Okay, this is going to take a pretty lengthy set up.
I have a 10d server with a large amount of jobs, selection lists, etc that was set up long before I was around. Being as we have a current maintenance/support agreement with Symantec, we got the upgrade to 12.5 a while back, and only recently have we had the manpower to implement it. I tried everything I could find to upgrade a copy of the 10d install (with all jobs, settings, etc) to 11d and then to 12.5, and it all miserably failed. When I realized I was doomed to having to recreate the entire server from scratch, I sat down and remade all of my policies, selection lists, and jobs, and we zoned up our tape library on the fiber switch so that the old 10d server and the new 12.5 server (which are two completely different machines, of course) can both see it.
Now, here's the problem. How do I start using the 12.5 server instead of the 10d server without destroying the data on the old tapes that the 12.5 server thinks is all scratch media and overwritable? I am pretty new at Backup Exec (been using it for about 3 weeks), but I have an idea that I wanted to pass along for review.
1) Our tape library has 6 tape drives. I will enable 3 on the 10d server and 3 on the 12.5 server (leaving half of them enabled and the other half disabled on each server; of course, the enabled drives would be different on each server so that they're not fighting to use the same drive).
2) I will export about 15 of the old tapes that I would be exporting anyway for our 2 month data retention strategy. I will then import 15 new tapes. On both servers, I'll create an "Overwrite Protection" media set. On the 10d server, I will put the 15 new tapes in the Overwrite Protection media set. On the 12.5 server, I will put *everything* except for the 15 new tapes into the Overwrite Protection media set.
3) On the 10d server, I'll put the first 50 or so jobs on hold, and on the 12.5 server, I'll schedule those same jobs to run and put the rest on hold.
4) In theory, if I do this every week for a month or two, slowly putting more and more jobs on hold on the 10d server and giving them to the 12.5 server, then I'd eventually be completely moved over to the new server, and I could still restore with the old server if I needed to.
Now, for my question - does anyone see any problems with this? And I mean *ANY* problems. It's absolutely critical (for obvious reasons) that this plan is flawless so that backups aren't lost or destroyed, by either the old or the new server.
Or perhaps there's an easier way?
Thanks in advance. :)
