cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Searching and restoring files from Expired Backup Sets

mmidd
Level 2

Hello All-

I am using BE 2014 and backing up to a tape library.  We remove tapes monthly, label and store.  I have a pretty basic best practices question.  

Our company content retention policy for project-related work is 5 years.  

Right now my Backup sets expire after 90 days.  If I have to restore files older than 90 days I must retrieve, insert and catalog the tapes to lopcate and restore the data. That's fine as long is I know exactly what I need to restore and an approximate date.  

However I could be asked to restore all the files from multi-year project XYZ,  How should I configure my backups so that the catalog will remain accessible and searchable for as long as I choose?  

(Please no need to comment on tape life expectantcy - I understand there's a practical limit. ) 

Thanks in advance for your advice.

 

Meg

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

If you don't truncate the catalogs automatically (as per the default) then the catalogs will remain until the tapes are overwritten, which will allow searches to work but can cause disk space issues with the catalog location (as mentioned by pkh)

 

Also (unlike for disk based backups) if you have an expired (overwriteable) tape that you insert in the library for a restore, the data will still be there until it is overwritten. So as a recommendation if bringing a tape back  for a restore always slide the physical write protection tab on the tape across as then BE cannot accidentally overwrite it if a backup job happens to start at the wrong moment.

 

However another recommendation that is more usefuk to you question is: As knowing which tapes were used when is important data, and this data is stored inside the catalogs and BEDB, how will you know which tapes you need if a disaster affects the Backup Exec server itself.  As such it is good practice to:

a) Regularly Backup the BEDB (and the exported database encryption information) - do not use data encryption on this backup as you could end up in a catch 22-situation of needing the database to decrypt the backup of the database. 

b) Regularly backup the catalogs folder (and try to time match this backup with that of a BEDB (in other words same job)

c) Try to keep records outside of Backup Exec of what dates tapes were used and when they were sent offsite (if you can, also include which servers are backed up on each offsite tape - although getting and recording this extra information will be more time consuming)  If you at least know the dates of usage of the tapes you will only have to inventory and catalog a small number of tapes to start restoring instead of needing to perhaps look at every tape.

d) keep a more accurate record (again outside of Backup Exec) of which tapes contain copies of the the BEDB and catalogs.

e) If deleting job logs, consider a regular backup of the job log (XML files) files as these can be text searched by servername to then find dates and tape labels. This tip may come in handy if  the catalogs are not available. as it gives a secondary way to identify a tape and might also show you if a later job overwrote the same tape as you can repeat the text search for the label once you know what it is)

View solution in original post

3 REPLIES 3

pkh
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP    Certified

The easiest way is to extend the retention period of the tape backup sets.  In fact, you should do this so that when you put in the tapes, they are not accidentally overwritten.  As long as the backup sets are still not expired, their corresponding catalogs are not deleted.  The only thing that you need to watch out for is the size of the Catalog directory under the BE installation directory.  This will grow as you retain more and more catalogs.

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

If you don't truncate the catalogs automatically (as per the default) then the catalogs will remain until the tapes are overwritten, which will allow searches to work but can cause disk space issues with the catalog location (as mentioned by pkh)

 

Also (unlike for disk based backups) if you have an expired (overwriteable) tape that you insert in the library for a restore, the data will still be there until it is overwritten. So as a recommendation if bringing a tape back  for a restore always slide the physical write protection tab on the tape across as then BE cannot accidentally overwrite it if a backup job happens to start at the wrong moment.

 

However another recommendation that is more usefuk to you question is: As knowing which tapes were used when is important data, and this data is stored inside the catalogs and BEDB, how will you know which tapes you need if a disaster affects the Backup Exec server itself.  As such it is good practice to:

a) Regularly Backup the BEDB (and the exported database encryption information) - do not use data encryption on this backup as you could end up in a catch 22-situation of needing the database to decrypt the backup of the database. 

b) Regularly backup the catalogs folder (and try to time match this backup with that of a BEDB (in other words same job)

c) Try to keep records outside of Backup Exec of what dates tapes were used and when they were sent offsite (if you can, also include which servers are backed up on each offsite tape - although getting and recording this extra information will be more time consuming)  If you at least know the dates of usage of the tapes you will only have to inventory and catalog a small number of tapes to start restoring instead of needing to perhaps look at every tape.

d) keep a more accurate record (again outside of Backup Exec) of which tapes contain copies of the the BEDB and catalogs.

e) If deleting job logs, consider a regular backup of the job log (XML files) files as these can be text searched by servername to then find dates and tape labels. This tip may come in handy if  the catalogs are not available. as it gives a secondary way to identify a tape and might also show you if a later job overwrote the same tape as you can repeat the text search for the label once you know what it is)

mmidd
Level 2

A very belated thank you for this reply.  You listed some very helpful tips that I hadn't considered!