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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
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NovaNET 11 FAQ
- Can multiple users schedule a backup at one time, i.e. at 11:00p?
- I have upgraded my NovaNET license, do I need to reinstall from scratch?
- Should I know anything special about installing NovaNET on a Linux Redhat
5 computer?
- Does NovaNET support differential SCSI tape drives and host adapter?
- Can NovaNET read my NovaNET 6/7 or NovaBack SCSI tapes?
- Why can't NovaNET see all the other servers and workstations on my network?
- Does NovaNET support media rotation?
- Does NovaNET support multiple devices?
- Can I restore data to a different file name?
- Can I restore data to another location?
- Can I restore all the files from a single session?
- Can I determine which files are on a tape?
- What if my device is not supported?
- If I install NovaNET using IPX as the protocol, and then decide to change to a TCP/IP connection, do I have to uninstall and re-install?
- Can I allow users to access NovaNET?
- Do I have to login to NovaNET to run a scheduled job?
- I started NovaNET but my jobs do not run right away. Is there anything wrong?
- How can I determine which files were not backed up?
- When restoring, I get many alerts. What is wrong?
- Does NovaNET support device groups?
- Does NovaNET support media groups?
- Can I print the reports or logs under NetWare?
- How do I go about restoring a Microsoft Exchange 2000/2003 database?
- During verify or restore, I get a stream sync error. What is wrong?
- Can I use a tape drive located on other workstations?
- When I install, I do not see the storage manager I want to connect with.
- How do I replace a tape in a rotation group?
- How do I choose my storage manager database location?
- Can you give me a rough estimate of what the database zone limitation is?
- When recovering from a storage manager failure, do I get all NovaNET information back?
- What controllers are supported?
- What is the advantage of registering the software?
- Can I share the controller between my hard disk and tape drive?
- Can I restore NT files to NetWare?
- Can I restore NetWare files to NT?
- Are there any plans to support ATAPI/IDE tape drives on Novell Products?
- Are there any plans to support Lantastic?
- Are there any plans for a version of NovaNET to allow the tape drive and storage zone to be on a server and control from a workstation?
- Does NovaNET backup files as compressed?
- Does the Open File Manager work with software packages other than NovaNET?
- The ability to automatically run a job before and after a backup job would be very useful (to make sure users are out of certain applications and remove useless temporary files). What Do I do?
- When a scheduled job misses a step and the job is run manually, the tape rotation is out of sync. There should be a way to manually set the next tape in a rotation and have it stick. Will this be addressed in the next release?
- The email notification should have a date sent field. Our Netware SMTP agent isn't smart enough to know to add this if it is missing. This was causing some of our users grief. We have been able to work around this by routing messages through our Linux email gateway, but this really is something that should be fixed at the source. Will this be addressed in the next release?
- Where does NovaNET show me the barcode number it has saved in its database? If I have a 100 tapes stored off site with only barcode labels how will I tell by looking in NovaNET's database which one to retrieve?
- When I back up a file over about 2 GB in size, NovaNET reports the size of the file as much smaller than it really is in the file selection screen. Will the entire file be backed up properly?
- If I have 2 nodes in my cluster, do I need to install NovaNET Cluster Plug-In on both servers or just one?
- I found a bug in NovaNET. What do I do now?
- How do I obtain technical support?
- How do I find out about service packs, new releases and updates?
- Can multiple users schedule a backup at one time, i.e. at 11:00p?
Yes, multiple users can send or schedule a backup at the same time. Priority goes
to the tape drives at the local machines then it's first-come, first-served.
- I have upgraded my NovaNET license, do I need to reinstall from scratch?
No, rather than reinstalling NovaNET, use the update license option from the install
menu to upgrade NovaNET.
- Should I know anything special about installing NovaNET on a Linux Redhat
5 computer?
Click here for a detailed description that will step you through the process of getting your Redhat system up and going in no time.
- Does NovaNET support differential SCSI tape drives and host adapter?
Yes, it does.
- Can NovaNET read my NovaNET 6/7 or NovaBack SCSI tapes?
NovaNET can restore NovaNET 7 tapes, however, due to the extended attributes supported in
the new NovaNET tape format, old NovaBack and NovaNET 6 tapes cannot be read by NovaNET at this
time.
- Why can't NovaNET see all the other servers and workstations on my network?
NovaNET may not be able to see other computers or servers on the network because NovaNET
must be installed on every machine on the network that needs to be backed up. Try installing
the software on each computer that access is needed. Also, you may want to check
the basic networking system and connections to make sure they are functioning correctly.
