Global Filters

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Global Filters are exclusions that can be set within the CommNet software to filter out data from data protection operations on all agents of a certain type for multiple CommCells with a CommNet domain. This is useful in cases where certain files or folders need to be excluded from backups on all File System clients across CommCells; and in cases where specified mailbox folders need to be excluded from data protection operations on all Exchange Mailbox iDataAgents, Exchange Mailbox Archiver and/or Exchange Compliance Archiver clients and online content indexing operations on clients with Online Content Indexing for Exchange agent within multiple CommCells.

Global Filters are configured separately for each agent type in a CommCell, and support the use of literal paths as well as regular expressions (or wildcards) to exclude data based on patterns. Once defined, global filters can be enabled from the CommCell level and subclient levels in the CommServe so that the next time a data protection operation is run for the specified agents, unwanted data will not backed up or archived.

CommNet global filters represent the top-level of a filtering hierarchy such that filters defined at the CommNet level can be propagated downward to CommCells within a CommNet domain, which can then be propagated down to specified subclients on those CommCells. The inheritance of global filters by subordinate objects within the filtering hierarchy is illustrated by a simple Windows-based example below.

Example:

CompanyA decided to save money on storage and reduce the backup window by not backing up a folder commonly found on computers in their organization called C:\temp. To accomplish this goal using Global Filters, that path was specified as an exclusion filter entry in CommNet, then the Global Filters were enabled on each CommCell in the CommNet domain, and enabled on each file system subclient for those CommCells so that the CommNet filter entry was inherited by the selected CommCells and subclients. Using this approach avoided typing in that filter path for 100 subclients across 10 CommCells at their site. Also, the next time backups were run for those subclients it took less time and fewer tapes because C:\temp was successfully filtered out of the backups.

For more information on configuring Global Filters in the CommServe, see the Books Online documentation.

  • Keep in mind that Global Filters are disabled by default at the subclient level for CommCells, and the supported wildcards vary for each agent type. Be sure to use only the wildcards that work with the operating system or application for which you are creating a filter. Refer to Wildcards - File System or Wildcards - Exchange for a list of supported regular expressions.
  • Global Filters configured in the CommNet environment are stored in the CommServe database of the CommCell for which they were created. Note that these filters can only be deleted utilizing the CommNet software, and will be removed from the CommServe database after CommCell Synchronization. Therefore, if a connection does not exist between the CommNet server and the CommServe, these Global Filters will continue to exist on the CommCell.

  • When the following configurations are modified, the changes are immediately pushed to the active CommCell(s)/QSMCell(s); cell synchronization is not required to propagate this information to the cells.

    • Global Filters
    • Billable Entities
    • Cost Categories
    • Data Collection Policy
    • Comments (Note that Comments made using the CommCell Console are pushed to the CommNet Server only during cell synchronization. For more information, see Comments.) 

    This information will be pushed accordingly when services (CommNet Server or EvMgrc on CS) are restarted as well.