User Guide for NDMP

Overview

This guide introduces how to install and configure the ADPS agent, and how to properly use ADPS to back up and restore NDMP hosts.

The backup and restore features supported by ADPS include:

• Backup sources

  Volume

• Backup types

  Full backup, incremental backup

• Backup targets

  Standard storage pool, deduplication storage pool, tape library pool, and object storage service pool

• Backup schedules

  Immediate, one-time, hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly.

• Data processing

  Data compression, data encryption, reconnection, speed limit, and replication

• Restore types

  Point-in-time restore

• Restore targets

  Original volume, new volume

• Restore options

  Restore location (original path or customized path)

• Protocols

  V3, V4

Planning and preparation

Before you install the agent, check the following prerequisites:

1. You have already installed and configured other backup components, including the backup server and the storage server.

2. You have created a user with roles of operator and administrator on the ADPS console. Log in to the console with this user to back up and restore the resource.

Note

The administrator role can install and configure agents, activate licenses, and authorize users. The operator role can log in to the resource, create backup and restore jobs.

Install and configure the agent

Install the agent

The ADPS agent can be installed on Linux and supports online and offline installation. We recommend online installation.

1. Online installation: ADPS provides curl and wget commands for installation.

2. Offline installation: See Offline installation in Aurreum Data Protection Suite Agent Installation Guide.

To install the agent online, do the following:

1. Log in to the ADPS console.

2. From the menu, click Resource > Resource. The Resource page appears.

3. From the toolbar, click the Install agent icon. The Install agent window appears.

4. In the Install agent window, do the following:

   (1) From the Select system list, select Linux.

   (2) From the Component list, select NDMP. The curl and wget commands appear in the window.

   (3) If you want to delete the downloaded package automatically after the installation, select the Delete installation package check box.

   (4) If you enable Ignore SSL errors, the installation will ignore certificate errors and so on. If you disable the option, the installation will prompt you to enter Y/N to continue or discontinue the process when an error occurs.

5. Click the Copy icon to copy the curl or wget command.

6. Log in to the Linux host as user root. Paste the command in the terminal and press Enter to start the installation. Example:

   curl "http://IP:50305/d2/update/script?modules=ndmp&location=http%3A%2F%2FIP%3A50305&ignore_ssl_error=&access_key=3c6befb8b91bf283373737bd71a05365&rm=&tool=curl" | sh
   

7. Wait for the installation to complete.

Activate licenses and authorize users

After the agent installation, go back to the Resource page. The backup host with the agent installed appears on the page.

To activate licenses and authorize users, do the following:

1. From the menu, click Resource > Resource. The Resource page appears.

2. On the Resource page, select the backup host. Click the Register icon. After the registration, the Activate window appears. Click Submit.

3. After you activate the license, the Authorize window appears. From the User group list, select user groups to authorize access to the resource. Click Submit.

   Note

   1. If you are prompted with “No enough licenses”, contact the administrator to add licenses.

   2. With many agents, install them first, then batch register, batch activate, and batch authorize the agents and resources for convenience. For details, see Batch register/Batch activate/Batch authorize in Aurreum Data Protection Suite Administrator’s Guide.

Add and configure the NDMP host

To back up and restore NDMP, first install the ADPS agent on a host that can communicate with NDMP hosts.

Verify the compatibility

ADPS supports the backup and restore of the following NDMP hosts:

• ONTAP 8.3 (node-scoped mode)/9.0 (node-scoped mode, SVM-scoped mode)

• OneFS 8.1.0.2

• EMC VNX5500

• NetApp FAS3240

Add the NDMP host

To add an NDMP host, do the following:

1. From the menu, click Resource > Resource. The Resource page appears.

2. From the toolbar, click the “+” icon and select NDMP host. The Add NDMP host window appears.

3. In the window, do the following:

   • In the Name field, enter a name for the NDMP host.

