What do these backup status messages mean?

Issue

I am receiving different and conflicting backup status messages from the Mirapoint NDMP service and the data management application (DMA), how do I know which status is correct?

Solution

When a backup is performed using the NDMP services provided by Mirapoint, it is possible to get conflicting information on the completion status of a backup.

When the NDMP data service provides a backup stream it logs in the system messages file that a backup has started, it then provides some additional status messages, and then finally logs the completion status.

This completion status might differ from what is reported by the data management application (DMA) that is driving the backup. Because there is more to performing a backup then just producing a data stream, it is possible for the Mirapoint appliance to produce what it considers a valid stream, but then have the DMA fail the backup for reasons of its own.

In most cases, it is not what the Mirapoint reports, but what the DMA reports that determines the backup completion status. However, the check and shrink are performed before informing the NDMP client that the Mirapoint appliance is finished restoring the data stream. This can cause some clients to time out and erroneously claim that the restore failed.