Smarts NCM : Understanding Network Configuration Manager backups

Products

• VMware Smart Assurance

Environment

VMware Smart Assurance - NCM

Resolution

Understanding Network Configuration Manager backups and what is inside of a backup image. 

• Linux Installation
  • Default installation directory is $VOYENCE_HOME/data-image 
  • 2AM is the default backup time based on the installed server time. 
  • During installation 2 Cronjob's are created in the $VOYENCE_HOME/conf/root-crontab
    • 01 * * * $VOYENCE_HOME/tools/rotate-backups.pl 8
    • 02 * * * $VOYENCE_HOME/tools/backup.pl -f
• Windows Installation
  • Default installation directory is %VOYENCE_HOME%data-image
  • Backup.pl and rotate-backup.pl are not scheduled or configured to run automatically on the installation. 
  • Must use Windows Task Manager to have backup.pl and rotate-backups.pl run without user interaction. Please follow the directions in KB 330590 and KB 503002
  • Application Server and Database Server must reside on the same host can't be separated. 
• What is backed up in the tar file?
  • Custompackage = Custom Drivers on the (Application Server only)
  • INFO = Contains Version information for NCM
  • Data = Contains IDX information, POP, lockbox and Cflist information. 
  • Backup DB = Backup of the Postgress DB. 
  • Conf = SSL Key information. 
• Restoring Guidelines
  • Tomcat on the Report Advisor must be stopped order for a restore to be successful. If you don't stop the tomcat service "service tomcat stop" on the Report Advisor, then you will see error messages "Not able to drop roles or users". 
  • Can only restore to the same version, meaning you can't take a backup of one version and restore it to another version of NCM. 
• Additional Notes
  • By default, the NCM installation will only retain 7 days of backups before its purged out of the system.
  • Small consistent growth is expected of the images, any instant large increases or decreases of the images might indicate a possible problem with backups. Users are expected to see a large decrease in the image size after completing a database maintenance.