SupportConnect - BrightStor Storage Newsletter, Version 07.06
  

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CA
E-News
BrightStor® Storage Newsletter
Version 07.06
July 13, 2007

In This Newsletter
Product News
> CA Simplifies Product Names
> BrightStor® ARCserve® Backup and BrightStor® Enterprise Backup for Linux/UNIX Ingres® Vulnerability
> BrightStor® ARCserve® Backup for Laptops and Desktops Ingres® Vulnerability

Product Updates
> BrightStor® ARCserve® Backup r11.5 for Windows
> BrightStor® ARCserve® Backup r11.5 for Linux and UNIX
> BrightStor® ARCserve® Backup r11.1 for Windows
> BrightStor® ARCserve® Backup r11.1 for NetWare
> BrightStor® ARCserve® Backup v9.01 for Windows

General Information
> BrightStor® ARCserve® Backup for Windows r11.5: Pre/Post Functions do not Function on Client Agent Machines After an Upgrade or Install
> BrightStor® ARCserve® Backup for Windows r11.5: How to Purge the Disk Staging Space?
> BrightStor® ARCserve® Backup for UNIX and Linux: Why Can't I Restore Symbolic Links During a Disaster Recovery of my Unix or Linux System?
> CA Disk™ Backup and Recovery: How to Tune the SYNCDEVS Sysparm (or What Really Happens Behind the Curtains)

Special Events
> CA Vantage™ - Quarterly Enhancement Review and Voting

Product News

CA Simplifies Product Names
Beginning January 30, 2007, CA is simplifying its product names. Our intention is to describe our products by what they enable you and your business to accomplish. Some names have already changed; others will change over the next 12-18 months as part of the planned development cycle. There is nothing you need to do. We have established a dedicated site at ca.com/productnames as a resource center where you'll find additional information such as frequently asked questions, customer service numbers, and a list of current product names and former names.

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BrightStor® ARCserve® Backup and BrightStor® Enterprise Backup for Linux/UNIX Ingres® Vulnerability
A security vulnerability has been found in the embedded Ingres database used in BrightStor ARCserve Backup for Linux/UNIX and BrightStor Enterprise Backup for UNIX. This vulnerability affects the base product (this does not affect agent installs) of the following product versions:

BrightStor ARCserve Backup (Linux only) v9
BrightStor ARCserve Backup (Unix, Linux and Mainframe Linux) r11.1
BrightStor ARCserve Backup (Linux only) r11.5
BrightStor ARCserve Backup (Unix and Mainframe Linux) r11.5
BrightStor Enterprise Backup (Unix only) r10.5

For a complete explanation of the problem, along with steps to resolve the vulnerability, please see the document posted at: supportconnectw.ca.com/public/storage/infodocs/basbing_vulnnotice.asp.

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BrightStor® ARCserve® Backup for Laptops and Desktops Ingres® Vulnerability
A security vulnerability has been found in the embedded Ingres database used in BrightStor ARCserve Backup for Laptops and Desktops r11.5. This vulnerability affects only the base product, and does not affect the client portion.

For a complete explanation of the problem, along with steps to resolve the vulnerability, please see the document posted at: supportconnectw.ca.com/public/sams/lifeguard/infodocs/bslding_vulnnotice.asp.

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Product Updates
BrightStor® ARCserve® Backup r11.5 for Windows
QO89020 - Fix backup problem when using data staging and staging chunk sizes larger than ARCserve's default (512K).
This is available for download at:
supportconnect.ca.com/sc/redir.jsp?reqPage=search&searchID=QO89020.

QO89125 - This patch corrects a problem with recording the last write time on media that were used in sessions that spanned across multiple media. This problem can result in media being released from a media pool prematurely.
This is available for download at:
supportconnect.ca.com/sc/redir.jsp?reqPage=search&searchID=QO89125.

