NetWorker 5.5.1
Legato's NetWorker, for enterprise backup and recovery, is the company's flagship product. I received NetWorker 5.5.1 in a thin package with four CD-ROMs that included all the NetWorker software with client agents and extensive online documentation. First, I inserted the documentation CD-ROM into my test server. The online installation guide led me through the steps for setting up NetWorker. Installing the product was easy, and after a system reboot, I opened the NetWorker Administrator from the Start menu. I chose the NetWorker wizard, which led me through configuring my backup server, setting up initial backup clients, and configuring the autoloader.
Configuring the autoloader was a little tedious, despite the detailed instructions in the Help file. NetWorker recognized the ATL autoloader. However, to configure it, I had to enter jbconfig at the command prompt, rather than use the program's GUI. An installation script appeared and prompted me for information, such as the type of autochanger to install, the name to assign the autoloader, the pathname to the autoloader's control port, and the paths to each tape drive. Another option was to enable bar-code reader support and to have the tape's volume labels match the bar-code labels. Although the installation wasn't difficult, Legato could better serve users by leveraging the GUI for setup and configuration, rather than forcing them to use the command prompt.
Next, I used the autoloader configuration window to enter devices. I had to enter each of the seven tape drives individually and list their pathnames in the same order as their physical locations in the auto-changer. It took extra time to figure out what NetWorker was looking for and to ensure that the entries were configured correctly. A Legato tech support person told me that after I got this configuration running, I wouldn't have to touch it. Unfortunately, configuring the autoloader was so cumbersome that I wondered whether I'd want to touch it in the future, even if I needed to.
NetWorker lets you simultaneously send multiple tape streams to multiple tape drives in a process called parallelism. Parallelism is beneficial if you have multiple backup jobs being sent from one or multiple clients. Also, NetWorker includes target sessions, which let you set the number of backups a device accepts. For SQL Server 7.0 backups, you need to set this number to one. With these two options, you can multiplex the data, sending data streams to each of the drives and ensuring that data is always sent to the most underused drive first.
Next, I followed a three-step wizard to install the NetWorker BusinessSuite SQL Server Agent 2.0 Module. The agent can reside on the same system as the NetWorker server software or on a separate system. The BusinessSuite Module passes the data from SQL Server to NetWorker, and NetWorker takes care of the scheduling and storage-management tasks.
After the installation was complete, I opened the SQL Server agent from the Start menu, as in Screen 3, and chose a seven-stripe configuration for backup. Using striping, NetWorker sends multiple streams to the tape devices in parallel, which makes backup and restore faster.
After I set the system and backup parameters, I started the Performance Monitor counters running on a separate computer and started the backup timer. After about a minute, all seven drives started flashing, indicating that the backup was running. The backup completed in 2 hours 12 minutes, the fastest of the products I tested.
Restoring the data was easy, too. The restore took 7 hours 18 minutes, in the middle of the pack of products. I was disappointed to find that if I wanted to do a test restore of the database, I couldn't specify specific drive locations, but had to restore to a different system.
You can schedule multiple backups with NetWorker, which is a particularly useful feature when you need to back up multiple databases and you want to minimize backup time. You can create backup groups to assign one or more SQL Server hosts to, enabling you to distribute backups and alleviate network traffic.
NetWorker includes numerous menus and options, which are useful but difficult to work with at first. Setting up this product was easier than previous versions I've tested, but having to use the command line for configuration tasks was time-consuming, and accessing multiple screens to accomplish backup tasks was confusing. However, NetWorker's total backup and restore time, 9 hours 30 minutes, put it in nearly a tie with the fastest of the products. You can use NetWorker to back up not only SQL Server 7.0, but virtually every operating system and major application (Microsoft Exchange, Informix, Oracle, etc.), which makes it a good choice for enterprisewide backup.
SQL Server 7.0 Native Backup
The advantages of SQL Server 7.0's native backup utility include avoiding the extra cost for a third-party backup product and the ability to back up to any local or network drive. If you've ever used SQL Server 6.5's backup utility, you might be inclined to write off SQL Server's backup as just another hodgepodge of frustration. But Microsoft has improved on the functionality and ease of use of SQL Server 7.0's backup. Backup is no longer painful. Now you can quickly move through the well-constructed wizard to back up as little or as much data as you want to. Of particular interest is SQL Server 7.0's option to rename files before restoring them. This option lets you test your backup on the system running your SQL Server database without destroying critical data. This capability lets you save money on equipment costs and gives you peace of mind that your backup is reliable. Screen 4 shows the restore database options.
However, if you're wondering why you'd need any other backup product, look at the limitations of SQL Server's native backup. For example, you can back up only SQL Server data and not data from any other product or operating system, which means you need to schedule and run at least two backups. Also, the SQL Server backup utility's interface is different from that of every backup vendor's product, so you need to learn two programs. Finally, SQL Server native backup doesn't support autoloaders, which means you have to manually load the tapes and the program doesn't prompt you to insert another tape when one fills up. Although SQL Server 7.0's backup is faster and more user-friendly than that of SQL Server 6.5, unless you have little SQL and user data to back up, you'll want to look beyond the integrated backup utility.
To test SQL Server 7.0's native backup, I expanded the SQL Server Group and the system name. I expanded the Databases folder in Enterprise Manager and selected the TeraCLIN database. I started the Performance Monitor counters running on a separate computer. In the right pane of my test server, I clicked the Backup database link, accepted the defaults in the SQL Server Backup dialog box, and clicked OK. The backup completed in 3 hours 6 minutes. Restoring the data was easy, too. The restore took 7 hours 27 minutes, in the middle of the pack, giving SQL Server's native backup a total time of 10 hours 33 minutes.
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