   • In the Address field, enter the address of the NDMP host. For NetApp Clustered Data ONTAP, enter the address of the storage virtual machine (SVM).

   • In the Port field, enter the port of the NDMP host.

   • From the Authentication method list, select an authentication method.

     • NONE: No password authentication.

     • TEXT: Log in with the username and password of NDMP. The password is transmitted in clear text.

     • MD5: Log in with the username and password of NDMP. The password is transmitted encrypted.

   • From the Backup host list, select a host to list backup content and as the default host for backups and restores.

Activate the NDMP license and authorize users

To activate the license and authorize users, do the following:

1. After you add the NDMP host, a window to activate the NDMP license appears. Click Activate.

2. After activation, the Authorize window appears.

3. In the Authorize window, do the following:

   (1) From the User group list, select user groups to authorize access to the resource.

   (2) Set the resource as Protected or not. The Protected resource cannot be the restore target or the data replication target unless the administrator removes the Protected label.

   Note

   If you are prompted with “No enough licenses”, contact the administrator to add licenses.

Backup

Backup types

ADPS provides two common backup types for NDMP hosts.

• Full backup

  Backs up the whole volume.

• Incremental backup

  Backs up only the data that has changed since the last backup (including the full backup and the incremental backup) with a full backup as the baseline.

Backup policies

ADPS provides six types of backup schedules: immediate, one-time, hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly.

• Immediate: ADPS will immediately start the job after it is created.

• One-time: ADPS will perform the job at the specified time once only.

• Hourly: ADPS will perform the job periodically at the specified hour/minute intervals within the time range according to the setting.

• Daily: ADPS will perform the job periodically at the specified time and day intervals.

• Weekly: ADPS will perform the job periodically at the specified time and week intervals.

• Monthly: ADPS will perform the job periodically at the specified dates and times.

You can set an appropriate backup policy based on your situation and requirements. Usually, we recommend the following common backup policy:

1. Perform a full backup once a week when the application traffic is relatively small (Example: on the weekend) to ensure that you have a recoverable point in time every week.

2. Perform an incremental backup every day when the application traffic is relatively small (Example: at 2 a.m.) to ensure that you have a recoverable point in time every day, which can save storage space and backup time.

Before you begin

Before you back up and restore NDMP hosts, check the following:

1. Check the NDMP host status.

   Log in to the ADPS console as an operator. On the Resource page, check whether the activated and authorized NDMP host exists on the host list with an Online state.

2. Check the storage pool.

   (1) From the menu, click Storage > Storage pool. The Storage pool page appears.

   (2) Check whether the display area has any storage pools. If no, create a storage pool and authorize it for the current user. For details, see Add a storage pool in Aurreum Data Protection Suite Administrator’s Guide.

Create a backup job

To create a backup job, do the following:

1. From the menu, click Backup. The backup job wizard appears.

2. At the Hosts and resources step, select the NDMP host and resource. The wizard goes to the next step automatically.

3. At the Backup source step, do the following:

   (1) From the Backup type list, select a backup type.

   (2) From the Backup method list, select a backup method. Different vendors support different methods. Generally, they all support dump.

   (3) In the Backup source section, select the volume that you want to back up.

   Note

   To back up NetApp FAS volume using smtape, the volume should be put in restricted state for restore. To restrict a volume, do the following:

   vol restrict /vol/vol1
   

   Since the primary volume cannot be restricted, you can use the dump method to back it up.

4. At the Backup host step, select a backup host and resource. The wizard goes to the next step automatically.

5. At the Backup target step, select a storage pool. Click Next.

6. At the Backup schedule step, set the job schedule. For details, see Backup policies. Click Next.

   • Select Immediate. ADPS performs the job immediately after it is created.

   • Select One time and set the start time for the job.

   • Select Hourly. Set the start time, end time, and time interval for job execution. The unit can be hour(s) or minute(s).

   • Select Daily. Set the start time and enter the time interval for job execution. The unit is day(s).

