In this video, you will learn how to use the NetWorker Management Web UI (NWUI) to perform VMware backup and recovery operations. NWUI is a web-based interface that provides intuitive workflows and increased responsiveness for NetWorker users. You will see how to install and configure the NWUI, how to add and manage vCenter servers, vProxies, and Data Domain devices, how to create and label media pools, and how to perform different types of recovery operations using the NWUI. For more Information, click here.
The NetWorker Web User Interface or NWUI can be used to manage and operate NetWorker servers. The features available in NWUI can vary depending on the NWUI and NetWorker server versions used. Enhancements to NWUI are detailed in the NetWorker release notes on the NetWorker products page on the Dell support site. To access NWUI open a web browser. In the URL enter https then the FQDN or IP address of the NWUI server.
Depending on where you installed NWUI this may be the NetWorker server or a standalone host :9090 then /NWUI. You’ll be presented with a login screen. If you are prompted with an SSL warning click “Proceed to Site”. Enter the NetWorker credentials. These would be the same credentials you would use to access the NetWorker Management Console. Once logged in you’ll be presented with the dashboard. The dashboard gives a high-level overview of completed and failed jobs if any are running and then breaks this down based on policies workflows and actions.
We can also see any active sessions in the Active Sessions Windows as well as any alerts outstanding alerts. The tabs in NWUI are somewhat similar to what was available in the NetWorker Management Console. We can see an Alerts window Monitoring where we can monitor policies Workflows Actions Recover Jobs as well as Devices and Server Messages. The Protection tab is where you would configure your Clients Groups Policies and any VMware vCenters and VProxies. The Devices and Media tab has been combined into one tab where we can see Data Domains tape libraries devices storage nodes media pools and volumes. The Server tab is very much similar to what was available in the NetWorker Management Console.
You can see the user groups where permissions for NetWorker access are delegated as well as directives and the registrations or licensing. The Authentication Server tab is similar to what used to be available in the NMC Enterprise screen when looking at the Setup tab the NMC roles and any external authorities if configured. Recoveries can be issued from the Recover and Savesets tab. We’ll briefly go over resources that you can manage from NWUI. To add a VMware vCenter click on Protection then go to VMware vCenters. As you can see a vCenter has already been added here.
To add a new one click the Add icon. Enter the fully qualified domain name of the vCenter a vCenter user which has the permissions set from the NetWorker VMware Integration Guide its password and then if deployed in a cloud environment you can click the “Deployed in Cloud” option. If the vCenter was added a successful message will appear at the top of the NWUI screen and the vCenter will appear in this window.
Here you can review vCenter resources by clicking the vCenter and then the Inventory window will populate. You will now be able to see resources from the VMware environment. Once a NetWorker VMware Protection Appliance has been applied in the VMware environment you can go to the VMware Proxies tab and register with NetWorker. Enter the VProxy’s admin account’s password. To monitor this we can go to the Server Messages. Once registered you should see an info message stating that the VProxy was registered successfully. If you return to the VMW Proxies tab you can now see the VProxy listed and is enabled. To add a NetWorker client click on the Protection tab then go to Clients.
In the Clients window click on the Add icon. Enter the fully qualified domain name of the system which has the NetWorker client software installed. You can optionally add a description. You can also set the group while adding the client. If a group does not exist you can add the client to the group once the client has been registered. During the registration you have the option of setting the Savesets. By default all Savesets will be listed. Otherwise you can browse the file system and pick any specific folder or file which you would like to have backed up by this client.
We will use the “All Save Set” option. We will use the default options for the advanced configuration. Once done click “Finish” and the client will be added to NetWorker. If you need to modify an existing client you can click the “Edit” tab and change any of the settings previously set. For systems which use a module such as the NetWorker Module for Microsoft or NetWorker Module for Database Applications you can apply any additional settings required in the “Apps and Modules” tab. In order to configure NetWorker devices you will first need to consider if you will be using the NetWorker Server Storage Node or a remote NetWorker Storage Node. You can see these from the “Devices and Media” tab. Selecting “Storage Nodes” from the “Storage Nodes” window we can see the NetWorker Server.
All NetWorker Servers have an embedded storage node. You can add an external storage node by selecting “Add” and then entering the fully qualified domain name of the NetWorker Storage Node. You can select a type where available. Once you have done so you can click “Finish” and the storage node will be added. In this example we will be creating a Data Domain device. You can add Data Domain systems by going to the “Data Domain Systems” tab. In the “Data Domain Systems” window click on “Add” and enter the fully qualified domain name of the Data Domain. You will also need to specify the DD Boost user account and password. Once you have done this you can click “Create”. To create a media pool click on the “Media Pools” tab then click “Add”. In this example we will create a pool called “Test Pool”. You will need to assign a label template. If one does not exist already you can add a label template provide a name. You will need to specify fields.
