Enterprise Workloads Editions: ✅ Business | ✅ Enterprise | ✅ Elite
Introduction
Managing the backup and recovery of the File servers in a distributed environment is usually a complex process involving multiple staff and complex infrastructure. Druva facilitates you by centralizing the backup and recovery of globally distributed File servers.
Druva uses server-side and client-side components to interact, manage, and control backups in your File servers.
Druva supports backup and restore of Windows and Linux File servers on the on-premise physical and virtual infrastructure, as well as cloud infrastructure such as Amazon EC2, Azure VMs, Google Compute Engines, and so on.
Druva supports backup and restore of the data deduplication-enabled volumes on Windows 2012 File server. Druva performs a non-optimized backup and restore in this case. Files on deduplication-enabled volumes are backed up as normal files and not as optimized files. Files backed up from deduplication-enabled volumes will be restored as normal files, even if restored to deduplication-enabled volumes.
Druva components for File server
The Druva components for a file server are:
Druva Cloud: Druva Cloud is the server component of Druva that authenticates and authorizes incoming backup and restore requests from Enterprise Workloads agent, installed on your File servers, and redirects it to Druva storage for fulfilling the requests.
Management Console: Management Console is a web-based, unified console that provides complete visibility and a high-level understanding of the health status of File servers that you manage, wherever those File servers reside. You can globally view all your File servers located in your storage infrastructure, discover File servers, and configure them for backup, recovery, and archival of data. It provides the administrators with an ability to –
Register and configure File servers for backup in their organization’s server infrastructure.
Control Druva activities by defining an administrative group, backup content, and backup policy.
Monitor backup and recovery jobs, activities, and reports.
Enterprise Workloads agent: Enterprise Workloads agent is a client-side component, which is installed individually on each File server. You must deploy the Druva File server agent and register it to back up and restore File servers in your setup.
File types supported for backup
Druva provides defined file types that you can exclude from or include in your backups. Each file type is associated with specific extensions that are listed when a file type is selected. You can also enter custom extensions if you do not find your extensions under any predefined file types. You can remove extensions from a file type without removing the entire file type. You can also enter file patterns for exclusions or inclusions in your backups.
The following table lists the predefined file types that you can include or exclude in the backup policy.
Defined file types | File extensions |
Office files | .doc, .ppt, .xls, .docx, .docm, .xlsx, .xlsm, .xts, .xltm, .pptx, .pptm, .odt, .odb, .ods, .odp, .odg, .odc, .odf, .odi, .odm, .ott, .ots, .otp, .otg, .otc, .otf, .oti, .oth, .txt, .adp, .adn, .accdb, .accdr, .accdt, .accde, .dotx, .xltx, .mdb, .mda, .mdt, .mdw, .mdf, .mde, .mam, .maq, .mar, .mat, .maf, .ppl, .mpt, .xlt, .vdx, .vssm, .vsdx, .vsdm, .vtx, .xsn, .one, .pot, .vsd, .dotm, .vsl, .vsw, .vst, .vss, .vsx, .dot, .potm, .vssx, .potx, .vstm, .pub, .vstx. |
Image files | .gif, .jpg, .bmp, .png, .tif, .jpe, .raw, .pic, .pct, .pxr, .sct, .ico, .PSD, .jpeg |
HTML files | .html, .htm, .mht, .mhtml, .shtml |
Audio files | .ogg, .mp3, .wav, .flac, .mpc, .au, .aiff, .aac, .m4a, .ra, .ape, .wma |
PDF files | |
Video files | .avi, .mpg, .mpeg, .divx, .rmvb, .wmv, .mov, .rm, .swf, .flv, .mkv, .3gp, .mp4 |
Executables | .exe, .dll, .msi, .com, .drv, .sys, .cpl, .ocx, .msp, .exec, .osx, .ps1, .sh, .bat, .cmd, .app, .dmg, .pkg, .rpm, .deb |
Archive Files | .zip, .rar, .gz, .tgz, .bz, .bz2, .bzip, .bzip2, .gzip,. z, .tbz2, .iso, .7z, .cbr, .sitx, .tar.gz, .zipx |
Backup Files | .bak, .old, .tmp |
Data Files | .sdf |
DB files | .db, .dbf, .pdb, .sql, .sqlite-wal |
Developer files | .c, .class, .cpp, .cs, .dtd, .fla, .h, .java, .lua, .m, .mpp, .pl, .py, .sln, .swift, .vb, .vcxproj, .xcodeproj |
Disk image files | .bin, .cue, .toast, .vcd |
Font files | .fnt , .fon , .ttf |
Game files | .b , .dem , .gam , .nes , .rom , .sav |
GIS files | .gpx , .kml , .kmz |
LOG files | .log, .log1 |
OutLook files | .pst, .ost, .prf, .msg |
Plugin files | .crx, .plugin |
Setting files | .cfg, .ini |
System files | .cab, .cur, .deskthemepack , .dmp , .icns , .lnk |
Vector files | .ai , .eps , .ps , .svg |
Web files | .asp , .aspx , .cer , .cfm , .csr , .css , .dcr , .js , .jsp , .PHP, .rss |
📝 Note
For content rules created post 21 December 2020, no file types are excluded or included by default until you select the Specify File Exclusions or Inclusions option while creating or editing a content rule. Druva recommends and excludes some folders from backups by default. For more information, see Folders excluded from File Server backup. The existing functionality remains the same for content rules created before 21 December 2020.