   • Select Weekly. Set the start time, enter the time interval, and select the specific dates in a week for job execution. The unit is week.

   • Select Monthly. Set the start time and months for job execution. You can select the natural dates in one month or select the specific dates in one week.

7. At the Backup options step, set the common and advanced options according to your needs. For details, see Backup options. Click Next.

8. At the Finish step, set the job name and confirm the job information. Click Submit.

9. After the submission, you will be redirected to the Job page automatically. On this page, you can start, modify, and delete the job.

Backup options

ADPS provides the following backup options for NDMP:

• Common options

Backup common options

Option	Description
Compression	Fast is enabled by default. - None: No compression during the backup job. - Tunable: Customizes the compression level. The Advanced Compression license is required. - Fast: Uses the fast compression algorithms to compress data during the backup job.

• Advanced options

Backup advanced options

Option	Description
Resumption buffer size	Specifies the resumption buffer size. The default value is 10 MiB. The bigger the resumption buffer size is, the more physical storage will be consumed. However, a bigger resumption buffer size can prevent data loss when the throughput of the business system is high.
Speed limit	Limits data transfer speed or disk read/write speed for different time periods. The unit can be KiB/s, MiB/s, and GiB/s.
Precondition	Checked before the job starts. The job execution will be aborted and the job state will be idle when the precondition is invalid.
Pre-/Post-script	The pre-script is executed after the job starts and before the resource is backed up. The post-script is executed after the resource is backed up.
NDMP envrionment variable	Specifies the environment variable for the backup process.

Restore

Restore types

For different needs, ADPS provides the point-in-time restore for NDMP.

• Point-in-time restore

  When the folders or files are missing in the volume, you can perform a point-in-time restore job to restore the volume to a specified point in time. It can restore to the original or a new volume and can restore to the original or a specified path.

Before you begin

To restore to a different host, install the agent on that host or register the resource, activate the licenses, and authorize user access to the resource.

Create a point-in-time restore job

To create a point-in-time restore job, do the following:

1. From the menu, click Restore. The restore job wizard appears.

2. At the Hosts and resources step, select the NDMP host and resource. The wizard goes to the next step automatically.

3. At the Backup sets step, do the following:

   (1) In the Restore source section, select a point in time for the restore job.

   (2) In the File section, select a volume for the restore job.

   (3) Click Next.

4. At the Restore target step, select a host and resource as the target. The wizard goes to the next step automatically.

5. At the Backup host step, select a backup host and an IP address.

6. At the Restore schedule step, set the job schedule. Click Next.

7. At the Restore options step, set the options according to your needs. See Restore options. Click Next.

8. At the Finish step, set the job name and confirm the job information. Click Submit.

9. After the submission, you will be redirected to the Job page. You can start, modify, and delete the job.

Restore options

ADPS provides the following restore options for NDMP:

• Common options:

Restore common options

Option	Description
Restore location	You can set the restore location to the original location or a specified location. To specify a location, enter the path manually or click Browse to select the target folder.

• Advanced options:

Restore advanced options

Option	Description
Resumption buffer size	Specifies the resumption buffer size. The default value is 10 MiB. The bigger the resumption buffer size is, the more physical storage will be consumed. However, a bigger resumption buffer size can prevent data loss when the throughput of the business system is high.
Speed limit	Limits data transfer speed or disk read/write speed for different time periods. The unit can be KiB/s, MiB/s, and GiB/s.
Precondition	Checked before the job starts. The job execution will be aborted and the job state will be idle when the precondition is invalid.
Pre-/Post-script	The pre-script is executed after the job starts and before the resource is restored. The post-script is executed after the resource is restored.
NDMP envrionment variable	Specifies the environment variable for the restore process.

Glossary

Glossary

Term	Description
fast compression	A compression method that uses fast compression algorithms to compress data during the backup job.
restricted	The restricted state only allows operations such as parity rebuild, but does not allow data access.