Clarify Device Pools expected behavior when migrating db between BE 2010 R3 servers

[rg-tandemdx]

Hello,

I would just like to make sure that I'm clear on what the expected behavior of my new media server is supposed to be, if I follow the instructions in tech article ID 67289: http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH67296.

It's my understanding that the process goes as follows:

1.  Make sure all BE services and MSSQL (BKUPEXEC) are stopped on both the old and new media server
2.  Copy the 'Data' and 'Catalogs' directories from the old media server to the new media server.
3.  Start ONLY the MSSQL service on the new media server.
4.  Using osql, change the DataPartition name in the new media server, from oldservername to newservername in PartitionID 0
5.  Start all BE services on the new media server.

Once I start the services on the new BE server, after performing the steps above, the one thing that I notice is the following:

If I go to Devices in the BE browser on the new media server, it show me two Device Pools.  One for my new media server, which has no devices listed under it, and the old media server which shows the devices that were defined and used on my old media server but are now showing as "offline".

Do I need to readd these devices under my new media server, and then perfom a scan/inventory to bring my new media server up-to-date, or is there a way to have these media devices automatically show up under my new media server and not have the old media server show up in my Device Pools?

[shailesh866]

You indeed followed the right steps. The old media server name would have come up as the information is a part of the BEDB database. Try to delete it from the console. If not there are other ways to remove the entries.

As for the new media server try the basic troubleshooting steps : Check if the device is detected in the device manager etc. You could refer http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH24414

[rg-tandemdx]

Both of the Devices from the old media server are B2D devices (one is a NAS device and the other is a couple of weekly rotated USB drives that I defined as a Removable Backup-to-Disk device.

So should I just recreate these B2D devices on the new media server, using the exact configuration settings as were on the old media server (i.e. drive letter for the USB drive, CIFS path \\server\folder for the NAS device, etc.) and then run a scan (or is it an inventory) on each so that my new media server is in sync with the newly copied catalogs?

[shailesh866]

Yes. You are right. We would have to reacreate the B2D devices with similar configuration as of the old media server. Inventory should be fine. No additional step would be required for the Catalogs.

For the removal of the old media servername we would have to edit the BEDB database.

[rg-tandemdx]

Do you happen to know what the specific instructions should be in order to remove the old media server name from the BEDB?  

That's the last remaining step I allear to have in making this transition happen seamlessly.

[shailesh866 · Accepted solution]

Ideally you would have to raise a case with Symantec. And this would be escalated to the Advanced team as it requires editing the BEDB Database. However you could follow the follwing instructions however we recommend you to log a case as it would cause some issues if not done correctly in your production environment. The presence of the old server name will not cause any issues. However, the server information will need to be manually deleted from the database if desired.

 

Perform the follwing steps :

1) Download and install the Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express if a full version of Microsoft SQL is not on the server.



Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Management Studio Express:



http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=08e52ac2-1d62-45f6-9a4a-4b76...



Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express:



http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=C243A5AE-4BD1-4E3D-94B8-5A0F62BF7796&displa...



Note: both versions of the management studio will work



2) Launch the Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express and connect to the \BKUPEXEC instance.



3) Expand Databases and BEDB



4) Expand Tables and find dbo.Device



5) Right click on dbo.Device and choose "Edit Top 200 Rows"



6) Look for an entry of the old server name under the DeviceName column. Make a note of the DeviceID and delete the row if present.



7) Find the dbo.DevicePool_Device table and right click then choose "Edit Top 200 Rows"



8) Look for entries that match the DeviceID value found in Step #6 and remove.



9) Close out of the Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express and restart the Backup Exec services.



10) Launch Backup Exec and verify old server name is not listed under the Devices tab.
 

[shailesh866]

Let me know if you need anything in this regards or you could mark the post as resolved.

- Shailesh