Forum Discussion

GL_Steve's avatar
GL_Steve
Level 3
6 years ago

How do we duplicate data from one Data Domain storage to another across media server?

Hi,

We have an old media server with an old Data Domain on it, backing up ok and replicating to another site.

Now we need to decommission it, and move the job to another new media server attached with a new Data Domain.

I did some research on documents, seems we need to manually dupilcate the images from old DD to new one, but the document states that it needs to be on same media server, I guess that means I need to configure the new DD on the old media server to do this duplication?

Then after that, how do we move the new DD back to new media server?

Or is there any way we can duplicate the data from old DD to new DD on new media server?

It's more like 2 questions:
1. can we duplicate existing backup image from disks on one media server to disks on another media server?

2. how do we move a disk pool from one media server to another media server without lost the data on it?

Hope I explained clearly...

7.7
windows server 2012
  • Genericus's avatar
    Genericus
    6 years ago

    As usual, Marianne is right on the money.

    Things to think about - all media servers are not equal - when you duplicate you can pick a 'read server' - which media server to load the source image from - you generally want to have the media server that can access the data fastest. (it is not always the actual source!)

    So if you have a more idle media server that is connected to the source media server that has a better/faster connection to the second media server, it might be best as an alternate read media server.

    Also - what Marianne said about the bidfile - please please make a copy!  or copy the command used to create it. 

    Because it sucks to realize you messed up the duplication command, then have to rebuild the bidfile because the first couple images are gone. 

    One other thing - think about the bpduplicate command scripting, if you are not carefull you will get either single threading - one duplication then the next, or they will load a ton into the activity monitor and overwhelm the system.

    You can write your duplication script so it runs multiple jobs or waits, you might consider how much load you want to create, since writing multiple jobs is way faster, but having production go down because you flooded the network can be a bad thing.

     Also - suggest you run a few jobs manually to confirm all your settings - 

    Do you need to specify the copy number to use? How many copies? Destination Storage unit? Volume pool to put it in? Alternate read host? Backup ID to read? Retention level? Owner? Run in background?

    bpduplicate -cn 1 -number_copies 1 -dstunit DESTINATION -dp POOL -altreadhost ALTHOST -backupid BACKUPID -rl RETENTION# -owner OWNER &

    bpduplicate -number_copies 1 -dstunit DESTINATION -dp POOL -altreadhost ALTHOST -backupid BACKUPID -rl RETENTION# -owner OWNER

    If you do not want to do a bidfile, you can use a for next loop:

    for i in `bpimagelist -idonly -d '10/12/2018' -e '10/14/2018' -client CLIENT -policy POLICY | cut -d " " -f10`
    do
    echo "duplicating $i"
    bpduplicate -number_copies 1 -dstunit med04np-dd2 -dp dd.test -p -altreadhost med04np -backupid $i -rl 8 -owner All_Servers -set_primary 1 &  # remove the & to run one at a time
    sleep 300 # some time value to not overload

    done

  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    Level 6
    6 years ago

    GL_Steve  I'm not sure which documents you had a look at.

    It is perfectly possible to duplicate images to another Storage Unit that is assigned to a different media server.

    You can extract a list of images on existing DD and save it in a text file.

    Use bpduplicate with -Bidfile to use the text file as input.
    Something like: 
    bpduplicate -dstunit <new-STU>  -L <logfile> -Bidfile <file_name>

    If your DDs are configured correctly, the DDs will use private network to transfer data. 
    (As opposed to DD1 -> Media1 -> Media2 -> DD2)

    PS: 
    PLEASE make copy of the 'bidfile'. The moment bpduplicate command starts, it reads the bidfile into memory and deletes the bidfile. 

    • Genericus's avatar
      Genericus
      Moderator
      6 years ago

      As usual, Marianne is right on the money.

      Things to think about - all media servers are not equal - when you duplicate you can pick a 'read server' - which media server to load the source image from - you generally want to have the media server that can access the data fastest. (it is not always the actual source!)

      So if you have a more idle media server that is connected to the source media server that has a better/faster connection to the second media server, it might be best as an alternate read media server.

      Also - what Marianne said about the bidfile - please please make a copy!  or copy the command used to create it. 

      Because it sucks to realize you messed up the duplication command, then have to rebuild the bidfile because the first couple images are gone. 

      One other thing - think about the bpduplicate command scripting, if you are not carefull you will get either single threading - one duplication then the next, or they will load a ton into the activity monitor and overwhelm the system.

      You can write your duplication script so it runs multiple jobs or waits, you might consider how much load you want to create, since writing multiple jobs is way faster, but having production go down because you flooded the network can be a bad thing.

       Also - suggest you run a few jobs manually to confirm all your settings - 

      Do you need to specify the copy number to use? How many copies? Destination Storage unit? Volume pool to put it in? Alternate read host? Backup ID to read? Retention level? Owner? Run in background?

      bpduplicate -cn 1 -number_copies 1 -dstunit DESTINATION -dp POOL -altreadhost ALTHOST -backupid BACKUPID -rl RETENTION# -owner OWNER &

      bpduplicate -number_copies 1 -dstunit DESTINATION -dp POOL -altreadhost ALTHOST -backupid BACKUPID -rl RETENTION# -owner OWNER

      If you do not want to do a bidfile, you can use a for next loop:

      for i in `bpimagelist -idonly -d '10/12/2018' -e '10/14/2018' -client CLIENT -policy POLICY | cut -d " " -f10`
      do
      echo "duplicating $i"
      bpduplicate -number_copies 1 -dstunit med04np-dd2 -dp dd.test -p -altreadhost med04np -backupid $i -rl 8 -owner All_Servers -set_primary 1 &  # remove the & to run one at a time
      sleep 300 # some time value to not overload

      done

    • GL_Steve's avatar
      GL_Steve
      Level 3
      6 years ago

      Thanks Marianne,

      Now I understand more clearly about it, seems DD in NBU is not own by any media server, DD itself is the storage server, and DD disk pool can be shared by any media server installed DD Boost, backup images can be owned by different media servers, even though they are stored in DD, am I understood correctly?

      I think I'll ignore the owner part and just use th owner overriding option when we need to do restore.

      Would save us a lot of time.