Can I import contents of 5230 appliance to another master?

[alainken3]

Hi,

Good day! 

Need your expertise on this one.

We're running 2 master servers:

Master1 runs on an AIX box with Netbackup 7.1 and a catalog size of 500GB,

Master2 is a 5230 Appliance running on RHEL with Netbackup version 7.5 and catalog size of 200GB.

I am planning to upgrade Master1 to version 7.7 and change Master2 to a Media Server on Master1. What can I do to the catalog of Master2 so that its data can be seen after migration? Merging of catalog takes a long time and was looking for quicker alternatives. Is it possible to just import disks from the 5230 after it is introduced to Master1?

Thanks a lot! 

-alain

[Marianne]

I have moved this discussion to the NetBackup Appliance forum.

[alainken3]

Thanks Marianne. Hopefully someone can point me to the right direction. =)

[alainken3]

Thanks Marianne. Hopefully someone can point me to the right direction. =)

[Mark_Solutions · Accepted solution]

You cannot convert a 5230 (which is SUSE by the way of it is at 7.5) into a media server without doing a factory reset on it which will blow all of your disks away.... so i cannot see how you could do what you want in a simple manner

You could manually replicate all images to your other site (nbreplicate) then reset it, add it in as a media server and duplicate it all back .. cant see how else you can do it on an appliance

[RiaanBadenhorst · Accepted solution]

Only options are replicating via AIR (as SDO suggested), duplicating to tape and importing on Master 1, contact StoneRam to peform the catalog manipulation.

[StoneRam-Simon · Accepted solution]

Hi

Catman, the official Catalog Migration tool, can migrate the catalog from one appliance to another, but the options for migrating off an appliance back to software are Limited.   We can help perfrom this task (we were involved in the creation of the Catman tools)  We have a method to perform the migration and to demote the original appliance to be a media server of the new master.  

If you are Catman certified, we can provide you with support to perform this yourself or if not we can perform the engagement on your behalf.

This approach to a merge would be a lot quicker than doing an import.

Also one other thing to consider when doing an import is you can only import one copy.

After that you would be able to duplicate the images between them if you want to migrate the data from any advanced disk / MSDP pools.

Let me know if you want further information. or visit http://www.stoneram.com/stoneramservices/netbackup-catalog-manipulation

Kind Regards

Simon

[alainken3]

Thanks for your inputs. Without changing my appliance into a Media Server, is there a way i can connect it to Master1 and discover the disks?

Our safest options for now is to wait out the expiration of the data on the disks [which is 3 months] and reformat the appliance or do the merging of catalogs.

thanks! 

-alain

[RiaanBadenhorst · Accepted solution]

No there is no way to "discover" the disks. You can wait, or perform the catalog migration.

[sdo · Accepted solution]

Could you rent an appliance to act as swing space?

Or build a quick temporary Windows VM as a an MSDP Media Server and chuck some SAN storage at it?

Assuming you have the licenses of course. 

[alainken3]

Thanks Riaan and sdo. I'll explore more on MSDP, I believe we have the resources for it. Thanks a lot everyone. -alain

[sdo]

Hi Alain - thanks for the solution mark - but please could you re-consider... I don't think I should have the full mark - some of the other posts were quite arguably more helpful - but of course I'm always willing to accept part of a 'split solution' award.  Pls - not only me in this particular thread.  I'm sure I don't deserve full marks this time.  Thanks.

[alainken3]

Hi sdo. Thanks for pointing that out. I didnt know how to mark others as solutions as well. Let me recheck them and give them credit as well.