Hello Scenario is as follows:In site A is NBU 5240 appliance with MSDP configured making its own NBU doamin. All backups are AIRed to remote central site (DR site) by leveraging SLPs.Site A goes down, data recovery is needed and NBU appliance there can not be used anylonger as it got also broken.So we do ship new NBU 5240 to our DR site and configure it as it was in terms of hostname, pools, etc and then what next?How to have quickly most fresh backups AIRed to central location from site A on this new NBU 5240? Once these backups will be on that new appliance we will ship this appliance to site A to perform local restores... This new appliance will make its own NBU domain as it was earlier.

It's not possible to add images to SLPs retrospectively, however in AIR it is possible to replicate an image manually which is a bit tricky but sometimes it works http://www.veritas.com/docs/000017825

Hello The requirement you're describing is addressed by HA, not DR. The purpose of AIR is to make a copy on a remote site to protect you against a disaster in the main site. The scope of this disaster it is meant for is complete site failure, which means your entire site is gone and you would rebuild it in due time. During the rebuild period your services would be failed over to the DR site and they would be backed up there until the main site is restored. Once restore you could have an SLP that replicates all backups that are being taken to the main site. At some stage you would fail back. The scenario you describe is best handled by having another appliance in the main site, or as mouse suggested, having one domain spread across sites. The catalog would be kept outside the appliance on a dedicated master server.

Hi, I understand, but think of it this way. If you were using tape and offsiting a copy as well, then if your main site tapes get destroyed, you'll need to go to DR site and duplicate all those media again and take them back to main site. This duplication process in an AIR scenario is handle with nbreplicate as others mentioned (and its a bit tricky). That is however the state of things. My suggestion for HA would have two appliances at main site which protects against appliance failure, but not site failure.

Hi Exactly, but that is one really needs to look at the purpose of the DR site is. You should be using DR, when there is nothing left at PROD. That is it true use, but due to costs constraints people adopt a hybrid type of approach. Assume we were not talking about your backup appliance but your storage array in PROD. If it was destroyed you'd be in the same scenario assuming you had one in DR with all data replicated to it. You'd need to get all the data back to PROD, lun by lun.

Is the DR site it's own NetBackup domain or is it just a Media Server of the primary domain?The best case is that the DR site be it's own domain and, using the SLP Replicate function, you transfer the backups. The SLP at the receiving end then imports the backup into the local catalog and it's ready to use within 30 minutes of the transfer being finished.

NBU 5240 - AIR and DR approach

11 Replies

RiaanBadenhorst
Level 6
9 years ago
Hello

The requirement you're describing is addressed by HA, not DR. The purpose of AIR is to make a copy on a remote site to protect you against a disaster in the main site. The scope of this disaster it is meant for is complete site failure, which means your entire site is gone and you would rebuild it in due time.

During the rebuild period your services would be failed over to the DR site and they would be backed up there until the main site is restored. Once restore you could have an SLP that replicates all backups that are being taken to the main site.

At some stage you would fail back.

The scenario you describe is best handled by having another appliance in the main site, or as mouse suggested, having one domain spread across sites. The catalog would be kept outside the appliance on a dedicated master server.
D_Flood
Level 6
9 years ago
Is the DR site it's own NetBackup domain or is it just a Media Server of the primary domain?
The best case is that the DR site be it's own domain and, using the SLP Replicate function, you transfer the backups. The SLP at the receiving end then imports the backup into the local catalog and it's ready to use within 30 minutes of the transfer being finished.
- quebek
  Moderator
  9 years ago
  Hey
  Yes the DR site is having its own NBU domain... And the backups were imported there via SLP from site A. I am not really following you? How may I apply a SLP to a already existing backup image?? As the backup images from site A are already available at DR site master server - so how to force or create a SLP to tell that it should replicate this and that backup image to the new NBU 5240 appliance?? Am I missing some magic on NBU end?
  - Mouse
    Moderator
    9 years ago
    It's not possible to add images to SLPs retrospectively, however in AIR it is possible to replicate an image manually which is a bit tricky but sometimes it works http://www.veritas.com/docs/000017825