Best Practices catalog NetBackup

Sylvian,

You can back it up to any media server with any retention you like. There is no preferred storage  A month is usually a good idea and backing up frequently good too.

The NetBackup Admin Guide has details on Disaster recovery. Catalog backups create a DR file which you can use to recover the Catalog in the event of Disaster. The wizard will guide you through this and ask you for the location of the DR file - always ensure the DR file is kept on another server other than the master :)

Does that make ense?

Thanks for the quick answer :)

I thought it was a bad idea to backup the catalog up on a deduplication pool so I was wrong.

I already send the DR file on email and store it on a different server.

I'm gonna check the Admin Guide ;)

Apologies, the Disaster Recovery section is in the troubleshooting guide, not the admin guide:

NetBackup 7.6 Troubleshooting guide (you want page 204 which is Section 8)

http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC6470

Personally, if it was my catalog backup, I'd backup to disk and duplicate to tape (to be extra cautious)

Instead of Duplicating a Catalog backup, you should have 2 seperate schedules one for Catalog Backup on Disk and other schedule for Catalog Backup on Tape.

For Example at 6:00 AM to Catalog Backup to Disk

at 6:00 PM to Catalog Backup to Tape.

I would recommend to keep a copy of the catalog with the images. You need the catalog to read the images. The catalog is worthless without the images.

If you send data off-site as part of your DR plan you should send a copy of the catalog backup with the other off-site data.

You might want to consider the requirements for the catalog ie how much backup meta-data you can afford to lose in the event of recovery.

This will determine how often you run your catalog backups.

When I say lose, I mean data that is in the live catalog (which youve lost) but not on the backed up catalog.

Anything inbetween you will either have to accept as lost OR you could accept that you will react when theres a request of restore from such data.

So in my case I do two catalog backups per day, one after my daily backups have run ie early morning, the other after close of business. The first I do from the master server and which is taken offsite almost immediately with the rest of the overnight backups, the latter I do on remote site. I dont keep more than 7 days worth, and even that is probably overkill: I wouldnt ordinarily chose anything but the most recent catalog to recover from. Why would you? So essentially you might consider two copies of the same catalog and maintain only two generations.

Not sure about the thinking behind revaroos "month": some detail behind the thinking of that might prove interesting.

Jim  

Thanks everyone for your comments, I'm gonna try Marianne's solution with a CIFS share

Sylvain

If you choose to create a DSU using a CIFS share, please take note of Service Logon accounts that need to be changed to allow access:

Configuring credentials for CIFS and disk storage units 
http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO34525 
 

Thanks Marianne I saw this article :)