Correct Methodology for Backup to Disk to Tape?

[David_Urbaniak]

Hello,

What is the correct Methodology for Backup to Disk to Tape?

It doesn't seem like creating a standard backup job for backing up the Backup-To-Disk folders is correct since it is taking me way too long to do a restore because of catalog mis-matches.

On the flip side, I see some forum discussions that duplicate backup jobs can also be problematic.

I have about 10 backup-to-disk jobs that go off daily (beginning at 4pm) and the final one finishes as 6:30 am. I then need to backup all of these tape. I have been running a standard backup job at 6:45 that takes the backup-to-disk structure and write it to tape.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I am running 10.1 Rev 5629. (SP1 coming soon...)

David R. Urbaniak

[Colin_Plaw]

For each policy template that backs up to disk, create another "Duplicate Backup Sets Template" that duplicates the backup-to-disk with tape as the destination.

[Gauri_Ketkar]

Hi,

-Please explain your environment and Operating system installed on servers ?

-What data is being backdup ?

-does the job fail ? Are you creating duplicate backup jobs manually and run as per schedule ?


Update us on the same and revert for any further Query
Hope this will help you


Thank you
Gauri


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[David_Urbaniak]

The NAS server is running Windows 2003 appliance edition. (From Dell)
The remote servers are Windows 2000 Servers.
Backup jobs complete just fine, and I am not using duplicate jobs.
All are backup jobs - either remote to backup-to-disk sets or local backing up the backup-to-disk sets to tape.

Is there a white paper (or technical paper or something) that documents the methodology to be used to Backup Disk to Disk to Tape?

[Sharvari_Deshmu]

Hello,

Try using duplicate jobs.

Please see the technotes for more information:

http://support.veritas.com/docs/256096




Thanks,

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[David_Urbaniak]

I will review in detail the technote and the manual, but from my recollection, both were very light in describing the setup of doing this. Heck, I even found one reference (252975) that says to do what I am doing which is just backing up the B2D folders.

Are there any other documents, papers, etc describing duplicate backups in more detail?

[Asma_Tamboli]

Hello,

You could read more on the duplicate backups from the admininstrators guide. Heres the link for downloading the same:


http://support.veritas.com/docs/279401

Hope it helps you!



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[David_Urbaniak]

The documentation helps a little, but not enough.

Basically I have 10 different backup jobs that backup to disk in separate backup-to-disk folders. I want all 10 of these to be duplicated to tape. These jobs overlap which is why they are multiple jobs and not one large job. The timings on some of the jobs are 6+ hrs and they need to overlap so that all of the backups complete by the morning.

With that, what is the best method to get all of them duplicated to tape? A duplicate job after each doesn't make sense (to me) since I don't need or want the duplicate job(s) to begin until after all of the jobs have completed. I could do it manually, but that is just wrong.

If I don't get any good answers by Tueday I will be calling support to see what they can tell me.

[Shilpa_pawar_2]

Hi,

You could copy existing data to new media using the method "duplicate existing backup sets". Refer:
http://support.veritas.com/docs/255866

OR

You can directly back up bkf files to tape, which you are doing currently. Refer:
http://support.veritas.com/docs/252975

Whatever the backup method you use, while restoring from the tape, you need to first restore the backup to disk folder and then restore the data. You cannot restore a file directly form a .bkf file on the tape. To restore a file, you have to restore .bkf file from tape to hard disk (to
Backup-to-Disk folder) and then restore the file from this .bkf file.

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[Ed_crossley]

be careful when relying on the 'straight backup' of the bkf files.
Have you tried to do a restore using the bkf files that have been backed up to tape? I have and its hell getting it back.
Why is it a problem for you to run the duplicate jobes automatically after each job finishes? amking sure they ammend to the tape media would seem to be ok to me

regards

[David_Urbaniak]

Yea, the restore was loads of fun with restoring the bkf from tape and then getting it catalog into the system and then recovering the file. No fun whatsoever.

The problem with the duplicate existing backup sets function for me is that this would need to be a manual job since it seems that creating a standard job to duplicate the backups sets works today, but tomorrow after all of the nightly jobs run again, the sets are no longer selected to be duplicated to tape.

The problem (at least as I see it) of creating duplicate jobs (Ed Crossley post) to run immediately after each of the created jobs is the additional I/O it will cause to the system which is why the tape job should be run after all of the backup to disk jobs. No I/O contention with that methodology.

[Ed_crossley]

Full respect to your winning thru in restoring from archived bkf files!!! (its hell!)

I understand your concerns about I/O. So what you're after is a schduled duplicate job for the last created backup sets...
The only thing i can think of is creating some policies to do your B2D jobs then a single duplicate policy that runs and duplicates all of the backup sets created by the previous policies. Maybe play about with some rules as well to get jobs kicking off at the completion of others.
Good idea????
regards

Ed

[Sharvari_Deshmu]

Hello,

Yes as mentioned in the last post try creating policies and set rules.

After each normal template you create duplicate job and then set rules.

Let us know if you have any other questions on this.

Thanks,

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