Catalogs - Copy between 2 Master Servers

[markdavies1978]

Hi all,

I'm interested in anyone's approach to copying Catalog's between 2 sites.

Is this possible?

Basically what I want to do is copy the Catalog data to each site & then back up site A's Catlog once it's copied to site B.

Thanks,
Mark

 

[Nicolai]

The Netbackup catalog is always live (the EMM database) unless you shutdown Netbackup. I wouldn't recommend to use other method than the approved one.

But what about backing up the catalog to disk and then copy those image files to the DR site ?

Here is a TN for importing disk image files : DOCUMENTATION: How to import disk images into VERITAS NetBackup (tm) 6.0 ...

[markdavies1978]

Hi Nicolai,

Thanks for your response.

I think the answer you have provided is what I was getting at.

If I backup my CATLOG to a staging area initially & then copy these files to my other site I guess I can then carry out importing the images if I ecer needed to.

Does this sound right?

Thanks,
Mark

[J_H_Is_gone]

What is your final goal.  meaning what are you wanting in the end?
 
There may be a better way if we knew your goal.

[markdavies1978]

My goal I guess is to not send a Catalog tape offsite every day as this is not cost effective.

I of course want to backup & protect my Netbackup environment.

Is there a way to backup the Catalog image by addiing it to an already existing policy thus saving tapes?

If so that is ideal.

I would then backup the Catalog as normal to a Catalog tape say once per week instead of every day therefore saving tapes.

[Stumpr2]

There was a technote in NB 5.x and previous that described  a way to do catalog backups with only including the master server images in the catalog backup. The client images were done separately by normal netbackup policy. The theory was to bprecover the master and its images and then restore the /usr/openv/netbackup/db/images from the normal netbackup. I don't know if the technote was ever updated for NB6.5 since hot backups are now used. Might search the knowledge base.

[Nicolai]

You could also have a mirror of the Netbackup disk which resides on a disk array at the DR site.

[markdavies1978]

Ok thanks.

Out of interest how do you guys manage your catalog?

Do you all simply run the Catalog job after all your backup's have run & then send offsite?

Worst case I will go with that (the recommended approach) just see it as overkill to a certain extent.

Cheers.

[J_H_Is_gone · Accepted solution]

Every day I when I take my tapes out of the library I take my catalog tape out as well.
The cost of the tape is mior to the cost of NOT having one.

I also replicate my db/images dir to a master at another location ( tho not to the same directory)
this allows me to do restores  on my other master without doing imports of the tapes. (this is only for doing restores at my dir site).  The whole catalog tape is needed for system recovery if I lose my master.

[Nicolai]

My tape library is not located in our datacenters so all backup are already offsite - even the catalog backup. My NBU catalog is mirrored across two XP1024 array's in two diffrent sites. We do normal file system backup of db/images as well.