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Amaan's avatar
Amaan
Level 6
13 years ago

Catalog backup [best practice]

Hi everyone,

I need your help to find out if our policy configured correctly for catalog backup and what is the best practise (where to backup, how many copies to have and etc..)

In our environment catalog backup is running to basic disk and at the same time will be duplciated to tape. When i usually look into catalog it usually shows me two images in the primary copy, but only one in copy one and copy two. in primary copy it shows me the path and in other copies media ID. I have attached policy details.

1. Why in primary copy it is showing two images and in the other copies it is showing only one.

2. when i run bpimmedia command (output is attached) it is showing me that backup size is 1 GB. full catalog size is ~650 GB. why? is the configuration not correct?

3. Is the policy configured correctly to make a multiple copies?

4. Need some advice how best to configure the catalog policy.

NBU version is: 7.0.1

OS: windows 2008

  

7.1.x and Earlier
Backing Up
Backup and Recovery
Basics
Configuring
NetBackup

4 Replies

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  • Yasuhisa_Ishika's avatar
    Yasuhisa_Ishika
    Level 6
    13 years ago

    1.
    Catalog backup makes at least 2 images at once, one for file-based DBs, one for EMM DB.
    I wonder why you say "in the other copies it is showing only one". I looked attachment, copy 2 become primarycopy somehow. Using multiple copy, copy 1 must be primary copy by default. Furthermore, image of file-based DBs does not exist on media.
    I suspect that you or someone expires copy 1 of both and copy 2 of one image.
    Check how may jobs run at once, and how many images created after  next full backup.

    2.
    As mentioned above, it seems that there are no images for file-based DBs which aquires most of catalog capacities. Only EMM backup exists.

    3.
    Schedule for full backup is correct, but I wonder why you don't configure multiple copies for differential incremental backup. Is it what you want?
     

    Please use "bpimagelist -L" instead of "bpimagelist -U" next time.

  • mph999's avatar
    mph999
    Level 6
    13 years ago

    The two backups you show were taken days apart, one on the Jan 17, and one on the 20th.

    It looks from those that they will not recover ...  I just ran a catalog job, here are the catalog files, created for just x1 catalog backup.

     

    -rw-r--r--   1 root     root        1343 Jan 27 08:30 CatBack_Disk_1327652989_FULL
    -rw-r--r--   1 root     root        1272 Jan 27 08:30 CatBack_Disk_1327653007_FULL
    -rw-------   1 root     root        7805 Jan 27 08:30 CatBack_Disk_1327653007_FULL.f
    -rw-r--r--   1 root     root        1790 Jan 27 08:30 CatBack_Disk_1327653035_FULL
    -rw-------   1 root     root       67490 Jan 27 08:30 CatBack_Disk_1327653035_FULL.f
     
    The first is the [parent job, the other x2 are the actual backups,  See how the ctimes are all close together (this may differ if the catalog is large, but not by 3 days).
     
    I suspect the 'on-disk' copy may be ok but I cannot tell.
     
    I recommend, for the moment, you forget multiple copies, and just runa couple iof Full catalog backups to tape.  You probably do have some on disk, but these are no good if you have a system crash and it corrupts the disks, or, disk failure etc ...
     
    Martin
  • Amaan's avatar
    Amaan
    Level 6
    13 years ago

    I found the reason. OUr fault is we were not paying attention if the copy to tape were successful. When i checked job details from opscenter i found that duplication job failed with error 84. thats the reason it was showing some data (probably it wrote some data and failed).

    How you guys are doing catalog backup. Can you just share some details to get more experience on this?

  • Mark_Solutions's avatar
    Mark_Solutions
    Level 6
    13 years ago

    The basics in my experience are as follows:

    1. If you have the time and tape then always run a Full catalog backup every day, if possible set it to run just after your backups and duplications have completed

    2. If your tapes are sent off site then send the catalog tape with them

    3. Set the DR File to go to a server other than the Master Server as you need this for a Catalog Recovery and in the event of a disaster you dont have that server. You can specify a UNC path and login credentials on the Disaster Recovery tab

    4. Always setup the DR file to also be e-mailed to you - that way not only do you have it to hand but it tells you which catalog tape was written last and gives full instrcutions on recovering the catalog

    5. If your tape drives tend to be busy then do the backup to disk first - as long as it gets staged or duplicated using an SLP as you still need the tape copy.

    Hope this helps