Migration from Netbackup 5.1 to netbackup 6.5 on linux

Not for the faint hearted...
IMHO you will need expert help.  The official line is that Symantec will NOT support your environments if you find a way to do this yourself.

The copying of the images database, sure we could do that... but the real sticking point is how to populate the v6.5 EMM database with the "media DB" and the "vol DB" from the v5.1 environment.  IMHO I would engage Symantec Professional Services, which is going to cost $$$.

In principal, I see the steps as being:
1) De-activate all policies in both environments.  Do NOT run any more backups in either environment!
2) Take two copies of a catalog backup for both environments.  Write protect this data.  Eject one copy of each, and lock it away somewhere safe.  These copies are your last resort recovery points.
3) Upgrade the v5.1 master to v6.5.
4) Take a complete bpimagelist -idonly -d 01/01/1970 00:00:00 from each environment.
5) Run a script to compare both lists against each other to ensure that you do NOT have two images with the same backupid - i.e. that you do not have two images of "client_ctime" in each environment.
6) Shutdown the NetBackup application on both environments.
7) Now you need Symantec PS to copy the imageDB over and export the EMM database from the old env, and to copy all this data over and import the old exported EMM data into the EMM database of your target v6.5 environment, i.e. mediaDB, volDB.  One of the real problems is the pool numbers.  It is highly likely that both environments have different pool names, but the same pool numbers.  The Symantec work should encompass resetting the pool numbers for many/all of the images coming over from the old environment - i.e. resetting the pool numbers inside the imageDB, mediaDB and volDB.  And probably a whole host of other actions that are beyond my knowledge.
8) Copy over the "policies" - a straight copy of "/db/class" will do.
9) Copy over the "client attributes" - a straight copy of "/db/client" will do.
10) At this point Symantec PS should help you restart your newer v6.5 env, and perform tests to see if the new environment now knows about all the old images.
11) Uninstall NetBackup master server software completely from your old v5.1 environment.
12) Fresh install of NetBackup v6.5 - but media server only on the old machine - specifying your master server name as the server with the now merged databases.
13) Run device discovery wizard.
14) Inventory your robots.
15) Attempt a test restore of a folder of data for a client that existed only on the old environment.
16) Attempt a test restore of a folder of data for a client that existed only on the new environment.
17) Amend all the old (copied over) policies to specify the new storage unit of the new media server (i.e. what was the old master).
18) Take two copies of catalog backup of your new environment.
19) Create a test policies, with no time schedules, with one client from old env and one client from new env.
20) Update first "Server=" entry in bp.conf on the old client.
21) Run a test backup to a test pool.
22) Which media were used?  It should have used scratch media.
23) Now update the "Server=" entry for all clients that were on the old env...
24) Re-activate your policies.
25) Let fly.

Easy as pie.

That was just an overview.

I would expect that your detailed plan will grow to circa 150+ steps.

You'll also need to determine what you need to have achieved by/at certain timed stages in the plan.  Add a sprinkling of "go-no-go" decision points, and devise multiple rollback/backout plans for the staged sections of the plan/migration.

Finally, comes the point when you have to convince your management team, and the business owners that their data is safe - and that "your" plan is actually viable, sensible, achievable and adds value to both the business departments and IT departments.

In the end we took the import approach too.
We had about 900 LTO1 media to import.  It took a year.
I wrote a VBscript to do it all for me.  It's 4957 lines of wonder!
Takes two catalog listings and all the robot inventories, and works out what can be and what needs to be phase1, phase2, duplicated to VTL and then duplicated to LTO4.  Then creates all the jobs to do it all and off it goes...  Imported, and duplicated about 180 TB of data.
I make it sound it easy.  Whilst it worked, it wasn't easy, and the "process" - the manual side of things - took a fair amount of nursing.

I will never attempt this again!

In future I will suggest that IT Management should just mothball the old environment, and let it expire naturally, until there's just a handful of tapes to import.  Sure there's a charge for continued maintenance on hardware and software, but it's simply not worth the effort and the risk.

Mr "rishi", how big are the environments that you are considering:

Numer of NetBackup servers in each?
Number of policies in each?
Number of pools in each?
Number of media in each?
Number of clients in each?
Size of catalog in each?
Number of images in each?

I have One master server each
35 Policy in NB5.1 40 in NB6.5
7 volume pools in NB5.1 and 10 Volume pools in NB6.5
80 tapes in NB5.1 i am recycling these tapes in evry 3 month 100 tapes in NB6,5 and recycling it in every 3 month
No of Clients 60 in NB5.1 and 70 in NB6.5
Size 200Gb Approx NB5.1 and NB6.5 250 Approx.

Hello,

Thank you very much for all these suggestions :)

Rishi, how come your entry is marked as the solution?
IMHO "Mouse" nailed it.