VERITAS NETBACKUP INTERVIEW QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

1. Question 1. Which Are The Backup Types That Are Available In Netbackup ?

   Answer :

   • Differential Incremental Backup
   • Cumulative Incremental Backup
   • User Backup
   • User Archive
   • Full Backup

    

2. Question 2. What Is A Master Server & Media Server?

   Answer :

   NetBackup Master Server - The Master Server is the "brains" for all data protection activities, from scheduling and tracking client backups to managing tape media and more.

   NetBackup Media Server - Manages backups and restores of Client and the Media Server's local data to direct attached or SAN-attached storage (tape/disk).

    




3. Question 3. What Is Volume Pools & Volume Groups?

   Answer :

   Volume Any individual bit of media - tape, optical disk, etc.

   Volume Pool: A logical grouping of volumes to be used for a specific application. For instance, Oracle backs up to a certain pool, the OS to a different pool, and product code to a third pool.

   Volume Group: A logical grouping of volumes based on physical location. Whereas the pool is used for actual data, the group is used for administrative work. If you wanted to move all the volumes from one robot to another, you can either move the volumes one at a time or, if they're all in the same group, move the group.

    

4. Question 4. What Is Media Multiplexing?

   Answer :

   The process of sending concurrent-multiple backups from one or more clients  to a single storage device and interleaving those images onto the media.

    




5. Question 5. What Is Avrd ?

   Answer :

   The automatic volume recognition daemon on UNIX and process on Windows

    




6. Question 6. What Is Bpadm?

   Answer :

   An administrator utility that runs on NetBackup UNIX servers. It has a character-based, menu interface that can be run from terminals that do not have X Windows  capabilities.

    

7. Question 7. What Is A Frozen Image ?

   Answer :

   A stable disk copy of the data prior to backup. A frozen image is created  very rapidly, causing minimal impact on other applications.

   There are two basic types:

   1. copy-on-write 
   2. mirror.

    

8. Question 8. What Is Retention Period ?

   Answer :

   The length of time that NetBackup keeps backup and archive images. The retention period is specified on the schedule.

    

9. Question 9. What Is Tape Spanning ?

   Answer :

   Using more than one tape to store a single backup image.

    




10. Question 10. What Is Tld,tlh,tlm,tl4,tl8?

    Answer :

    • TLD-Tape Library DLT
    • TLH-Tape Library Half-inch
    • TLM-Tape Library Multimedia
    • TL4-Tape Library 4MM
    • TL8-Tape Library 8MM

     

11. Question 11. What Is The Full Form Of Dlt?

    Answer :

    Digital-linear tape or tape drive type.

     




12. Question 12. What Is Image Expiration And Volume Expiration?

    Answer :

    Image Expiration: The date and time when NetBackup stops tracking a backup image.

    Volume Expiration: The date and time when the physical media (tape) is considered to be no longer usable.

     




13. Question 13. Command Line To Shutdown Net Backup Services On Windows Server?

    Answer :

    bpdown

     

14. Question 14. Which Command Is Used To Produce A Report On Status Of Netbackup Images?

    Answer :

    bpimagelist

     

15. Question 15. What Is The Use Of Command Vmupdate?

    Answer :

    Inventory the media contents of a robotic library

     




16. Question 16. Command Line For Creating A Copy Of Backups Created By Netbackup?

    Answer :

    bpduplicate

     

17. Question 17. If You Have A Scsi Attached Robot And In Device Monitor You See The Drives Marked As Avr, What Does That Mean And How Would You Fix It?

    Answer :

    In the NetBackup (tm) administration GUI, select Media and Device Management | Devices | Robots, then select the robot in question, right-click and select Change, click Browse to detect and select the new device path, and finally click OK to close the Change Robot window.

    With the new definition in place, stop and start the Device Manager service and then verify that the control for the drives has changed from automatic volume recognition (AVR) to the appropriate setting (i.e. TLD, TL8, etc.).

    1. The Removal Storage Service  was running on the server, stopped this service.
    2. RAn Configuration Wizard and the wizard detected all drives and Tape Robots.
    3. Moves tape drives into tape libraries.
    4. Rebooted the robots once and didn't shown any errors.
    5. Rebooted the server and Ran Manual backup.
    6. Backup process Started on all drives without any issues.

     




18. Question 18. If You Wanted To Know What Ip Address Netbackup Was Using To Perform Backups What Command Would You Run And Where Would You Run It?

    Answer :

    use bpclntcmd –pn from master server to the client.

     Bpcover –r < host name>

     




19. Question 19. What Is Flash Backup?

    Answer :

    Flash backup is like a raw backup where it does the backup at the block level--the main difference is that it can do differentials.

    The major advantage however, and the place where Veritas/Symantec recommends using Flash Backups, is when you have a large number (millions) of small files. Flash backup will back up these files much faster since it's doing a block level backup rather than trying to pick up each file from the file system.

     

20. Question 20. How Is Image Stored In Netbackup?

    Answer :

    Images are in GNU Tar for mat, but the tar binary has been mod i fied from GNU source. Image meta data is a binary file (the catalog).

     




21. Question 21. If A Media Id A04567 Comes Back And It Is Frozen, What Are The Steps To Unfreeze It And Move It Back To Scratch From The Command Line?

    Answer :

    bpmedia –unfreez < Media ID> 

    Through GUI , right click on the media to move to scratch volume pool.

     

22. Question 22. If You Wanted To Bypass Netbackup Commands And Move A Tape From Slot 1 To Drive 3 How Would You Do That?

    Answer :

    robtest s1 d3

     

23. Question 23. What Is The Client Version Supported By Nbu 6.x And 5.x Masters?

    Answer :

    The version support from 6.x to 4.5.

     




24. Question 24. If Your Last Catalog Backup Was Two Days Ago And The Master Server Crashed What Would You Have To Do To Bring Your Environment Back Up To Present Time?

    Answer :

    Need to check previous last two days back catalog backup tapes and restore.

     




25. Question 25. What Is The Process Of Importing Images And Why Do We Import Images?

    Answer :

    There are two phases:

    Phase I:  It builds the skeleton metadata

    Phase II: It allows you to select which images to actually complete the import process.

     

26. Question 26. How To Importing And Expiring Images?

    Answer :

    Backups that have expired may be imported by using the bpimport command, provided the media on which the backups reside have not yet been overwritten.

    Importing images is a two-stage process:

    Phase 1: This is performed first and must be done on all media concerned with the backups to be imported (particularly if the backups have spanned over several tapes). This phase recreates catalog entries for the backups by populating the media server's Media Database (mediaDB) with the media IDs, and creating the header files of the backup images in the Image Database. After this phase is completed, the images may be browsed for selection for Phase 2 import.

    Phase 2:  This may be performed on all media involved in Phase 1, or if there is a selection of backup images desired for importing (after browsing), then the import may be done on the basis of backup IDs. This phase of the import creates the files file(s) of the backup images in the Image Database.

    bpexpdate -recalculate -backupid backup_id -d 0 -client name - M master_s

     




27. Question 27. What Is San Media Server?

    Answer :

    Manages backups and restores of Client and the Media Server's local data to direct attached or SAN-attached storage (tape/disk).

    Provides all the functionality of a Media Server without the ability to backup and restore data from remote clients. The SAN Media Server is designed for data-intensive systems that require high performance access to SAN attached backup hardware.