Re: TSA and Backup Exec

[Rick B]

Marcel Cox wrote:

>
> zenking;2016714 Wrote:
>> Our backups have been very spotty ever since we migrated from Netware to
>> OES. I just found this kb article from Symantec.
>>
>> 'When does SMS support get utilized during backup when using the RALUS
>> (Remote Agent for Linux and Unix Servers) agent to back up to the
>> Windows media server.'
>> (http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/319694.htm)
>>
>> Basically, TSA is not being used for the file system. I don't know if
>> that means that the tsa configuration is actually hindering backups or
>> just not helping. I'm getting ready to call symantec support, but I have
>> a feeling I won't get far. Does anyone have any insight into this?
>> Thanks.
>>
>
> SMS for file system backup is not really necessary on OES2/Linux if the
> backup solution supports extended attributes. In fact, all the Novell
> specific metadata (file ownevership, rights and Novell specific
> attributes) can be exposed through extended attributes when using the
> commands as described here:
>
> 'Novell Doc: OES 2 SP2: NSS File System Administration Guide - Using
> Extended Attributes (xAttr) Commands (Linux)'
>
(http://www.novell.com/documentation/oes2/stor_nss_lx_nw/data/b7bb20y.html)
>
> The advantage of using extended attributes is that generic Linux agents
> can be used and there is no need for a Novell specific backup agent that
> might have its own share of problems because it might be less well
> tested or supported because of the more limited distribution.
> To be honest, there are however 2 disadvanatges of using native Linux
> agents compred to TSA enabled agents that need to be mentioned:
>
> 1) The impossibility to share backups and restores between OES2/Linux
> and NetWare
>
> 2) If you use NSS compression, backup will count as a file access and
> will potentially uncompress files.
>
>

Add one more disadvantage. The only way to backup a clustered NSS volume
where if the Server node crashes and moves the resource to another node you
can only continue the backup from where it left off using sms.