Content rules created on or after 21 December 2020 will no longer have the All Executables and All Office Files file types. The file type Executables will contain all extensions in the older Executables and All Executables file type. The file type Office Files will contain all extensions in the older All Office Files and Office Files file type. Content rules created before 21 December 2020 will continue using the older file types selected for inclusion or exclusion. For older content rules:
If you had selected Office Files for inclusion or exclusion, the Content Rule details page and the Edit Content Rule page will show Office Files [-] under Included/Excluded File Types. Hovering over the [-] icon shows that the extensions that were earlier a part of the All Office Files file type have been removed.
Similarly, if you had selected Executables for inclusion or inclusion, the Content Rule details page and the Edit Content Rule page will show Executables [-] under Included/Excluded File Types. Hovering over the [-] icon shows the extensions that were earlier a part of the All Executables file type have been removed.
If the older content rule was using All Executables and All Office Files, the Content Rule details page and the Edit Content Rule page would show Executables and Office Files.
📝 Note
The extensions that were included or excluded in the older content rules will remain unchanged despite the change in the File Types.
Druva also backs up and restores the Symlink files and directories, and the directory junctions file system objects. Note that only the link files are backed up and not the content of the files or directories they point to.
Folders excluded from File server backup
By default, Druva excludes certain folders from File server backup. This is because, both Windows and Linux operating systems contain system-specific files, which can be excluded from backup. For example, the Recycle Bin on Windows servers contains files and folders that you previously deleted, so these files can be excluded from the backup.
The following table lists the folders that Druva excludes from backup. While creating a backup policy, these folders appear as excluded folders under the Exclude subfolders field.
📝 Note
To include the folders that Druva excludes by default on the Backup Content tab, click the cross icon for the folder that you want to include.
Name of operating system | Folder names |
Windows |
|
Linux |
|
📝 Note
You can exclude an entire drive (for example, C:\) by adding it under Subfolders Exclusions while creating or editing a content rule. As a result, the backup of the C:\ drive does not happen during a File Server backup operation.
Backup capabilities
Druva provides the following backup features for File servers. This section explains the various capabilities of a File server:
Manual backup
During manual backups, Druva only backs up data that is defined in the backup policy. A manual backup is not restricted by the backup window that you have defined in the backup policy; it continues till all the data is backed up. In the event of a network connection failure during backup, Enterprise Workloads agent or backup proxy attempts to connect to Druva Cloud. After the connectivity is restored, backup starts from the state in which it was interrupted. A manual backup is not restricted by bandwidth, it uses maximum bandwidth available.
The Automatic Retry feature does not work with manual backups.
Backup empty folders
From version 4.6.8 and later, Druva can back up and restore empty folders. After the upgrade, the Windows File server agent where USN journal is enabled:
The empty folders created before the last backup and before the agent upgrade are not backed up. Contact Support to back up these empty folders.
The empty folders created after the last backup but before the agent upgrade are backed up.
The Windows File server agent where UNC share is configured for backup, empty folders in the UNC share, created before and after the upgrade will be backed up and restored. After the Linux File server agent upgrade, the empty folders created before and after the upgrade will be backed up and restored.
Pre-backup and post-backup scripts
Druva allows administrators to configure File server agents to execute custom pre-backup scripts and post-backup scripts. Pre-backup scripts are executed before backup jobs to perform the specific pre-backup operation. Post-backup scripts are executed after backup jobs to perform the specific post-backup operation. You can configure a backup policy with the settings for pre-backup and post-backup scripts to perform customer-driven processing tasks. For more information, see Pre backup and post backup scripts for File server.
Backup servers with mixed workload (Backup sets)
Druva extends its backup capabilities for servers that run mixed workloads. This feature provides an ability to configure multiple backup sets of the File server and MS-SQL Database server for a single server. For more information, see Backup servers with mixed workload (Backup sets).