We will go with “Character String” and provide the name of the pool. Add an additional field and we will go with “Range of Numbers” from 00001 to 999. For separator we will use dot. For the next label we will go with the name of the pool .001. This would conform to what the default standards used by NetWorker. Click “Create”. You can now select the label template from the dropdown. We are creating a Data Domain device so we will select the media type required as Data Domain. Click “Finish”. To create a device click on the “Devices” tab then click “Add”. Select the Data Domain device as added previously. The option to use credentials should be selected if the DD Boost credentials were specified in the device. To test the connection click “Connect”.
If successful the option to click “Next” will become available. Click on the “New Folder” option and then give a name to the folder. Check the checkbox then click “Next”. Select a storage node. In this case we use the storage node embedded in the NetWorker Server. Select the pool type. In this case we configured a backup pool. Select the pool for a newly created device. We will leave the option to label and mount the device checked. If we are mounting an existing device do not have this box checked as it will erase the device. Click “Finish”. If you are managing existing devices you can use the “Operations” tab here or “Operations” button to click “Mount” “Unmount” or “Label”. If you want to wipe a device and remount it as a fresh device doing so would erase any data on the device so be careful when using this option. To configure backups you will first need to create a protection group. Go to the “Protection Groups” tab then click “Add”. Provide a name for the group.
In this case if you are configuring a VMware protection group select the “Type” option and then select VMware. Select the vCenter. You can check any VM from the vCenter into the protection group. Optionally you can add rules by clicking “Add Rules” or by going to the “Protection Rules” tab. Rules can be configured by name-based or category-based tagging which can be used to dynamically add or remove VMs from a protection group. Select a VM if using the manual option and then click “Finish”. Similarly you can do the same thing for NetWorker clients by clicking the “Add” option provide a name and select “Client” from the dropdown. You can now check any system which was added to the NetWorker clients tab. To configure backups go to “Protection Policies” and then click “Add”. Provide a name and optionally you can check the “Protection Period” option. This will ensure that at least one copy of the backup is available for the duration specified even if the retention of that backup has expired. Specify a notification option. You can either use “On Failure” or “On Completion”.
If using the “On Completion” option a notification would be sent whether the backup has completed successfully or failed. By default it updates the policy notifications log in the NSR logs directory. You can modify this command to send email notifications. In the “Workflows” window click “Add”. Provide a name and then set the start time and whether or not you want this job to start automatically or only during manual selection. You can also specify interval options in the “Restart” window if a job fails. The default notification option is set at the policy level. Select a group. You will only be able to select groups which are not already assigned to a workflow. Only one workflow can be assigned per group. Create a backup action. You will need to set the destination storage node for the device which was configured for this backup.
The device we configured previously used the NetWorker Server’s embedded storage node. We will select the pool we created and you can specify a retention period. In this case we will just leave it as one month. You can manually specify vProxy appliances or leave it to automatic which will select the best available vProxy. If backing up SQL instances on a VM you can use the Quiesce Application. Select “Advanced” if you want to back up transaction logs check this option and then specify the system administrator account for the SQL VMs. This account will need to have SysAdmin roles in the SQL instance. The VM we selected is not a SQL VM so I’ll uncheck this option. If the VM has multiple VMDKs you can check “Concurrent VMDKs Backup”. The concurrency sessions will be dependent on how many Hotadd or NBD sessions the vProxy has available. You can also manually specify whether or not you want the backup to use Hotadd Auto or NBD. In this case we will leave it as Auto.
We will define a set policy schedule of incremental. Again you can set a notification “On Completion” or “On Failure” and then specify a notification command you’d like to use. You can optionally change the advanced configuration whether the start time or retry attempts. From the confirmation screen click “Finish”. There may be some differences when configuring backup types for other backups. However you will always need to configure a policy workflow and action. To start a backup job you can go to the “Protection Policies” tab select policy select a workflow and then click “Start”. To monitor the job you can go to the “Monitoring” tab and either use the policies workflows actions or active sessions. From the “Monitoring Policies” tab we can see that the “Test VMware Policy” is running. You can also go to the “Workflow” tab and you will see that the “VMware Workflow” inside the “Test VMware Policy” is running. The “Active Sessions” tab will show you the active backup running. Once completed you can go to the “Policies” tab and the status should show as “Success”.
To issue a recovery you can go to the “Recovery and Savesets” tab. Select the save time. This will show you the Savesets available within the duration selected. Select the client type for example “Traditional” or VMware. When selecting VMware you will also need to select the vCenter server which will show you a list of VMs from the vCenter. Select a VM and click “Search Savesets”. You can pick one of the available Savesets and now select the recovery type. You can perform “Image Level” which will give you a “Revert” “New Virtual Machine” “Instant Restore” “Virtual Disc” or “Emergency Restore”. The various restore options are detailed in the NetWorker VMware Integration Guide.
You can also perform a “File Level Recovery” which will give you additional options for mounting and selecting data. We will perform an “Image Level Recovery”. You can specify the restore options and then click “Next”. You can specify a target location where you want the VM to be recovered and then click “Next”. For VM recoveries you will need to specify the datastore and whether or not you want to use the same data store for all disks. From the “Summary” tab you can click “Finish”. To monitor the recovery you can go to the “Monitoring” tab and select “Recover Jobs”. We can now see that the VM is running. When the recover job completes it should show as “Completed Successfully”.
