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Upgrade Backup Exec 16 to 20 with Deduplication enabled

rmcbackupteam
Level 3

We need to upgrade Backup Exec 16 to 20.3. Current environment is having Deduplication enabled for Primary storage. Could anyone share the rollbackup plan if anything goes wrong and application got crashed/currupted. Also, let us know do we face any chalages during upgrade from 16 to 20.3 with Deduplication enabled.

3 REPLIES 3

Gurvinder
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

It is recommended to backup the deduplication folder before upgrade BE 16 to BE 20. The BE 16 dedupe folder format is converted into a new format with BE 20. The BE 16 dedupe folder uses postgresql , which is no longer present in BE 20. Due to the above change, the dedupe folder will be converted into a new format. This conversion takes place after the upgrade to BE 20 is completed.

-- How to backup the deduplication storage folder from BE 16 ?
You can stop all Deduplication services and keep a copy of BE 16 deduplication storage folder. Make sure all folders are copied.
OR
With dedupe services running and dedupe folder online (make sure no jobs are backing up to it). Then create a backup job and select the dedupe folder from shadow copy component and back it up to tape or other disk storage just in case it is needed. After the upgrade, the Dedupe folder from BE 16 will be converted to BE 20 format.

Note: During the upgrade from BE 16 to BE 20 , the above recommendation is shown. After BE is upgraded and server rebooted, the dedupe conversion process starts. Alerts about percentage completion are shown in BE UI. 

Conversion of deduplication storage folder

If even a rollback to older BE 16 version is needed, then Install BE 16 and restore the Deduplication Storage folder copy/backup.

@Gurvinder : Thanks for your reply.

I have one more doubt.

We have a scenario. In case, Upgarde to BE 20.3 failed and dedupe got corrupted

--We will install BE 16, stop all services and replace Dedup Data storage Folder on the same path and also replace Catalog & Data folder from installation path to bring the application to the same state where it was before upgrade.

Will the above steps be sufficient, or do we need to replace any other folder from installation path and/or perfrom any other steps? 

Gurvinder
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

dedupe conversion starts after the upgrade of BE 16 -> BE 20 is completed. When the upgrade completes, a prompt to reboot the BE server is received. At this point after you reboot, then the dedupe conversion starts. So at this point BE is upgraded allready. If BE upgrade fails, then the storage is allready intact and normally BE installer has a rollback mechanism to bring you back to the working BE 16 configuration.
If dedupe conversion fails at which point BE is allready upgraded to 20 (which we havnt encountered as yet) you can open a tech support case. If you plan to rollback, the way would be to uninstall BE 20, then install BE 16 -> copy back the data and catalog folder from BE 16 configuration -> then copy back the dedupe folder which was backed up from BE 16. Import the registry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Symantec\PureDisk\Agent (just export this registry before the upgrade)