Holiday Wish List for NetWorker

What I would like to see is NetWorker License Manager to work.

Got it.  I know you've mentioned working w/ support on it and had some conversation with Weller about it.  Interestingly enough Preston blogged on that one too: http://nsrd.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/the-pros-and-cons-of-legato-license-manager/

I would like to see more options for advanced training when it comes to NetWorker.  I attended a 5-day training session after we installed the software, but I feel that only scratched the surface.  I don't know if it is possible but it would be awesome if there were different levels or something of training for NetWorker.  We implemented this software without anyone at our location having any experience with the software.  Now maybe this is an unusual situation but I'm left to try to learn things on my own by visiting websites and such.  Which is tough because I'm not even sure what there is to learn.  Does that make sense? I guess what I'm trying to say is I know this software is capable of many different functions and features, but I don't really know what they are!  haha 

Maybe there are more options for training that I'm not aware of.  However, I've checked the training section at PowerLink but haven't really found much. 

Good one.  I will forward on your message to the education folks.

I'm going to go take a look myself at what's out there.  If I find things I think may be helfpul, I'll post them here.

BTW - do you have a copy of the Video Instructor Led Training (VILT)?

Currently one can set the retention policy within the pool resource. The possibility to do the

same for the browse policy would eliminate the need to configure multiple client resources

for those customers needing multiple browse policies for the same client.

Also within the pool resource, one can restrict mount operations at the device level. In some

situations it would be very helpfull if we could restrict mount operations at the storage node level

(all devices belonging to storage node xy) or at the jukebox level (all devices of jukebox xy).

Regards, Guido Weber

Thanks everyone for continuing the thread.  Happy New Year.

On the education front, after forwarding the mail to the education.emc.com folks, they taught me how to see the customer view of training on the site.  Here's what I see as available for training: 

http://education.emc.com/cust/training/learning_paths/b_r.aspx

EMC NetWorker Administration for UNIX and Microsoft Windows (VILT also available) 

EMC NetWorker 7.x installation, configuration, maintenance, management, backup, recovery, autochanger configuration and management, save set cloning and staging, generate reports

Backup and Recovery Design using EMC NetWorker - ( Video ILT also Available)

Administrative Interfaces, Customizing the Backup Environment, Media Management, Configuring and Managing Autochangers, Configuring and Managing Standalone Devices, Databases, Cloning and Staging, EMC NetWorker Modules Overview, Firewalls, Clustering Overview, License Manager, PowerSnap Overview, NDMP Overview, Deduplication and VMWare Backups, Solution Design and Systems Sizing, Performance Tuning

EMC NetWorker Module for Oracle Implementation and Configuration

NetWorker Module for Oracle Overview, Installing NetWorker Module for Oracle, Backing up Oracle data, Restoring Oracle data, Troubleshooting NetWorker Module for Oracle

EMC NetWorker Module for Microsoft Applications 

This introductory course provides an overview of features and functionality introduced with the EMC NetWorker Module for Microsoft Applications

e-Learning: 

Backing Up and Recovering Clusters with EMC NetWorker
EMC Centera Backup and Recovery Module
EMC NetWorker Module for Exchange Server

EMC NetWorker Module for Microsoft SQL Server
EMC NetWorker Module for SAP
EMC Networker De-duplication

@Jason

Give it a year or so and then attend the training again. It will open your eyes to a whole new world of Networker. Atleast it did for me. The videos are not good at all.

I would like a more robust reporting tool from Networker and the ability to create true custom reports (without the need for DPA).

I would also like to see improvements in High Availability or Active/Passive configurations inherent within the Networker server software (the CommVault model).

And for those of us who can't get the budget for Avamar or Data Domain, it would be nice to have software deduplication within Networker separate from DD and Avamar.

That's not too much to ask is it?

Eric,

I'd love to attend the Backup and Recovery Design class, however, I don't think my company would be willing to send me to Australia or California to attend.    Any idea if they will be offering this class in the midwest this year?

Jason,

That isn't a bad idea actually.  When I attended the class the first time I had ZERO knowledge of NetWorker and most of the class was jibberish to me.  I'll think about it.  Thanks for the idea.

Greetings all -

A couple of wishes:

- I wholeheartedly agree with the comments about the desireability of more advanced training options.  Also would like to see the design class in more places in the US

- # 1 wish is for nsrclone to have the ability to use more than one device during clone operations, or at least make it easier to script to spawn multiple nsrclone sessions.  To elaborate a bit, like most folks that clone, we have a script that generates a list of savesets to clone off by using an mminfo query.  Currently I pass the entire list to nsrclone, which starts a stream to a particular device.  Even though I have 4 devices available, only one will be used at a time.  Because some of the savesets span multiple tapes on the source side (i.e. I've got saveset heads and tails to consider) I cannot just chop up the list of savesets into multiple streams because I may run into tape contention...in fact I can envision a situation where all nsrclone instances lock up waitng for a tape in use by another nsrclone instance.  Basically we're all in a situation where its really easy to load up a VTL with backup streams from multiple storage nodes, but its hard/sloooooow to get the data off.  HELP!

Thanks

--brerrabbit

1. My number one is "Pause & Resume" of backup streams. Or checkpoints if you like. For example if I need to make a tape awailable for restore during nighttime, a pause of the backups to that tape would be great. (And restart from where you left off.
   
2. Update of the implementation of directives. Make it more user friendly.

regards

Håkan