Hi, Has anyone got any ideas on how to merge 4 NBU domains into one domain (all from company acquisitions). We have used Symantec Consulting in the past to do this type of work, but the demise of Symantec Consulting has now left us with the option of trying to do this ourselves. We have contacted some NBU specialist resellers but they all say that Symantec will not support solution unless completed by Symantec consulting so a bit chicken and egg comes to mind. Has anyone out there done this...if so how?? We are using NBU 6.0 -6.5.4 on Windows Mastrer and Media servers. Mark

Depending on the complexity of the consolidation, you may get away with a simple cp/xcopy and a few nbemmcmd lines, or else the full monty... Important though is to upgrade all domains before consolidation. I would recommend 6.5.4 at least. I've done a fair amount of these jobs in my days with SYMC consulting, and the most important thing is to move "ownership" of the backups to the new media servers if moving away from a media server (bpimage -newserver -oldserver). If the media server names stay intact, you could potentially just run a few nbemmcmd lines to add the media servers to the common domain, and move the classes (policies) if required, and run the device wizard to allocate drives etc. SYMC consulting has a binary that does most of this automagically though... Only a select few Symantec partners has been trusted to perform this operation, and true, SYMC support states it does not support the operation itself, but the initial state, and the end state (in successful merge) will be supported. I would recommend that you try to escalate up the SYMC chain, to get in contact with a local partner in your area. If that doesn't work, I'm sure I can assist... ;-) /A

merging catalogs from multiple NBU domains

AAlmroth
Level 6
15 years ago
Depending on the complexity of the consolidation, you may get away with a simple cp/xcopy and a few nbemmcmd lines, or else the full monty...
Important though is to upgrade all domains before consolidation. I would recommend 6.5.4 at least.

I've done a fair amount of these jobs in my days with SYMC consulting, and the most important thing is to move "ownership" of the backups to the new media servers if moving away from a media server (bpimage -newserver -oldserver). If the media server names stay intact, you could potentially just run a few nbemmcmd lines to add the media servers to the common domain, and move the classes (policies) if required, and run the device wizard to allocate drives etc. SYMC consulting has a binary that does most of this automagically though...

Only a select few Symantec partners has been trusted to perform this operation, and true, SYMC support states it does not support the operation itself, but the initial state, and the end state (in successful merge) will be supported. I would recommend that you try to escalate up the SYMC chain, to get in contact with a local partner in your area. If that doesn't work, I'm sure I can assist... ;-)

/A
Flyinraptr
Level 5
15 years ago
You might take a look at this ..

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1571581&page=1

http://support.veritas.com/docs/266673
Andy_Welburn
Level 6
15 years ago

Did I miss something?
Marianne
Level 6
15 years ago

Correct - busy closing doors. They are in the process of training up partners/resellers, but this process is painfully slow, leaving end-users vulnerable. They (Consulting) have a merge tool which they are not yet sharing........
AAlmroth
Level 6
15 years ago
Yep closing down. A bit depending on region and country tiering, there may still be a few consultants. My region was closed down completely a few weeks ago. I jumped ship two months ago, tired of waiting for the final outcome. Working as partner is the way forward, but the competence transition process is way too slow. I'm working on qualifying the partner I'm working for now for these sort of activies. In theory should SYMC be able to approve, as I've done som many consolidations during my years with Veritas/Symantec, that I've lost count... :-)

/A
milty99
Level 4
15 years ago
I am based in the UK and they stopped consulting some months ago....I have tried a few UK based resellers but nobody is willing to carry out the proceedure due to potential support issues once merged. They all initially said they could do it but then revoked to offer once they investigated the potential risks...

I beleive the tool in question is "mergeutil" with an associated detailed documentation on how to use the tool. I have escalated to our Symantec account team for there advice.

Mark
AAlmroth
Level 6
15 years ago
For 6.5.x, yes, mergeutil is used, but it does not support NBU 7 (well, not when I left SYMC). Instead there is another internal tool, which is not so heavily linked to exact versions, but does require a more lengthy procedure. And that procedure is what SYMC, at least what I believe, will communicate to the select few partners, if they ever do...

/A
Mouse
Moderator
15 years ago
We have couple of similar projects in our pipeline and Symantec sales rep has assured that they will be able to hire consultant that has been trained at the "NetBackup Catalog Manipulation" training and eligible to run the "mergeutil". However, as I understand this is really depends upon region. I know personally couple of guys in UK who are eligible, but I'm not sure that they're able to merge 7.x domain. Merge util definitely works with NBU 6.5.x (we've done several migrations with it).
cgoliver
Level 5
15 years ago
We are trying to migrate onto a new os, hardware, hostname, ip address and unfortunately the reseller awarded the contract was no help with this migration.

I need the procedures and tools to bring up the databases on the new master, but so far have found nothing helpful. They should have sent me to NetBackup forum, which is going on this week. At least then, I could have gotten all the information needed to complete this migration.

As it stands now, I don't see this happening for at least two, three weeks.
vrtseman
Level 3
15 years ago
mergeRSA is the successor to mergeutil -- it does an export of the EMM database and then you can do the import at the new Master. It does not require both servers to be up and connected like mergeutil... however neither mergeRSA nor mergeutil will handle advance disk. importing OST images can take days and weeks depending on number of images...

the most time consuming problems I have found during my times doing domain consolidations is cleaning up the domains from conflicts and incosistencies prior to the merge (e.g. non unique media ID, names, catalog issues, etc...).

Not sure if there is anyone left that knows how to use the mergeRSA tool and to my knowledge mergeutil has been retired...

-e (x)