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thesanman's avatar
thesanman
Level 6
13 years ago
Solved

Does incremental catalog recovery work?

Today I was planning to migrate my old Master Server to a nice new one.  I had pre-prepared the new server; same name, ip etc and pre-installed same version of NetBackup on it.

I then performed a cumulative hot catalog backup on the old Master Server and shut it down, moved the cables and restarted the new one.

Confirming all was ok and I could see the required tapes I then initiated a catalog recovery from tape using the latest recovery file (from the incremental).  All looked ok; it started, recovered 3 lots of information and then finished very quickly.  I soon realised it had not recovered the "full" files; just the incremental files.  I was missing a majority of my image catalog.

Symantec are looking at this but wondering if others have seen or heard of this?

NetBackup version 7.1.0.4, RHEL 6.

7.1.x and Earlier
Backup and Recovery
NetBackup
Recovering
  • mph999's avatar
    mph999
    13 years ago

    This is what I believe should happen ... with Incremental Catalogs Recovery.

    If an online catalog backup policy includes both full backups and incremental backups, the disaster recovery email may indicate either a full backup or an incremental backup for recovery. An incremental backup recovery completely recovers the entire catalog because it references information from the last full backup. You don't need to first recover the last full catalog backup, then follow with subsequent incremental backups.

    I'll try it on my server when I get a few mins.

     

    Martin

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  • thesanman's avatar
    thesanman
    Level 6
    13 years ago

    I hear and completely understand your comments.  The whole reason for the change is to make my catalog backup run faster; thus reducing my daily vault run time when it does it's full offsite tape backup.

    I will see what I can do about using the 2nd copy tapes in my QA system.  What I don't understand is how to make the recovery process use them.  From the GUI it simply seems to looks for the primary copy.  The daily recovery e-mail I get mentions briefly how to promote the 2nd copy BUT this seems to be only if you do the recovery by hand which looks all a bit complicated to me.

  • mph999's avatar
    mph999
    Level 6
    13 years ago

    I thought you'd ask that ...

    bprecovery -wizard -copy 2

    The command line version of the wizard. 

    Martin

     

     

     

     

     

  • thesanman's avatar
    thesanman
    Level 6
    13 years ago

    Too easy!

    Will give it a go in the morning.  That way I'm not compromising my primary recovery copy at the DR site.

  • mph999's avatar
    mph999
    Level 6
    13 years ago

    EDIT...

    Can't edit my above post for some reason ...

    This bit 

    "We can't merge the EMM DBs / or the image DB for that matter  ..."  should read, without engaging a symantec partnet for consulting services.  It can be done, just not by Tech support.

     

    M

  • thesanman's avatar
    thesanman
    Level 6
    13 years ago

    Yes; I realised that.  We went down that route once before using Symantec support when we migrated the Master Server from Solaris to RHEL, changing the name as we went.

  • thesanman's avatar
    thesanman
    Level 6
    13 years ago

    Did it; same result!  Using Production "copy 2" tape initiated a Full catalog restore in my QA environment.  Same problem; only pulled in the incremental file.

    Points to an issue with my Production DR recovery file I think.  I will see what my case support person has to say.

  • thesanman's avatar
    thesanman
    Level 6
    13 years ago

    I have been working on this over the past month or so; finally worked out a sequence that works for me.

    With a fresh install and the required catalog tapes (full and daily incremental) located and the last recovery file in a known location.

    Run bprecover -wizard

    Specifiy the latest "incremental" recovery file.

    Then specify a "Partial" recovery which in my case only recovers the catalog files from the incremental only.

    Then without stopping and restarting Netbackup; do exactly the same again BUT this time specifiy a "Full" recovery which works as it should, including the database.

    This time around not only is the complete catalog file set recovered and then the incremental files but also the EMM database as well.

    I'm still talking to Symantec about this but at least I now appear to have a working solution which will allow me to update to my nice new Master Server.

  • thesanman's avatar
    thesanman
    Level 6
    13 years ago

    I have successfully used this mechanism to migrate my master server.

    Symantec support cannot explain what's going on and I keep hearing that they can't replicate the problem yet I can at will.

    So my only advice to people is to somehow test your catalog restores.