NetBackup Storage Space Full issue

[joonkoki]

hello

I have configured NetBackup AIR.
DR NetBackup was forced to expire an unnecessary backup image due to insufficient capacity. The capacity should be secured as much as the size of the backup image, but it cannot be secured. The size of the backup image is about 1 TB. Do I need to secure capacity in other ways other than forcibly expiring?
Storage Type is MSDP.

[davidmoline · Accepted solution]

Hi @joonkoki 

If I understand your problem, you have reached capacity in the MSDP at the DR site and need to find additional capacity. 

The problem with simply expiring an image is that this image is most likely deduplicated with other backup images, so the reclaimed space is minor. The other thing to note is that the space may not come back immediately as there is some house keeping that happens in the backup ground - have a look at this article to see why reclaimed space (whihc probably isn't the 1TB backup image expired) is not showing. Use the crcontrol utility to help things along rather than waiting. 

The alternative is to grow the size of the pool. Depending on the file system and volume type it may be simpler to just add space. Without knowing more details it is difficult to guide you, but the process is relatively simple. 

Cheers
David

[joonkoki]

Hi .@davidmoline

Your answer was helpful.
I have an additional question.

The backup target server SLP policy is Master NetBackup with a retention cycle of 1 month and DR NetBackup with a retention cycle of 2 weeks. As above, DR NetBackup forcibly expired all backup images (Size: 1TB) of the backup destination server (was server). All backup images of the current backup destination (was server) have expired forcibly, and capacity is still not secured. Then, in order to secure the capacity, do you have to wait for the storage cycle of 2 weeks to secure the capacity?

Also, the policy was modified to back up the was server backup policy only in Master NetBackup.

[davidmoline]

Hi @joonkoki 

Sorry if I'm not answering your question - I'm not quite following you.

If you expired all backup images from the DR MSDP, then you should only have to wait for the housekeeeping to complete (either via the automatic process or manually via the crcontrol utility as decsribed). You do not have to wait the 2 weeks as per the original retention setting. 

David

[joonkoki]

I found it on veritas support.

1.       Expire the backup images by using the NetBackup GUI or the command line.

GUI initiated expiration:

Under Catalog, search for all existing images stored on the Media Server Deduplication pool. Make sure you search across the correct data range. Once found, right click and expire all images. You can check the Activity Monitor to verify if the Image Cleanup jobs succeeded successfully. This removal process dereferences the images from the NetBackup catalog.    

Command line driven expiration:       

a) Use the bpimagelist command to determine the backup IDs of the backups to be expired.

b) Run the command bpexpdate -backupid <backip ID> -d 0 -force -notimmediate to expire each image. The -notimmediate option prevents bpexpdate  from calling the nbdelete command, which deletes the image. Without this option, bpexpdate calls nbdelete to delete images. Each call to nbdelete creates a job in the Activity Monitor, allocates resources, and launches processes on the media server. 

c) After you expire the last image, delete all of the images by using the nbdelete command with the -allvolumes option. Only one job is created in the Activity Monitor, fewer resources are allocated, and fewer processes are started on the media servers. The entire process of expiring images and deleting images takes less time.

2.      If the backup images are in a PureDisk Storage Pool (use case 2 only), run the PureDisk data removal policy in the PureDisk web based interface.  Additionally for PureDisk (5020 or 5030 appliances) do not put 0 0 at the end of the command in step 6.

Note all commands for PureDisk Pool (5020 or 5030 appliances) are run from:

          /opt/pdcr/bin

Note all commands are run from the following directories for msdp.

         Unix:  /usr/openv/pdde/pdcr/bin

         Windows:  <install_path>\veritas\pdde

3.      Process the transaction queue twice. See  Process the transaction queue.   

         crcontrol --processqueue

4.      Monitor queue processing (busy:no means its complete)

         crcontrol --processqueueinfo

5.      Keep running queue processing until the queue reaches 0.

         crcontrol --queueinfo

6.      Once the queue is 0 and the queue processing says busy:no then start compaction

         crcontrol --compactstart 0 0

7.      Check that compaction is still running (busy:no means its complete)

         crcontrol --compactstate

8.      Check for Free space

         crcontrol --dsstat

Can I proceed in the above way?

[davidmoline]

Hi @joonkoki 

This will work - just be careful using the expire command (bpexpdate). If there are multiple copies on the one NetBackup system, use the "-cn" paramter to expire the correct copy number (otherwise it will expire it entirely - which may be okay if that is what you want). 

Cheers
David