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BrightStor® ARCserve® Backup r11.5 for Linux and UNIX
QO88608, QO88616, QO88617, QO88618 - Tape engine/added device support updates. Adds support for additional devices and addresses tape engine-related issues.
These are available for download at:

AIX:
supportconnect.ca.com/sc/redir.jsp?reqPage=search&searchID=QO88616
HP:
supportconnect.ca.com/sc/redir.jsp?reqPage=search&searchID=QO88617
Linux:
supportconnect.ca.com/sc/redir.jsp?reqPage=search&searchID=QO88608
Sun:
supportconnect.ca.com/sc/redir.jsp?reqPage=search&searchID=QO88618

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BrightStor® ARCserve® Backup r11.1 for Windows
QO89416 - Tape engine/added device support updates. Adds support for additional devices and addresses tape engine-related issues.
This is available for download at:
supportconnect.ca.com/sc/redir.jsp?reqPage=search&searchID=QO89416.

QO89282 - This patch corrects a problem with recording the last write time on media that were used in sessions that spanned across multiple media. This problem can result in media being released from a media pool prematurely.
This is available for download at:
supportconnect.ca.com/sc/redir.jsp?reqPage=search&searchID=QO89282.

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BrightStor® ARCserve® Backup r11.1 for NetWare
QO89510 – Tape engine/added device support updates. Adds support for additional devices and addresses tape engine-related issues.
This is available for download at:
supportconnect.ca.com/sc/redir.jsp?reqPage=search&searchID=QO89510.

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BrightStor® ARCserve® Backup v9.01 for Windows
QO88720 - This update fixes a problem with jobs not stopping after hitting cancel, and a separate problem that results in pre/post information not being recorded in the activity log properly.
This is available for download at:
supportconnect.ca.com/sc/redir.jsp?reqPage=search&searchID=QO88720.

QO89283 - This patch corrects a problem with recording the last write time on media that were used in sessions that spanned across multiple media. This problem can result in media being released from a media pool prematurely.
This is available for download at:
supportconnect.ca.com/sc/redir.jsp?reqPage=search&searchID=QO89283.

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General Information
BrightStor® ARCserve® Backup for Windows r11.5: Pre/Post Functions do not Function on Client Agent Machines After an Upgrade or Install
Problem Description:
After an install or upgrade to BrightStor ARCserve Backup for Windows r11.5, Pre/Post operations do not function on Windows Client Agent machines.

Problem Resolution:
Within the Windows Services applet make sure that the CA BrightStor® Universal Agent has "Allow service to interact with desktop" checked. Stop and restart the service.

This document can also be found online at:
supportconnect.ca.com/sc/redir.jsp?reqPage=search&searchID=TEC427391.

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BrightStor® ARCserve® Backup for Windows r11.5: How to Purge the Disk Staging Space?
Description:
If the staging device becomes full or exceeds its storage threshold, backup jobs will fail. To remedy this situation, BrightStor ARCserve Backup provides you with capability to purge sessions forcefully from a file system device using the ca_devmgr command line utility.

Solution:
Using the purge tool, you can perform the following tasks:

Purge copied sessions
Purge uncopied sessions

ca_devmgr Syntax:
To run the purge tool, use the following syntax:
ca_devmgr [-cahost <hostname>][-force] -purge <adapter #> <scsi id> <lun> -sessions <list of space separated sessions> | <session range>

For example:
ca_devmgr [-cahost <hostname>] [-force] -purge <adapter #> <scsi id> <lun> -sessions <session001 session002 session003 ...> | -sessions <start session number>-

<end session number> | -sessions all

The purge tool supports the following command line options:

Option Description:

-force Purges the specified uncopied sessions (only).

-sessions <list of space Specifies the session number, the group of separated sessions>| session numbers, the range of session <session range> numbers, or all session numbers that you want to purge

To specify a session number or group of session numbers, you must provide the session number or a list of space separated session numbers using the following syntax for the "sessions argument:
-sessions 1 2 3
To specify a range of sessions, use the following syntax for the <session range> argument:
-sessions 1-99
To specify all sessions, use the following syntax for the <session range> argument:
-sessions all

This document can also be found online at:
supportconnect.ca.com/sc/redir.jsp?reqPage=search&searchID=TEC424031.

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BrightStor® ARCserve® Backup for UNIX and Linux: Why Can't I Restore Symbolic Links During a Disaster Recovery of my Unix or Linux System?
Description:
While attempting a disaster recovery (full system restore) of my system, there are several important symbolic links that fail to restore. Some of these will prevent my system from restarting properly.

