Media Server Catalogs

[Ruska]

We will be conducting a disaster recovery exercise in the near future. The first step of course will be to install a fresh copy of Backup Exec on a server to be used to restored all other production servers from tape backups.
 
To know what date is sitting on which tapes I need the catalogs on the newly built server. Our media server is being backed up along with all other servers on a daily base using the same policy. If I had completed building a new server with BE running on it. I would have to run a catalog on each tape until finding the tape with catalogs on it. This could end up being a very lengthy process at which time is a luxury not at hand. As getting the servers backup up and running this step of the DR plan has to go as quick as possible.
 
My question is thus, how do I ensure that when I recall a batch of tapes, I know which one to pop in first so that I can populate BE with its catalogs so that form there on I can restore servers starting by highest priority to low using the catalogs. Running fresh catalogs could take hours especially when it comes to file servers.
 
BE grabs tapes randomly as it needs it form the library. As tapes are written full they are replaced with random expired tapes and so the loop continues. These tapes are taken off site daily. If disaster strikes and I recall a batch of tapes, how can I ensure knowing which tape\tapes the catalogs are sitting on so that I can restore them first?

[Nimish_Patel]

As you said, you are backing up your media server along with your other servers. Once you have installed BE on another server you can restore a folder called catalogs from your media server backup to your new BE server and use "catindexrebuild -r" command to use those catalogs files.

[Colin_Weaver]

Hmm - minor problem with this is that the Catalogs are linked to the Media Identification records that are held inside the BEDB. The BEDB records  for the tape media are created by Inventory/Scan Jobs. So in order to see your restore selections on the restoration server - you will have to inventory or Scan the tapes as well as recover the catalogs folder

Or instead of an inventory operation you could restore the BEDB as well - but then you will have to know how to change the server name in the BEDB to allow it to be opened on the restoration server

For information however the catalogs folder can just be copied from one server to the other.if both servers are available instead of restoring from tape.

[Nimish_Patel]

AS Colin Weaver suggested, you can either follow his instructions or if you decide to move your BEDB and catalogs both of them to the new server then follow http://support.veritas.com/docs/318321

if this answers your query, mark this as sollution.

[Ruska]

Thanks guys, some real eye openers for me here.

Please confirm if I understand everything correctly. (The scenario being that our primary HO server is completely out of action and the only way to recover is to install BE from scratch and restore BE from a fresh install to one running with all the previously backed up catalogs)

Option 1 : Having to firstly copy over all the catalogs from tape to  the fresh install and then  still do a scan\catalog on each tape.

Option 2 : Copying over all the catalogs to the fresh install and replace the DB on the fresh install with the old one on tape. If so I would then have to go into the db and change the name in the db to that of the newly built server. (Would naming the new server the same as the old one not eliminate having to change the name in the db?) 

[Nimish_Patel]

You have understood it correctly. In the second option if you choose to have a same server name as the old one then you will not need to go through changing the name in the Db.


If this answer your questions then please mark this as the sollution.

[Hywel_Mallett · Accepted solution]

I think that everybody here is looking at the technical side of the solution, when it might be a bit easier than that.
When you do the disaster recovery of your media server, it'll contain all the catalogs of backups up to the point when the backup was taken.
So to ensure you know which tapes you need to use to recover a server, I'd do one of two things:
1. Ensure that the backup of the BE media server is the last backup to run out of your routine backup jobs (if you do jobs batched up, like overnight).
2. After your backup jobs have run, run a "Media required for recovery report". This can be printed or emailed off-site. When you come to recover a server, (including the BE media server) you can simply look at the report to see which tapes to use. You'll still need to inventory and catalog the tapes you'll use for the restore, but at least you can grab the right tapes, without having to catalog everything.

[Ruska]

Very helpful once again thank you all.

When I upgrade I will be going form 12.5 to 2010. The knowledge base referral for moving over db and catalogs only covers upgrading to 12.5. Not sure if the same procedure will work taking the db and catalogs to 2010 form 12.5. Then again I will be upgrading to 2010 soon anyway. Moving from 2010 to 2010 would probably follow the same procedure.
This will come in handy when I do the upgrade.

First priority now however is getting the DR solution as we will be running a full blown live DR test run soon. One of the first steps will be recovering servers of course. Tanks Hywel as your option 2  above sounds like a perfect solution for knowing what server is sitting over what tapes. Option 1 would also work but why know where one box is sitting if one can know where they all are. If I will have to run a scan\catalog after having imported the old database and catalogs on the newly built server anyway I might as well just do the catalog and end restore in one go. Assuming there is no way of getting around having to re-catalog the tapes even though the backed up catalogs have been imported. Having a list of the last backup done before disaster detailing which server is sitting on which media is a big bonus.

I found the built in report. Is it possible to automate the process of running this report automatically once a day and automatically forwarding it on to an offsite email address. I found where to insert the mail server settings which is already populated with our mail server's settings as we already forward alerts via mail. Is it possible to enter the settings for a second mail server together with an account and attachment details. Looking at the report itself I don’t see any config to forward this on in any way. Being able to do this would be a big win.