New Features for Backup Agents in 11.21

Back Up and Restore MongoDB Sharded Clusters or Replica Sets in the Command Center

You can back up and restore MongoDB sharded clusters or replica sets in the Command Center.

You can restore the MongoDB data to the same or a different replica set or to a sharded cluster that has the same number of shards as the source cluster.

For more information, see Big Data - MongoDB.

Back Up and Restore Nutanix Files in the Command Center

You can back up and restore data (CIFS shares and NFS exports) that resides on your Nutanix Files file server in the Command Center.

For more information, see Nutanix Files.

Configure Commvault VTL for IBM i from the Command Center

You can configure a Commvault Virtual Tape Library (VTL) for IBM i from the Command Center to back up and restore IBM i data.

For more information, see Installing VTL on the Linux Access Node.

Cross-Account Copying of Amazon Snapshots for RDS and EC2

You can replicate and create Amazon RDS and EC2 full copy snapshots to a different Amazon account in the same or in a different geographic region for your disaster recovery needs. Copying snapshots to a different account prevents snapshot corruption and accidental deletion.

For more information, see the following pages:

Improved Performance for NDMP Restore Operations

NDMP restore operations that only include files will automatically use the Synthetic Restore feature when the files are restored to a NetApp file server and the backup does not include alternate data streams (ADS). The Synthetic Restore feature generates a backup image that only contains the data selected for the restore operation. The Synthetic Restore feature is especially useful when you restore a small number of files from a backup that contains a large number of files.

For more information, see Performing Restore Operations for NDMP.

Instant Clones from the Commvault Hybrid File Store

For Oracle databases, you can run forever incremental backups that are stored in the Commvault Hybrid File Store. The Commvault software uses the Oracle incremental merge feature to create the backups. You can use these backups to automate the creation of instant clones for DevOps automation requirements.You can use the Oracle image copy feature to create a snapshot of an Oracle database without having to create the snapshot on the primary storage. Instant clones support the following key features:

You can automatically back up databases and archive logs by using policies that are developed to meet your recovery point objectives.
You can create instant clones (live mounts) of an Oracle database for a specified point in time and automate the lifecycle of the instant clones.

For more information, see Instant Clones from the Commvault Hybrid File Store.

Microsoft SharePoint Server Agent Supports Modern Authentication

Microsoft is deprecating basic authentication in October 2020. SharePoint Server Agent now supports both basic and modern authentication.

With this feature, Office 365 SharePoint solutions can use modern authentication to protect SharePoint online data.

For more information, see SharePoint Online and Microsoft Office 365 with SharePoint Server.

Optimized Backups Using Extent-Based Technology

Optimized backups (formerly called extent-based backups) protect very large files with greater resilience than regular backups and are used by default for files that are 1 GB or larger. The optimized backup operation breaks large files into small, individual extents (for example, a 1 GB file is broken into 256 extents that are 4 MB). If an interruption occurs during a backup, minimal data is retransferred, so the backup operation is more resilient and efficient. With a traditional backup operation, when there is a high degree of variation in the size of the files that are backed up, some backup streams may remain idle. Optimized backups ensure better utilization of all backup streams, so operations complete faster.

Reduce the RPO to Minutes with Streamlined Log Backups Using Disk Caching for Informix Databases

For Informix, you can run streamlined log backups on a schedule that supports backup frequencies as small as 5 minutes.

Streamlined log backups use caching to a disk library to reduce the backup time for database instances that have a high transaction rate. The backups are written to disk mount paths that are managed by the MediaAgent, so you do not need to store the backups on production servers. The database client and the MediaAgent run the log backups, independent of the CommServe server, which increases the availability of the database client and MediaAgent pair, while also reducing the load on the CommServe application. A second operation periodically commits and registers the logs, to support copy operations. Log backups continue even if the CommServe server is unavailable.

For more information, see Disk Caching for Frequent Log Backups and Optimizing Informix Log Backups.

Restore ACLs from an NDMP Backup to a Windows Client

Restoring Access Control Lists (ACLs) from NDMP backups to Windows clients is supported for Dell EMC Isilon/PowerScale.

For more information, see Considerations for Restoring NDMP Data to a Windows or UNIX Client.

View the DB2 Version Upgrade History

You can view the DB2 version upgrade history in the Command Center or CommCell Console.

For more information, see the following pages: