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Consolidating Remote BE Sites?

rhathar
Level 2
Partner Accredited

I'm am in situation where I need to consolidate the backup data from four remote sites into one new, central location. The remote sites will then be retired and the central site will be archived.

Details:
-4 remote sites: 14 TB of data (10 TB at one site, the rest spead evenly), Backup Exec versions are 9.1, 12 and 2010.

-1 central site: Brand new, no existing data, Backup Exec 2010

-Bandwidth between sites is minimal (no dedicated links).

 

Requirements:

-All backup data must be consolidated in one new site. Data must be available for restoration for auditing purposes.

-Once data has been moved off of remote sites, the remote sites will be decommissioned.

 

 

Proposed Project:

Now, what I would like to be able to do is just build a new Backup Exec 2010 server, ship all the backup tapes to the new location and import all the catalogs. If the data is ever audited, we can spin up a new VM and restore the files to it.

Is there any problem with this? Will I run into any issues trying to export a 9.1 catalog and import it into 2010?

Secondary question: Is there a way to migrate all the old backups off of tape and onto disk, without restoring them? 

Thanks in advance!

4 REPLIES 4

Ken_Putnam
Level 6

1)   See http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH68896

How to import Catalogs into a Backup Exec 12.x or later for Windows Servers installation


Only problem I can see that you may encounter is catalog files with the same name from different media servers and tape volumes with the same VolumeID.  You may need to create multiple catalog folders (\Catalogs.OldServer1, \Catalogs.OldServer2, etc) and then rename them to \Catalogs to restore a backup from that server

{edit}

On second thought, I don't know if this will work for your v9 catalogs, since the catalog format changed with v10  You could try it, I guess

{end edit}

 

2)  With v10 and higher you can create Duplicate jobs to copy backup data from tape to disk or disk to tape (or T2T of D2D for that matter).  Duplicate doesn't actually read the data, just copies it from one media to another, and creates the appropriate catalog entries

pkh
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP    Certified

If you are going to use the tapes from your remote sites on an ad-hoc, I think you should not waste your time trying to move the catalog. As Ken said they may be incompatible with BE 2010.  Just catalog the tapes as the need arises.

rhathar
Level 2
Partner Accredited

Thank you for the replies. 

Regarding catalogs with the same name, won't that only be an issue if I were to try and import them simultaneously? My understanding is that when you copy in the new catalog to import, Backup Exec re-indexes on restart and moves the files to their proper locations. If I were to repeat that process with each catalog, I'd assume (I know, not a good idea) that each catalog would be integrated successfully without naming conflicts.

As for not importing the catalog at all, it's also my understanding that manually cataloging the tapes as the need arises will allow you to restore in general but you lose file-level functionality. I believe that the catalog on the head of each tape only includes general restore information and not the detailed filesystem level directory structure that the entire catalog contains. I could be mistaken or this might have changed with recent versions?

If the previous two paragraphs are true (big if), then I'm mostly likely looking at upgrading the 9.1 servers to 11d and then exporting all the catalogs to the new server.

Unfortunately given the nature of the sites, I can't just test as I go along. I need to know my plans will work before we start shipping tapes. Again, thank you.

pkh
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP    Certified

When you catalog a media, all the directory and file structure is available.