Catalog Incremental backups using Netbackup Vault

[xedos]

Hi people,
 

Feeling a bit stupid here. I've been using Netbackup since V3.4.1 but cannot seem to work out an Incremental catalog backup utilising Netbackup Vault.

Current environments are Windows based Master and Media Servers all running Netbackup V6.0 MP7 and utilising Netbackup Vault.

The query I'm looking for help with.

The Vault policy calls the Vault profile using a vltrun command.



The Vault profile has the Catalog Backup tab with the definition of the Catalog Backup policy and the backup schedule within that policy.

  The Vault profile


This has been working fine for years, I now want to implement Incremental Catalog backups.

Within the Catalog Backup Policy I have created an Incremental schedule (However doing so means that the type of backup is no longer "Vault Catalog Backup")

   This is the existing Full catalog schedule   The new Incremental catalog schedule

This new Incremental schedule does not appear as an option to select in the "Vault catalog backup schedule" on the Vault profile.

I've established that the reason for this is because the "Type of Backup" was changed from "Vault Catalog backup"

Here my "feeling stupid" question. I cannot find a way to implement Incremental backups utilising the Vault product.

Has anybody done this or know how to do it ?


 

[Abesama]

Yes I think the policy type is cauing it, like you said.

No I have not tried incremental catalog backups with vault.

No I do not know how to do it.

And ... no I do not think it's really possible with current design of NetBackup vault.

Perhaps you can schedule an incremental catalog backup to run (separate to the vault) just before the vault eject session, so that the incremental catalog backup tape can be vaulted together.

That is, if you are running duplication and eject within same profile/policy, then separate them to two different profiles and policies, first run the duplication, and then run the incremental catalog backup, then run the eject/report?

Abe

[xedos]

Abe,
Thanks for the comment. It spun my brain into gear and I think I might have a working solution.

It got me thinking back to the early days before Vault when I used to have to run batch and command scripts to list out to our opo's which tapes to extract.

There is a vlt_start_notify.cmd script in goodies that will get run everytime a vault job runs if placed in bin.

I'm going to have a play and see if I can get this to run a "bpbackup -p Catalog_policy -i -w" to fire off the catalog backup before it carries on with the Vault profile. That way it should automatically pick up the latest Incremental catalog backup with the list of tapes to be vaulted.
 
I was hoping to only run this for the Daily vaults and leave the Weekly and Monthly vaults to do a full catalog backup as they do now. However on first manual try I'm getting error 227 for the incremental run, it looks like the Full catalog backup completed by Vault is not recognised as a Full Catalog backup when the incremental runs.  I'll have to schedule all the catalog backups through this policy and new script.

If you're interested I'll post my results.

It would be a lot easier  if there was a "Vault Catalog Incremental Backup" selection on the schedule :)
Something I'll take up with my account manager.

[Abesama]

Haven't seen any customer/case running pre/post vault scripts really.
Would be interesting to see what it can do.

Abe

[xedos]

Abe,
Finally got the syntax right for this.

We've been using post Vault script for some while to notify our opo's via mail that the vault job has finished and it also sends them the pick list to give them a heads up of how many tapes to extract.

You need to setup a Policy for the Hot Catalog Backups. In my case I have one Full schedule and one Cumulative Incremental schedule. The Full schedule runs on every Sunday with a window between 06:00 and 20:00 to ensure it gets a tape drive. The Cumulative Incremental has a window between 09:00 and 14:00 on a Saturday at all other times it will get called manually by the Vault start script.
Obviously this can be modified to suit.

I'm assuming that mail is setup and working using blat or similar.

There is in goodies the basis for both the pre and post scripts but they need to be modified to suit your own environment, there isn't really much that you need to change in these.

I'll start with the new pre script that now runs our incremental catalog backups.

File called vlt_start_notify.cmd
 In the main processing area of the script I have added

@REM The next line kicks off an Incremental Catalog backup if the profile that
@REM is running meets the text and causes this script to wait until it gets
@REM the status code back

@if "%3" == "Your Tues-Fri Vault Profile name" (bpbackup -p Hot-Catalog-Backup -s Hot-Catalog-Incremental -i -w)
@if "%3" == "Your Monday Vault profile name" (bpbackup -p Hot-Catalog-Backup -s Hot-Catalog-Incremental -i -w)
@if "%3" ==  "Your Permanent Vault profile name" (bpbackup -p Hot-Catalog-Backup -s Hot-Catalog-Incremental -i -w) ELSE goto NoCatBackup

@goto EndMain

:NoCatBackup
@echo "No Incremental Catalog run required" >> %LOGF%

:EndMain

NOTES
Hot-Catalog-Backup is the name of the Policy
Hot-Catalog-Incremental is the name of the schedule
We run a different Vault on Monday mornings which picks up all tapes used from Friday evening through to Monday morning.
Tuesdays - Friday we run a Vault which picks up all tapes used overnight
On every fourth Monday we run a Permanent vault where the tapes are treated differently by the opo's and offsited for seven years.

Using the Hot catalog Policy and the vault we end up with

A Full catalog backup every Sunday
An Incremental Catalog backup Monday - Saturday
An offsite vault run Monday -Friday

Just for info our post Vault job is modified as follows

 File called vlt_end_notify.cmd
The only bit I've modified is to mail us and the opo's when Vault has finished and the pick list as follows

@call %NB_MAIL_SCRIPT% Netbackupemail@company.com "Vault end notification" %LOGF%
@call %NB_MAIL_SCRIPT% Netbackupemail@company.com "Vault Pick List" F:\Veritas\Netbackup\vault\sessions\Your-Vault-name\sid%4\picklist_robot.rpt

The last bit is all one line i.e. ........\Your-Vault-Name\sid%4\picklist_robot.rpt

Hope this is helpful.

I'll keep an eye on this for a few days so if there is any questions fire away.