How to Upgrade NBU to 7.5.0.x

I often get asked by customer/clients how to upgrade NBU to 7.5 after hearing all the scary things about database migrations in 7.5. I also often that nobody wants to read the entire upgrade guide and are most of the times happy to do the "Next, Next, I Agree, Next, Next, Finish"-thing and hoping it works. However after reading some of the technotes and the upgrade guide I compiled my own check list of pre and post upgrade steps when upgrading the environment. I hope it might help somebody else.

Pre-Upgrade Steps(30 Min):

• Take a Catalog Backup
• Create a VSS snapshot of the servers drives.
  Vssadmin create shadow for=c:\
  Vssadmin create shadow for=d:\
  ect
  
  Typical output
  vssadmin create shadow /for=c:
  vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
  (C) Copyright 2001 Microsoft Corp.
  
  Successfully created shadow copy for 'c:\'
      Shadow Copy ID: {xxxxxxxx-xxxxx-xxxx-xxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}
      Shadow Copy Volume Name: \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy108

• Stop any other backup software or Netbackup Collector software
• [If you have a Clustered Master] Ensure that global cluster fail over is disabled for the duration of the upgrade.
• [If you have a Clustered Master] Suspend replication between the primary and secondary sites(Upgrade Primary First)
• Disable all Policies and disk staging storage units
• Stop all NBU Services
• [Optional] Edit Veritas\NetbackupDB\CONF\server.conf with ‘–ch 4G’ cache option(check for enough memory/virtual memory)
  This step is perticularly helpful if you have a large netbackup environment and a lot of images to move to the Sybase Database[as it speeds up the move to the sybase database]. Keep in consideration that you should at least have 4GB of Shared memory available/free on the server.

Upgrade Steps(2/3 Hours depending on environment):

• Perform NBU Upgrade as follows:
  On the Symantec NetBackup Installation Type screen, select Custom.
  On the NetBackup Services screen, remove the check mark next to the option ‘Start job-related NetBackup services following installation’.
• Check to see if NBU started anyways, Stop All NBU Services after Upgrade.
• Upgrade to 7.5.0.x(As per Technote 189607 and latest NBU 7.5 Upgrade documentation)
• Start NBU Services.
• [If you have a Clustered Master] Ensure that the phase 1 and phase 2 image metadata migration processes have completed successfully before proceeding to upgrade the secondary cluster.
• You can run the following command to force phase 2 image migration(install_path\NetBackup\bin\admincmd\bpimage –cleanup –allclients, view in Activity monitor)
• To check image migration from command line do:
  install_path\NetBackup\bin\admincmd\nbemmcmd –listsettings -brief -machinename masterservername
  If the result shows SLP_DSSU_MIGRATION_STATE="1", phase 1 has completed.
  If the result shows SLP_DSSU_MIGRATION_STATE="0", phase 1 has not completed.
  
  If the result shows LIST_FS_IMAGE_HEADERS = "0", phase 2 has completed.
  You can proceed to the next step.
  
  If the result shows LIST_FS_IMAGE_HEADERS = "1" or if no result appears,phase 2 has not completed.
  You must re-run bpimage -cleanup -allclients and wait for it to complete.
  Then, re-run nbemmcmd -listsettings -brief –machinename masterservername.
  If the result still shows LIST_FS_IMAGE_HEADERS = "1" or if no result appears, contact Symantec.
• [If you have a Clustered Master] Start upgrade on secondary cluster master

Post-Upgrade Steps(30 Min):

• [If you have a Clustered Master] After upgrade Reconnect the secondary master server cluster to the rest of the network. Restart the replication between the primary and secondary sites and re-enable the global cluster fail over. Be sure to take extreme care when re-establishing the replication link to ensure that the synchronization occurs in the correct direction (from the primary site to the secondary site).
• Restart other Backup collectores
• Enable all Policies and disk staging storage units
• Ensure all NBU Services are started
• Run a few Test Backups

To back out of the upgrade 10 Min):

You can either Reinstall Netbackup and restore the catalog. Or you can follow the following steps:

Stop all Netbackup services.

Restore the the vssadmin shadow by running the following command:
vssadmin revert shadow /shadow={xxxxxxxx-xxxxx-xxxx-xxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}
If you cant remember what was the output from the output above you can do a 'vssadmin list shadows' to find the shadow copy id's.

This list comes with no guarentees and is mostly compilted from my experiace. It's always best to use the tools symantec provides.

Like to sort tool:
https://sort.symantec.com/checklist/install

As well as not being lazy and to check the Upgrade website yourself:
http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH74584