Forum Discussion

liuyang's avatar
liuyang
Level 6
14 years ago

Netbackup storage lifecycle policy

Hi, I have a few questions regarding storage lifecycle policy in NetBackup.

My setup are as follows:

1 x master server + 2 x media server. Clients backed up to media server A (dedup pool), then the backup images will be duplicated to media server B.

I have 10+ clients backed up to media server A. Can I configure in storage lifecycle policy so that duplication starts at a fixed time? Assume all the backup jobs will complete by 9pm, I want to start the duplication at 10pm, is it possbile? If it is not possbile, is there any other duplication method can do this?

Another question is: is it possible to manually start a duplication? Currently the backup policy consists of two steps: backup and duplicate. If I manually start the backup policy, it will do a backup and then a duplicate job. I just want to start duplicating job by using the exsiting backup image. Is it possbile?

Thanks.

 

7.1.x and Earlier
Backing Up
Backup and Recovery
NetBackup
  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    14 years ago

    No way to schedule SLP's... As Nicolai said - SLPs have a life/mind of their own. It automatically kicks in once backups are done (based on default criteria or LIFECYCLE_PARAMETERS file). See SLP Best Practice Guide: http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH75047

    From what I understand, SLP scheduling will be possible in a later NBU version (7.1 or later).

  • Nicolai's avatar
    Nicolai
    Moderator
    14 years ago

    SLP live a life of their own - You can' force a SLP to run either at a specific point of time

    If you want to control when SLP duplication occur you need a script that active/deactivate SLP's. I have perl script for UNIX master servers and am willing to share  but I expect you are on Windows :-D

     

    List SLP's :

    nbstl -l

    Deactivate SLP :

    nbstlutil -wait inactive -lifecycle $slp_name

    Activate SLP:

    nbstlutil  -wait active -lifecycle $slp_name

  • liuyang's avatar
    liuyang
    Level 6
    14 years ago

    If I want to do a duplication from media server in the production site  to media server in a DR site at a fixed time, what other methods can I use?

  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    Level 6
    14 years ago

    No way to schedule SLP's... As Nicolai said - SLPs have a life/mind of their own. It automatically kicks in once backups are done (based on default criteria or LIFECYCLE_PARAMETERS file). See SLP Best Practice Guide: http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH75047

    From what I understand, SLP scheduling will be possible in a later NBU version (7.1 or later).

  • Nicolai's avatar
    Nicolai
    Moderator
    14 years ago

    I can only recommend reading the SLP best practice manual - It's well written and a lot better than the manual (why did I forget to link to it in the first post..... crying)

    Using a specific SLP for duplication that you enable/disable is the only way to make sure a SLP only run a specific time. When you enable a SLP it kick off some minutes later.

    At my site I disable all SLP at 17:00 before the backup windows opens and enables them again at 06:00. This way I can prevent SLP duplication taking place when the disk storage unit is busy writing backup's. I think it will work for you as well.

  • liuyang's avatar
    liuyang
    Level 6
    14 years ago

    Thanks a lot for your answers.

    Besides SLP, I am also considering Netbackup vault. Is there step by step guide for setup NetBackup vault for optimized duplication of deduplicated data? I found Vault admin guide is quite complicated.

    Thanks.

  • Kevin_Good's avatar
    Kevin_Good
    Level 5
    14 years ago

    That is the primary reason Symantec introduced SLP's.  activating and deactivating your SLP processing may be your best alternative in the short term.