NetBackup

Veritas NetBackup

The NetBackup 6.5 Administration Console.
Development status	Active
Platform	Cross-platform
Type	Backup and recovery
License	proprietary
Website	http://www.symantec.com/business/netbackup

Veritas NetBackup is an enterprise level heterogeneous backup and recovery suite. It provides cross-platform backup functionality to a large variety of Windows, UNIX and Linux operating systems.

It is set up with a central master server that manages both media servers (containing the backup media) and clients. Core server platforms are, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, Tru64, Linux and Windows.

Multiple NetBackup environments can be managed by NetBackup OpsCenter, which is bundled with the NetBackup 7.0 distribution, which replaces the NetBackup Operations Manager (NOM) component used in previous versions. NetBackup comes with support for many hardware devices like tape drives, tape libraries, disk units, and supports, amongst many others, hot backups for major database products like Oracle, can natively backup and restore the virtual machines of major virtualization products like VMware Infrastructure, can use Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP), and has tape vaulting. NetBackup also enables LAN-free and server-free backups in SAN fabric environments.

Corporate History of NetBackup

• In 1987, Chrysler Corporation engaged Control Data Corporation to write a backup software solution. A small group of engineers (Rick Barrer, Rosemary Bayer, Paul Tuckfield and Craig Wilson) wrote the software. Other Control Data customers later adopted it for their own needs.
• In 1990, Control Data formed the Automated Workstation Backup System business unit. The first version of AWBUS supported two tape drives in a single robotic carousel with the SGI IRIX operating system.
• In 1993, Control Data renamed the product to BackupPlus 1.0 (this is why many NetBackup commands have a 'bp' prefix). Software improvements included support for media Volume Management and Server Migration/Hierarchical Storage Management.
• In late 1993, Openvision acquired the product and Control Data’s Storage Management 12-person team. This is why, on UNIX platforms, NetBackup installs into /usr/openv. During this time, Open Vision renamed Backup Plus to NetBackup.
• On May 6, 1997 Veritas acquired Openvision, including absorption of the NetBackup product line.
• In 2005 Symantec acquired Veritas and NetBackup became a Symantec product. Also at that time, Symantec released NetBackup 6.0, the 30th version of the software.

Major features of NetBackup

• Data Deduplication
  • Client or server-side deduplication via integration with the PureDisk data deduplication engine

• Security
  • Data Encryption
  • Access Control

• Performance
  • Synthetic Backups
  • Disk Staging
  • Checkpoint restart
  • Multiplexed Backup
  • Multi-streamed Backup
  • Inline Copy
  • Online NetBackup catalog backup

• Management and Reporting
  • Web-based management reporting (VERITAS NetBackup Operations Manager)
  • Tape volume, drive and library viewing
  • Error message identification, categorization and troubleshooting

• Media Management
  • Enterprise Media Manager
  • Automatic robotic/tape drive configuration
  • Broad tape device support

• Heterogeneous Support
  • Broad platform support
  • Bare-metal restore
  • Support for leading networking topologies
  • Advanced software and hardware snapshot support
  • NetBackup RealTime

Major releases

• 7.1 was released in February, 2011
• 7.0 was released in February, 2010
• 6.5 was released in August, 2007
• 6.0 was released in October, 2005 (30th release)
• 5.0 was released in December, 2003
• 4.5 was released in 2002
• 3.4 was released in June, 2000
• 3.0 was released in November, 1997
• 2.0 was released in June, 1996 (12th release)
• 1.6 was released in 1994 and the NetBackup name was coined

See also

• List of backup software
• Symantec Operations Readiness Tools (SORT)

External links

• Backup and Recovery Peer-to-Peer Open Support Website!
• Symantec The new owner of Veritas.
• [1] Official NetBackup Blog
• NetBackup Howto Unofficial NetBackup blog site offering a dozen "howto" tips on the product
• Veritas-bu, a mailing list for NetBackup users.
• NetBackup FAQ/Wiki, a NetBackup FAQ page.
• Symantec Operations Readiness Tools (SORT)
• NetBackup documentation
• NetBackup documentation at Sun Microsystems
• Netbackup/ Oracle RMAN Integration