Drawbacks in Major Backup Software

A Backup Article Contributed by Anand R

Veritas Backup Software Issues

Using Veritas server software on a Windows platform to backup a Netware file system using the Veritas Remote agent on the target Netware server generates all of or some of the following issues: Random access denied to files during the backup process noted in the Veritas Backup job log. A soft abend when attempting to launch bestart.ncf at the system console to load the backup agent. There are really two here. The first problem is a result of the change-over in Netware 6 sp4 to TSAFS from TSA600.

If you have 9.1server running on a Windows server you will get the random access denied errors. The second issue occurs if your boot partition on your Netware server is something other than FAT16. If you have a FAT32 partition the problem is that the backup exec software attempts to scan for several files located on the C:\ partition. It can't read a FAT32 partition, so, it generates a soft abend.

Backup Software Problems Caused by Mount Points

Mount points are UNIX symbolic links with special syntax. They can cause problems for backup software that crosses the tree formed with these mount points. With DFS, you can create loops by adding DFS fileset mount points in different ways. You also can create a mount point for a root fileset of a foreign cell. This action expands your subdirectory to include a large tree that would be unimportant to back up.

Pitfalls of Centralized Storage Backups

Although the centralized storage strategy that was developed worked well while networks were in an intermediate stage of evolution, limitations soon became apparent as the amount of data stored on networks continued to grow. The two major software problems that have become obvious are poor performance and weak security.

Because all the storage devices are attached to one machine, most of the data to be backed up must travel across the network (that is, all data except the data held on the machine to which the storage devices are directly attached). When large amounts of data are involved, severe traffic problems can result on the network. Bandwidth limitations become a severe handicap, which backup software data compression can only partially relieve.

Traffic problems, bandwidth limitations, and security issues may not surface immediately on a network since many client-server migrations begin as pilot projects where relatively small amounts of data are stored for test purposes. However, as more and more applications are migrated, sensitive data in some or all of the following forms may reside on the network

Because securing data entails resource-intensive encryption, all current centralized storage backup software products only encrypt data on the storage device itself and not before the data begins to travel unsecured on the network.

Common Problems in Backup Software

Even though the tape backup drive / zip drive has more capacity they are not extensive. Care should be taken to label them. Hard drive backups need to stored in different location than that of server. Backup software should not lock any resources, which may cause access problems. Power interruption should be avoided while running a backup.