- Does NovaNET support media rotation?
Media rotation is supported via a scheduling option.
You make the job selections as you normally would. When you want to schedule the job,
select one of the predefined, or custom, rotation schedules on the scheduling tab.
- Does NovaNET support multiple devices?
On the job options tab, select multiple devices in the
device list box. When multiple devices are selected, NovaNET will use all devices
available concurrently. If the media in a device becomes full, any streams being
written to that device will automatically be redistributed to other devices.
- Can I restore data to a different file name?
When the file, directory or volume to rename is selected,
select the properties tool bar button or use the right mouse button for the context menu
and select context. The properties sheet of the selected object is displayed. On the
general tab, type in the new name and press Ok.
- Can I restore data to another location?
To restore data to another location, within the restore
job selections tab, click on the directory or file you want restored to a different
location and hold the mouse button down. Drag the object to the new target location.
To use the keyboard, use Control-C to copy the object and Control-V to move the object
to its new location.
If the target directory is not displayed since it has not been backed up, use the
right mouse button on the object, select move, A dialog box will appear with a browse
button. Select browse to find the target directory.
- Can I restore all the files from a single session?
On the restore selection tab, select the file, directory
or volume to restore. Press the select button on the tool bar. The instance dialog box
is displayed. Select the date of the instance you want restored. All children having
the same instance will also be selected.
- Can I determine which files are on a tape?
Select reports from the file menu. For the report type, select the media detail report.
- What if my device is not supported?
Most devices have common characteristics. There are only
a few manufacturers of tape devices, but many OEMs buy the drives and repackage them
into their own subsystems. Some of these OEMs change the SCSI inquiry string so that the
device is not recognized by NovaNET.
Please refer to the Bulletin
Adding " Unrecognized Devices" to NovaNET,
or contact NovaStor Corp., to determine how to add the device to the list of supported devices.
- If I install NovaNET using IPX as the protocol, and then decide to change to a TCP/IP connection, do I have to uninstall and re-install?
No. There is a work around and that is:
- Stop the NovaNET Service
- Edit the file called NNCFG.INI in the NovaNET Subdirectory. There is a section
titled "General software bus configuration" and one of the lines states "protocol=ipx".
Change that to "protocol=tcp"
- Save the changes
- Restart the service
- Can I allow users to access NovaNET?
The security features within NovaNET allow shared access
to resources like devices, loaders and media. You can setup the security system so users
can make their own backups to shared devices without interfering with the main system
backups. Also, the administrator can be in charge of the backups, but grant sufficient
security rights so that users may restore their own data.
- Do I have to login to NovaNET to run a scheduled job?
No. NovaNET will run scheduled jobs as long as it is loaded.
You can exit to the login dialog box, or if running as a service, exit the NovaNET interface
completely, the jobs will still be run. Unlike NovaNET 4 and 5, scheduled jobs will be run
regardless of where in NovaNET you are currently working.
One exception to this is if the job is locked. The job is locked when the properties
of the job are being edited. If a job is scheduled to run and the job is being edited by
a user, the job will automatically be rescheduled in 15 minutes.
- I started NovaNET but my jobs do not run right away. Is there anything wrong?
After first starting NovaNET, no scheduled jobs will be
executed for 5 minutes. This allows enough time to edit any job schedules or to remove
jobs from the queue before they start running.
- How can I determine which files were not backed up?
Edit the properties of a job, and select the logs tab.
Select the date of the backup you want to check. Notepad or WordPad are used to view
the job log so you can save the log to a file if you want. Note that you only get a
copy of the log. If you edit the log, the main log on the storage manager will still
be available. You can also have NovaNET print the log directly.
- When restoring, I get many alerts. What is wrong?
When NovaNET performs a restore, if you select many devices
or leave the device selection in the restore options tab at Network, NovaNET will attempt
to fulfill the restore job with all the devices listed or found. If a device does not
contain media, or the device contains the wrong media, an alert is sent. This alert is
to inform you to put the desired media into the device.
For example, you are restoring from a single media but list 4 devices. If the target
media is in the third device listed, NovaNET will issue 2 alerts for the first two devices.
These alerts can be ignored.
In addition, you do not have to insert the requested media into the device. To fulfill
the request, any media required in the job can be placed in the device. NovaNET will then
use the media that you actually did put into the device.
To stop this behavior, select a single device or only the devices you actually intend
to use.
- Does NovaNET support device groups?
NovaNET supports device groups via the parent folders. You
can select a particular device, all devices on a controller, all devices on a machine or
all devices on the network.
- Does NovaNET support media groups?
