Overview - External Data Connector (BackupExec)

Introduction

External Data Connector (EDC) provides the facility to collect and merge vital information from BackupExec cells to a CommCell. BackupExec’s vital configurations, such as policies, backup content, client computer names, data protection schedules, encryption and compression settings are automatically collected and merged to the CommCell.

After the merge has completed, CommCell Agents can be installed directly on the previous BackupExec clients using the CommCell Console. Backup content, schedules, and other settings will remain on the clients, which greatly reduces configuration time. Data Protection historical records are also captured and merged to the CommCell. Thus, various CommCell reports can be run for the historical BackupExec data.

Key Features

External Data Connector provides the following key features:

Complete Discovery of BackupExec Client Information

When External Data Connector is installed on a BackupExec Master Server, all BackupExec client information can be easily incorporated into a CommCell by performing a simple discovery process. Your first discovery populates all information about each BackupExec client into the CommServe database, including client configuration, previous job history, schedules, and media information. All these details can be viewed using the CommCell Console graphical interface as soon as the first full discovery is performed.

Subsequent incremental discovery operations continue to update the CommServe with details on new or changed BackupExec client configurations. You can choose from a number of discovery options to further refine what information is populated into the CommServe, such as narrowing down discovery to specific BackupExec clients as well as including updated job and media details.

Seamless Migration of BackupExec Clients to a CommCell

If desired, you can seamlessly migrate existing BackupExec client computers to a CommCell for future data protection and recovery operations using the wide variety of CommCell products and features available. CommCell software can be simultaneously installed to any number of client computers directly through the CommCell Console graphical interface. You can choose to keep the original configuration of the migrated client computers or modify them to suit new needs and requirements.

Customized Reporting of BackupExec Job History

Once your BackupExec clients have been populated into the CommCell, you can create a variety of CommCell reports, which provide detailed information on job history, media details, and more. Reports can be created in HTML, XML, or PDF formats, and can be saved or sent in several ways. Optionally, reports can be further customized to display information in a Native format, which uses the terminology of native CommCell components, or a BackupExec format, which retains the terminology of the original BackupExec components.

If your BackupExec clients are integrated into more than one CommCell, reports can provide complete coverage of all clients in each CommCell.

Direct Importing of BackupExec Databases to a CommServe

Several methods are available for directly importing a BackupExec database to a CommServe, which is useful if you want to incorporate an entire BackupExec database into the CommCell at once. This can be accomplished with or without direct installation of External Data Connector on the BackupExec Server.

Supported BackupExec Versions

After the discovery process is complete, BackupExec components, such as client computers, backup schedules, and media are mapped to the appropriate CommCell entity. The following versions of BackupExec are supported for these BackupExec component groupings:

*Both Windows and Unix platforms are supported.

Terminology

The External Data Connector documentation utilizes the following terminology:

• Master Server - The computer hosting the main data protection and recovery software engine. This computer is the equivalent of the CommServe computer.

• Discovery - The process in which External Data Connector collects information about the vendor's client computers and populates that information into the CommServe database.