The following are the requirements for protecting BMR clients:

• A policy must be either type MS-Windows (for Windows clients) or Standard (for UNIX and Linux clients).

• A policy must have the Collect disaster recovery information for Bare Metal Restore attribute set.

  On NetBackup master servers that are licensed for BMR, NetBackup sets the following attributes automatically:

  • The Collect disaster recovery information for Bare Metal Restore attribute when you create a new MS-Windows or Standard policy.

  • The Collect true image restore information and with move detection attributes (albeit grayed out).

  These attributes enable NetBackup to restore only those files present on the system at the time of the backup. Move detection enables NetBackup to restore the files correctly that were moved, renamed, or newly installed. These attributes also ensure that all of the restored files that fit in the volumes and the file systems that BMR created during the recovery.

  If Collect disaster recovery information for Bare Metal Restore attribute is not set, BMR does not protect the client.

  User-initiated backups do not provide BMR protection because true image restore information is not collected during a user-initiated backup.

• The operating system files must be backed up by a single policy. For Windows clients, include SYSTEM_STATE in the policy that backs up the operating system.

Consider the following when you create policies to protect BMR clients:

• For non-clustered clients, specify ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES is the simplest and most thorough method to obtain a complete backup. If you back up a client with database or application files using a NetBackup database agent or other policy, do the following: Use an exclude list to exclude them from the policy that specifies ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES.

• For clustered clients, the most effective backup strategy uses multiple policies. Each node should have its own policy that backs up local file systems. Shared file systems should be backed up by the additional policies that back up the node that currently owns the resources.

• The logical volumes that are not part of the operating system can be backed up with different policies. However, each logical volume must be backed up by a single policy.

• Schedule all policies that back up a single client to run at the same time.

• NetBackup media servers can be protected as BMR clients. Media servers that back up to their own storage devices (either SCSI-attached or SAN-attached) require special procedures for restores. If you understand these procedures, you can configure NetBackup to minimize the time and effort that the restores require.