You can organize your media into media groups via the media
folders. To move media in or out of a media group, simply drag the media to a different
media location. When selecting target media for backup, select the folder containing the
media in the backup options tab.
- Can I print the reports or logs under NetWare?
You can print to any local print queue under NetWare. The
queue must be local, but the printer does not need to be local. By configuring a remote
print server to service the local queue, the print job can be routed to a remote
printer.
- How do I go about restoring a Microsoft Exchange 2000/2003 database?
The Microsoft Exchange Server connector for NovaNet lets you work with storage groups instead of individual information stores. Each storage group is identified as a single object, which you can back up and restore. To recover from a disaster, please refer to our tech tip: Restoring a Microsoft Exchange 2000/2003 Database.
- During verify or restore, I get a stream sync error. What is wrong?
Usually a bad tape or dirty heads on the tape drive causes this. Try cleaning the tape drive.
- Can I use a tape drive located on other workstations?
Yes, but the NovaNET administrator or a user with access
control rights to the tape drive must grant you rights to use it. Rights can be granted
to either read from the device, write to the device or both.
- When I install, I do not see the storage manager I want to connect with.
This can be caused by several problems:
Make sure the storage manager is connected to the network and NovaNET is loaded.
If you are using IPX, make sure your Windows workstation does not use auto frame
detection. If you are using Windows NT, do not assign an internal network number unless
you have more than one network card or are acting as a router between multiple frame
types.
If you are using IP, the storage manager may not be residing on your physical
subnet. NovaNET can only find locally connected storage managers automatically. You
must enter the network address or host name to see storage managers that do not reside
on your subnet.
- How do I replace a tape in a rotation group?
NovaNET automatically creates a series of folders and
media used with rotation. These folders control the daily, weekly, monthly and yearly
tapes. To remove a tape if it is physically damaged, or because it is lost, delete the
media from the set. NovaNET will automatically format a new one when required.
To move a tape to an offsite location, create a folder in your home folder. Give it
a name like "Offsite Media". Drag the media to this folder. If the tape is
required by NovaNET during the processing of a rotation job, it will automatically
create a new tape to replace the tape moved to offsite storage.
- How do I choose my storage manager database location?
The location of the storage manager database can be very
important. On larger systems, to minimize the time required to perform disaster recovery,
we recommend the storage manager be located on a dedicated server. This server performs
no operations except the storage management processing. Place the devices on the servers
to be backed up. If the storage manager server fails, no data is lost and recovery of the
server can proceed in a non-critical manner. If any other server fails, recovery can be
quickly performed since the storage server is still operational.
On smaller systems, it is acceptable to place the storage manager on the same server
as the devices. Recovery does not take much time since the databases are smaller.
- Can you give me a rough estimate of what the database zone limitation is?
This is a very tough question to
answer, as there is really no limit. However, we can answer that by giving
you a practical limit. We suggest no more than 1 Million files in a database
zone. In reality, from what we have seen, about 4 servers. However - users
may have more than 1 million files and more than 4 servers in one database
zone. If that is the case, the product will continue to function. If slowness
appears (of server, of backups, of restore, of importing media), that
is a good sign you should start thinking about having another zone.
- When recovering from a storage manager failure, do I get all NovaNET information back?
Most of the database is restored when selecting to restore
the storage manager database. The only thing that will not be restored is the complete log
of the job that was running when backing the database up. The reason for this is that the
log is not written until after the job has completed. The job is not completed until the
database is backed up to tape.
- What controllers are supported?
NovaNET only supports ASPI controllers. You must have
an ASPI compatible controller and the drivers for the controller
loaded for NovaNET to access the device.
- What is the advantage of registering the software?
When you register NovaNET, you will receive notifications
of new versions being released.
If you register an internet email address, you will receive these notifications via
email. In addition, if any critical bugs are found, you will be notified and appropriate
patches will be available from our web site at www.novastor.com.
- Can I share the controller between my hard disk and tape drive?
You can share between the two, but your performance will
be better if the tape drive is on its own controller. The SCSI bus has a limited amount
of data that can be transferred. For high-speed devices, the SCSI bus can usually be kept
at its transfer capacity. If you do connect the tape device to the same bus, the data
transfer rate from the disk is essentially cut in half as well as the tape transfer rate.
This is due to the fact that data must be read from the disk into memory, formatted and
written back out to the bus to the tape device.
For low speed devices, such as DDS-1 DAT, lower capacity QIC, and Travan, this will
not cause a problem. For high-speed devices like the Exabyte Mammoth or the Quantum DLT,
this can cause a serious bottleneck.
