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ironballsymante's avatar
ironballsymante
Level 3
12 years ago
Solved

NetBackup Test Active Directory Restore

HI There! We are looking to perform a NetBackup (vers 7.5) Test Recovery of Active Directory. We want to recover one of our DCs (which are virtual) into a test DR environment. This test environment is isolated from our Production Environment. I have read forum posts stting that you need to create replica master and media servers and copy the data across.

Rather than create new infrastructure is it possible to restore the DC Offline/switched off so we can then safley move it to our Test DR and bring it up in isolation.

thanks!

Steve

Backing Up
Backup and Recovery
NetBackup
Restore
Windows Server (2003-2008)
  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    12 years ago

    Catalog backup is designed for this purpose.

    Easiest will be to config Catalog Backup to a USB drive (create Storage Unit first) and also write the DR-file to this drive.

    Recover catalog on the DR master server (server needs to have same hostname as production master server), configure devices and ensure original backup media (e.g. tape) is available to restore from.

    Catalog recovery is covered in the Disaster Recovery chapter of NBU Troubleshooting Guide:  http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC5180

9 Replies

  • ironballsymante's avatar
    ironballsymante
    Level 3
    12 years ago

    Forgot to mention the Virtual DC's are Windows Server 2008 r2 and part of our production VMWare infrastructure!

  • SymTerry's avatar
    SymTerry
    Level 6
    12 years ago

    Hello,

    That is correct. You would want your DR environment to have a NetBackup master/media server, with a VMWare backup license on it, to restore the DC to your DR VMWare environment. 

    I guess I need clarification on the second paragraph. Do you mean you want to restore your DC VM to your production environment as a copy and then some how move that to the DR VMWare environment?

  • Yasuhisa_Ishika's avatar
    Yasuhisa_Ishika
    Level 6
    12 years ago

    How did you backup the DC, as VM backup or as BMR backup?

    If former, just restore VM and disconnect virtual NICs before you boot it up. Otherwise, if BMR, you need isolated environment for restore as you wrote.

  • ironballsymante's avatar
    ironballsymante
    Level 3
    12 years ago

    Hi Guys!

    Thanks for the replies. We back up the Virtual DCs using the MS Windows Backup Policy not the VMware one as Microsoft do not support snap shots of DCs.

    Just to clarify my intention. We have been asked to test our Active Directory DR and i do not want to restore a DC into our production environment and perform an authortative restore. I would like to test this in isolation. Therefore i want a "copy" of a virtual DC but obvioulsy it cannot be brought online in production.

    I have test restored other VMs but this is using the the VMware policy and yes i can restore them with NICs disconnected but not with the MS Windows Policy?

    thanks 

  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    Level 6
    12 years ago

    ... but not with the MS Windows Policy?

    Correct. MS-Windows policy can only be restored to online Windows machine.

  • ironballsymante's avatar
    ironballsymante
    Level 3
    12 years ago

    Thanks Marianne for your advice! Any ideas how i can test this? I need to perform a test authoritative restore of my AD to comply with new policies at work. It wold be risky to perform this test in production so i would be keen to take advice on the best way to proceed with this. It a replica Master/Media server the only soultion? This would involve additional cost!!

    thanks

    Steve

  • ironballsymante's avatar
    ironballsymante
    Level 3
    12 years ago

    Hi there

    I think the easiest answer is to build a media/master server in the DR environment! once this was done, how would i move the data from the live environment to the test? Does it have to be re-catalogued?

    thanks

    Steve

  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    Level 6
    12 years ago

    Catalog backup is designed for this purpose.

    Easiest will be to config Catalog Backup to a USB drive (create Storage Unit first) and also write the DR-file to this drive.

    Recover catalog on the DR master server (server needs to have same hostname as production master server), configure devices and ensure original backup media (e.g. tape) is available to restore from.

    Catalog recovery is covered in the Disaster Recovery chapter of NBU Troubleshooting Guide:  http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC5180