BMR and DR

[tollboy]

Hello,

We are going to do a DR drill and we are going to some host using BMR. I was reading the following technote about importing the BMR database.

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO65776

It explains the procedure about importing BMR DBs from prod to DR site. Now I am confused about two things:

1.) How this thing work with actual DR? If we loose prod somehow, how we are going to get latest BMR DB on the DR site. Is there some continous protection mechanism for  BMR DB, like the catalog backup? Or it is already included in catalog backup.

2.) I am creating  boot media for the restore on DR site from the prod. When creating boot media on the Shared Resource Tree Administration Wizard (Screenshot attached) I am not able to see clients if I am not running the prepare to restore.

When I run "Prepare to restore" it creates a waiting taks in prod side, will these task will be exported and imported to DR site when I am importing the BMR DB as per the technote.

My question may  be confusing. Please let me know if I can clarify it somehow.

[INT_RND · Accepted solution]

1) The catalog backup does include the BMR DB. This is a DR test. Do it. Prove it.

2) Don't do that. This is a DR test. You have to pretend like the prod server is dust.

To recap: If you migrate the BMR DB and produce the BMR boot media from the prod site you ARE NOT doing a DR drill.

Do a real DR drill:

Start with bare metal. Install Netbackup master. Perform catalog restore. Create BMR media. All from DR site with nothing from production. The only media you are allowed is the media you sent offsite. If you need anything from the main building then you have failed the DR drill. The main building is gone.

[Marianne]

If the boot media was created at Prod and sent offsite along with media, I see no problem with creating boot media at Prod.

After catalog recovery at DR (including BMR db), run Prepare to Restore (at DR).

[tollboy]

Thanks you sir!

It worked! everything copied with catalog and we created the bootserver and media at the DR test and it worked.

I have one more question regarding the DR only. Its about tapes:

Whenever our client tell us about the DR drill we ask them which application/DBs we are going to test and then on the declaration date we take calculate the tape list for those policies/clients from the prod site only.

In actual DR scenario we would be doing the following:

First restore the catalog on the DR site from the tapes we get from recovery email, then calculate the tapes needed for the restore from the newly restored catalog at DR site. Then ask offsite vendor to bring those tapes to the DR site in second iteration.

I know there is a critical policies field in catalog policy which reports the tapes needed for these policies. But will this thing work when we are duplicating backups from DD to tapes using SLP? also how feasible it is for like 50 policies?

Let me know if I need to put the question on separate thread or I need to explain my question.