Also, the high-speed tape drives mentioned above should be connected to Ultra fast,
wide SCSI controller. Controllers like the Adaptec 1542 cannot transfer data fast enough
to keep the tape device streaming.
- Can I restore NT files to NetWare?
Yes, but you must deselect the "native stream
format" from the Advanced options button on the backup options tab. This
causes data to be written to tape in a generic format that NetWare can understand.
- Can I restore NetWare files to NT?
Yes, but you must deselect the same option as above.
This causes data to be decompressed before backup since NT does not understand NetWare
compression.
- Are there any plans to support ATAPI/IDE tape drives on Novell Products?
Not at this time.
- Are there any plans to support Lantastic?
If your system is running NETBIOS, NovaNET
will not work.
- Are there any plans for a version of NovaNET to allow the tape drive and storage zone to be on a server and control from a workstation?
That function is already available in the
NovaNET UNL versions. For upgrade pricing, visit
Upgrade Central.
- Does NovaNET backup files as compressed?
NovaNET will copy files to tape in compressed format
without decompressing them first. This significantly enhances the speed of
the backup.
- Does the Open File Manager work with software packages other than NovaNET?
Yes. The Open File Manager works with NovaNET and NovaNET-WEB.
- The ability to automatically run a job before and after a backup job would be very useful (to make sure users are out of certain applications and remove useless temporary files). What Do I do?
Take a look at the Command tab on the machine object. Whenever any files on a machine
are to be backed up, you can associate an entry/exit command with the particular machine.
- When a scheduled job misses a step and the job is run manually, the tape rotation is out of sync. There should be a way to manually set the next tape in a rotation and have it stick. Will this be addressed in the next release?
We are adding the "Next Tape Set" number, which you can adjust at any time to the scheduling screens.
Currently, this field is an internally tracked value for each of the event types (D, W, M, Y) and cannot be
seen/modified by the user.
- The email notification should have a date sent field. Our Netware SMTP agent isn't smart enough to know to add this if it is missing. This was causing some of our users grief. We have been able to work around this by routing messages through our email gateway, but this really is something that should be fixed at the source. Will this be addressed in the next release?
We are currently revamping Email support for the next version. This will probably be added at that
time. What we are doing is adding support for PCS email (VERY short and to the point email messages)
along with "audit" email messages. The audit messages can be setup so that when a users hard disk
or directory is backed up, they can be sent a message saying the action taken.
- Where does NovaNET show me the barcode number it has saved in its database? If I have a 100 tapes stored off site with only barcode labels how will I tell by looking in NovaNET's database which one to retrieve?
To see the barcode information, run NovaNET, click on Media Tab, right click on the media,
and select properties. Click on Media Control, and you'll find the barcode information in
the "Media volume tag" field. Click here to see a screen shot.
- When I back up a file over about 2 GB in size, NovaNET reports the size of the file as much smaller than it really is in the file selection screen. Will the entire file be backed up properly?
Yes. Even very large files (7+ GB) do get backed up properly by NovaNET, even though
the file selection screen reports the size of such files as substantially smaller than
they actually are. You can confirm that the file was properly backed up in its entirety
by checking the properties of the media. The size of the data on the tape will properly
reflect the actual size of the backup.
- If I have 2 nodes in my cluster, do I need to install NovaNET Cluster Plug-In on both servers or just one?
Yes, the NovaNET Cluster Plug-In must be installed on each of the nodes. One license key is good for up to two nodes.
- I found a bug in NovaNET. What do I do now?
The best way to report a bug is to send email to
or fill out the NovaNET Support Form.
Provide as much information as possible about the bug. Information that is necessary
to reproduce problem, such as keystrokes used, exactly what you were attempting to do,
what NovaNET did. The more information you provide about the bug, the better the chance
we have at reproducing the bug and correcting the problem.
- How do I obtain technical support?
Your first line of defense is through the reseller or distributor. They know the most about
your hardware and configuration and can probably answer your question. If they cannot, you may
either fill out the NovaNET Support Form
or you can contact us directly at
Be sure to provide as much information about your system as possible.
This will increase the chance that we will be able to answer your question
without first asking you a bunch of questions. Remember that we do not know
what your hardware or configuration is, so we will probably need to ask if
you don’t let us know in your initial contact.
- How do I find out about service packs, new releases and updates?
NovaStor publishes a Company Newsletter, NovaNews, on an approximately semi-monthly basis. Our company newsletter is the best way to stay in touch with the company and all the latest developments, plus learn tips and techniques and more. Click here to subscribe today.
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