Redirect Avamar System State Backup to another Drives

On Windows 2003 AVAMAR client uses the NTBackup Utility to create a backup of the system state, it stores this backup in var in the avamar client install directory (C:\Program Files\avs\var\).  If the space on that drive is limited you can set an attribute systemstatefile with a value of the full path to store the back up –

To modify the location for just one client individually:

1. Log on the Windows client 
2. Go to the AVAMAR_INSTALL_PATH\avs\var directory 
3. Create a file named avtar.cmd 
4. Edit this avtar.cmd file with notepad and add the parameter as given below: 

--systemstatefile=NEW_LOCATION 

For example, 

-- systemstatefile="D:\Avamar_BKF\systemstate.bkf"

Notes: You must now include this location as part of the dataset of the File System backup

Calculate the size of f_cache and p_cache for AVAMAR

Formulas to help determine the correct size of your f_cache and p_cache for AVAMAR backups

AVAMAR F_cache And P_cache Formulas

f_cache = N * 40MB

N = Millions of Files

So for 3 million files:

f_cache = 3 * 40MB = 120MB

p_cache = DB Size in GB/Average Chunk * 20MB

Average Chunk Sizes-
Exchange DB: 16
Microsoft SQL DB: 24

For a 100GB Microsoft SQL DB:
p_cache = 20/24 * 20MB
p_cache = 83.3MB

Add Persistent Route on Windows Server

Login to Windows as administrator or you will get below error when executing the route add command:

The requested operation requires elevation.

Route add command:

C:\> route -p add 10.10.10.0 mask 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.1 metric 1

This writes the persistent route to the following Windows Registry key as a string value (REG_SZ):

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\PersistentRoutes

Avamar retention Type

There are two types of Avamar retention settings. 


Basic retention settings specify a fixed expiration date.
Advanced retention settings specify the number of daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly backups to keep.

Basic retention settings
Retention Period: Allows you to specify how long will the backup from the backup taken.

End Date: Specify based on date (When its going to be expired)

No end data: Backups never expire.

Advanced retention settings
Allows you to define how long to keep backups based on how they are tagged. Backup jobs can be tagged as daily (D), weekly (W), monthly (M) and yearly (Y). 

Every backup job is a daily job and is marked with a "D". 

If a backup was made on a Sunday, it is tagged with a "W" to signify it is a weekly. 

The very first backup job of the month is marked as an "M" which stands for monthly. 

The very first backup job of the year is marked with a "Y" for yearly. 

Tags can be combined for backup jobs to create layers of retention. The first backup job of any system is tagged as "DWMY". Jobs made on a Sunday are tagged "DW", while the first backup of the month is marked "DM" if it is not on a Sunday, which is then tagged with a "DWM".

For purposes of assigning advanced retention types, each day begins at 00:00:01 GMT, each week begins on Sunday, each month begins on the first calendar day of that month and each year begins on January 1.

Notes:You cannot apply advanced retention settings to on-demand backups. On-demand backups can occur at any time, and are therefore inherently asynchronous—the system cannot tag them as daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly.

EMC Avamar 7 new features

Version 7 of the Avamar backup software adds new features in three main areas. These areas, in order of interest to me personally, are:

• VMware
• Isilon
• Data Domain

More about Avamar 7 is here : http://thebackupwindow.emc.com/phil_george/emc-data-protection-suite-whats-new-in-emc-avamar-7/