Forum Discussion

Treeeman's avatar
Treeeman
Level 4
12 years ago

Backup Exec 2012 CASO Catalog + Desaster Recovery Questions

Hi,

i have some CASO questions after my first CASO Installation and hope you can help me.
I installed one VMware virtual Central Administration Server called "becas". Additionally i installed two physical Media Servers called "be01" and "be02". All Servers are in the same LAN (Speed: 10GB/s)


Environment:
The environment is running now for about 4 Weeks pretty fine. Last week i checked the size of my "catalog" Folder on "becas" and realized it was just about 35MB. The "catalog" Folder on "be01" for example was about 33GB. I was wonderung because i thought all "catalog" Informations would be stored on my central admin server "becas".


Questions:
1. What happens, if one of my media servers crashes? Can i do a recovery job if the previous backup was made by the crashed media server?
2. is there a better way or are there any recommendations to secure my catalog informations?
3. How do i secure my backup exec servers? Is it recommended to additionally backup my "catalog" and "data" folder on each Server to another location? Is it recommended to do this backup with another backup software (i. e. with windows server backup)?
4. what is the best way to do a desaster recover of a failed media server? Install OS, install Backup Exec and recover the last backup of my "catalog" and "data" folder?

Many thanks!

 

Best regards

Marco

2012
Backing Up
Backup and Recovery
Backup Exec
Best Practice
Configuring
Recovering
Restore
Windows Server (2003-2008)
  • CraigV's avatar
    CraigV
    12 years ago

    Hi,

    1. Assuming the CASO has access to a backup device, you should be able to execute the backup job on the CASO. If the CASO dies in your setup, both MMS server backups will die until you fix the CASO.

    2. In my environment I localised the catalog/job information on the MMS due to the speed of the lines on the sites I looked after. You can consider replicating the catalog/job information between the MMS and the CASO. This for me would be the best way to maintain some protection of the MMS servers. Locating everything on the CASO will see the MMS servers stop working immediately if they can't contact the CASO for any reason. No backups will run unless you manually remove the MMS servers from the CASO by editing the registry.

    3. You can backup the Catalogs folder and bedb.bak (located in the Data folder) to tape/disk locally on each site. Alternatively, if you can, consider creating a backup job on the CASO to backup the MMS servers.

    4. Install OS and patch; add to the domain; install BE and patch; restore the Data/Catalogs folders (or bedb.bak and use BEutility to revert to this).

    Thanks!

  • CraigV's avatar
    CraigV
    Moderator
    12 years ago

    Hi,

    1. Assuming the CASO has access to a backup device, you should be able to execute the backup job on the CASO. If the CASO dies in your setup, both MMS server backups will die until you fix the CASO.

    2. In my environment I localised the catalog/job information on the MMS due to the speed of the lines on the sites I looked after. You can consider replicating the catalog/job information between the MMS and the CASO. This for me would be the best way to maintain some protection of the MMS servers. Locating everything on the CASO will see the MMS servers stop working immediately if they can't contact the CASO for any reason. No backups will run unless you manually remove the MMS servers from the CASO by editing the registry.

    3. You can backup the Catalogs folder and bedb.bak (located in the Data folder) to tape/disk locally on each site. Alternatively, if you can, consider creating a backup job on the CASO to backup the MMS servers.

    4. Install OS and patch; add to the domain; install BE and patch; restore the Data/Catalogs folders (or bedb.bak and use BEutility to revert to this).

    Thanks!

  • Treeeman's avatar
    Treeeman
    Level 4
    12 years ago

    Hi CraigV,

    thanks for your reply.

    So in my case i whould prever two Solutions:

     

    Solution 1:
    Replicate all Catalog Informations on all Servers to achieve the best Protection of my Backup Exec Environment. For this solution i need much more free space than for Solution 2 because all Catalog Informations are stored on each Backup Exec Server.

     

    Solution 2:
    I configure a central Catalog store. In this case, all Catalog Informations are stored on my "becas". Because my CASO Server ist a virtual Machine i can secure this VM with VMware HA and reduce the risk the server dies.
    This Solution need less free Storage Space than Solution 1.

     

    Did i understand right?
    Thanks!

    Marco

  • CraigV's avatar
    CraigV
    Moderator
    12 years ago

    Yes, and you can do a bit more reading with the TN below which explains the above:

    http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO11929

    Thanks!

  • MusSeth's avatar
    MusSeth
    Level 6
    12 years ago
    Please go through the article http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO23395 Before making changes to catalogs in caso environment...
  • CraigV's avatar
    CraigV
    Moderator
    12 years ago

    here is the correct link (Thanks Mus Seth):

    http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO73652

  • Treeeman's avatar
    Treeeman
    Level 4
    12 years ago

    Hello,

    i read the HOWTO and tried to change the Catalog Location.
    Unfortunatelly the Catalog-Location-Option is greyed out and so i can not change the setting from "central" to "replicated".

     

    Any Idea, why its greyed out?

     

    Thanks a lot!

    Marco