Solutions:
The issue lies in the security for the system. Some new security systems block the writing of symbolic links when the original file does not exist or may simply not allow us to restore these files until other files or processes are in place and running. If this happens while using the ARCserve disaster recovery agent, please contact support or look for an updated Disaster Recovery (DR) CD on our support site. If this occurs during a manual disaster recovery where you have rebuilt the system, then you will need to restore certain files in the proper sequence as determined by your operating system.

This article can also be found online at:
supportconnect.ca.com/sc/redir.jsp?reqPage=search&searchID=TEC426837.

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CA Disk™ Backup and Recovery: How to Tune the SYNCDEVS Sysparm (or What Really Happens Behind the Curtains)
When the SYNCDEVS sysparm was revised to include Archive as well as Backup, a number of changes were made to safeguard your data. Here are some details to help you understand how the process works.

Previously, in order to protect your data, a SYNCDEV would be issued after writing the EOF record which would "flush" the data in the tape control unit buffers to the tape media. At this point, the data was safe on the tape and the disposition processing of the archived data set could be done (i.e., we could scratch the data set on disk). With older tape units, this wasn't a large problem.

With the new larger tape units, the SYNCDEV takes significantly more time and also causes the drive to drop out of streaming mode which in turn delays the start of writing the next block to the tape unit. In order to keep the tape unit in streaming mode, we have tried to eliminate issuing a SYNCDEV.

In order to keep your data safe and whole, disposing of the data set cannot complete until it is certain that all of it is on the tape. So, a table is built of the data set names (and other needed items) and it is checked whenever a data set's EOF record is written to the unit.



In order to determine what data has really been written to the tape, an I/O command is issued that returns the block number of the last block written to the media and the block number of the last block written to the channel's buffers. This command is fast and does not cause the tape to stop streaming. The block number is then used to find which data sets in the table have been completely written to the tape. Now the processing can be finished for those data sets. The DSNINDEX record is written. For Backups, the change bit is turned off. For Archives, the data set is deleted and recatalogued. Since the data set is altered in some way, the ENQ has to be maintained until the process is complete. This includes the ENQ for GDG bases. This means the data set may be unavailable during Backup a little longer than it was before but the advantage is the job completes much faster.

Now - the tuning aspect. The default of sysparm SYNCDEVS is N99, which means that up to 99 data sets, can be tabled before we are forced to issue a SYNCDEV. This doesn't mean that 99 data sets will be tabled, or that a SYNCDEV will be issued. By using the block ids to find what is on the tape, the tape should be kept in streaming mode and data sets processed from the table without ever needing a SYNCDEV.

However, IF the table is filled, a SYNCDEV is issued and all the data sets will be finished and the process is started all over again.

Hopefully, you can now see that sysparm SYNCDEVS doesn't really need much tuning. If you have jobs that are waiting for a data set to be free, you may want to trade the backup time reduction for data set availability. For that, you can use SYNCDEVS specified with a "Y" to work as it used to. Changing the number from 99 to 80 or 75 may not change much depending on the control unit buffer size and the average data set size. Setting it to 5 or 10 will allow some streaming to take place but more SYNCDEVs will be issued, slowing the Backup job.

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Special Events
CA Vantage™ - Quarterly Enhancement Review and Voting
The Mainframe Storage Product Line Community (PLC) is a global, virtual user community focused on the following set of technologies:
  • CA 1® and CA TLMS
  • CA Allocate™
  • CA Disk™
  • CA Tape Encryption
  • CA Vantage™
  • CA Vtape™
As a member of a PLC, you will have access to information from CA development, the opportunity to vote on selected product enhancements, as well as an online forum exclusively for product line community members. The first quarterly webcast for enhancement review and voting will feature CA Vantage and is scheduled for July 17, 2007, at 10:00 a.m. EST. For details on the upcoming webcast and how to become a voting member, please visit
CA Product Line Communities and register for the "PLC - Mainframe Storage" or contact Loveleen Lohia at loveleen.lohia@ca.com.

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