.
  • A proper account (with enough rights to write to the destination computer ) must be provided. This can be achieved by designating a proper Disaster Recovery user account.
  • If the network location is then changed to a (local) destination, it is recommended not to use the same account since write operations use local administrator security permissions.

Required Capability: Capabilities and Permitted Actions

To select an Disaster Recovery Backup destination:

1. In the CommCell Browser, right-click the CommServe, click Control Panel, and then click DR Backup Settings.
2. From the DR Backup Settings (Export Settings) dialog box, select a storage policy from the Back Up Metadata to this DR Storage Policy dropdown list.
3. Click OK.

Select the Number of Disaster Recovery Backups to Retain on Disk

Before You Begin

The number of Disaster Recovery backups you select to retain on disk refers to the number of backups created during the exporting of a Disaster Recovery backup. The number of Disaster Recovery backups created during the backup that are retained on media are determined by the retention criteria of the Disaster Recovery Backup storage policy.

Required Capability: Capabilities and Permitted Actions

To select the number of Disaster Recovery backups to retain on disk:

1. In the CommCell Browser, right-click the CommServe, click Control Panel, and then click DR Backup Settings.
2. From the DR Backup Settings (Export Settings) dialog box, select a number from the Number of Full Metadata Backups to be retained field.
3. Click OK.

Select the Number of Disaster Recovery Backups to Retain on Media

Before You Begin

• The number of Disaster Recovery backups that are retained on media are determined by the retention rules of the Disaster Recovery backup storage policy.

Required Capability: Capabilities and Permitted Actions

To select the number of Disaster Recovery backups to retain on media:

1. See Changing the Retention Rules of a Storage Policy Copy.

Schedule a Disaster Recovery Backup

• Disaster Recovery Backups will run only when the SQL server is run as a System Account (on a non-clustered computer).
• Do not schedule many Backups while a Disaster Recovery Backup job is running. If you receive any timed out or failed events, run the Disaster Recovery Backup job again.
• A proper strategy should consist of at least one full backup performed every day and several differential backups performed during the day.
• A Disaster Recovery Backup job has the highest priority. Therefore, this job will interrupt other jobs, if needed.
• Once started, if a Disaster Recovery Backup job cannot be completed, the Job Manager will retry the job up to a total of five hours at 30-minute intervals for a maximum of 10 times.

Required Capability: Capabilities and Permitted Actions

To schedule a Disaster Recovery Backup:

1. From the CommCell Browser, right-click the CommServe, click All Tasks, and then click Disaster Recovery Backup.
2. From the Disaster Recovery Backup Options window, click the Job Retry tab to specify the job running time and the number of job retries. See Restarting Jobs and Job Running Time for more information. Note that the Number of Retries specified for this particular job will only be used by the system if Disaster Recovery Backup was configured as a Restartable job type in the Job Management Control Panel. For step-by-step instructions, see Specify Job Restartability for the CommCell.
3. Click the General tab and select either Full or Differential Backup.
4. Click Schedule.
5. From the Schedule Details tab, select the necessary scheduling options
6. To view the job summary for the Disaster Recovery Backup job that you have scheduled, click the Job Summary tab.
7. Click OK to save the schedule.

Start a Disaster Recovery Backup

Before You Begin

• Disaster Recovery Backups will run only when the SQL server is run as a System Account (on a non-clustered computer).

• Disaster Recovery Backup will check the CommServe database for any type of corruption. If database corruption is detected, all CommServe job activities are disabled. Contact your software provider for assistance with database corruption.

• Do not schedule many backups while a Disaster Recovery Backup job is running. If you receive any timed out or failed events, run the Disaster Recovery Backup job again.
• A proper strategy should consist of at least one full backup performed every day and several differential Backups performed during the day.
• A Disaster Recovery Backup job has the highest priority. Therefore, this job will interrupt other jobs, if needed.
• Once started, if a Disaster Recovery Backup job cannot be completed, the Job Manager will retry the job up to a total of five hours at 30-minute intervals for a maximum of 10 times.

Required Capability: Capabilities and Permitted Actions

To start a Disaster Recovery Backup:

1. From the CommCell Browser, right-click the CommServe, click All Tasks, and then click Disaster Recovery Backup.
2. From the Disaster Recovery Backup Options window, click the Job Retry tab to specify the job running time and the number of job retries. See Restarting Jobs and Job Running Time for more information. Note that the Number of Retries specified for this particular job will only be used by the system if Disaster Recovery Backup was configured as a Restartable job type in the Job Management Control Panel. For step-by-step instructions, see Specify Job Restartability for the CommCell.
3. Click the General tab and select either Full or Differential Backup. If necessary, select the option to Shrink database(s) before the Disaster Recovery backups. Note that if free space is not an issue on the CommServe computer, it is not necessary to select the Shrink database(s) before the Disaster Recovery backups option.
4. Click Schedule to schedule the backup at another time, or click OK to run it immediately. For more information on scheduling a back, see Scheduling a Disaster Recovery Backup.

Browse and Recover Disaster Recovery Backup Data

Required Capability: Capabilities and Permitted Actions

To start a Disaster Recovery Backup:

1. From the CommCell Browser, right-click the CommServe, click All Tasks, and then click DR Restore and Browse and Recover.
2. From the Browse Options dialog box, select the appropriate options for the disaster recovery backup data you wish to browse.
3. Click OK.
4. Select the data to be recovered from the Client (Media Agent) window, and then click Recover All Selected...
5. From the Restore Options from All Selected Options (General) dialog box, select the appropriate options for restoring the data.
6. Click the Advanced button for additional restore options, and click OK.
7. Click OK.

Add Pre/Post Commands to Disaster Recovery Backup Settings

Required Capability: Capabilities and Permitted Actions

To add pre/post commands to the Disaster Recovery Backup settings:

1. In the CommCell Browser, right-click the CommServe, click Control Panel, and then click DR Backup Settings.
2. From the DR Backup Settings (Pre/Post Process) dialog box, click inside the text box that corresponds to the phase that you want to start the process. Enter the full path of the process (i.e., batch file or shell script) that you want executed. Alternatively, use Browse to locate the process (applicable only for paths that do not contain any spaces).
3. If you want to run the PostScan or PostBackup processes for all attempts, then select the corresponding checkbox. (This will run both pre and post processes for all attempts.)
4. If no Pre/Post Impersonation account is currently selected, or if you want to change the account, select Change.
5. Select Use Local System Account, or select Impersonate User and enter a user name and password. Click OK.

   NOTE

   If you selected Use Local System Account, click OK to the message advising you that commands using this account have rights to access all data on the client computer.

6. Click OK to save your entries. This closes the Pre/Post commands dialog box.

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