Changing Netbackup master server

[Dnyanesh]

Hi ,

Present setup : One SUN V420R ( solaris 8 ) with four DLT drives in Storagetek L180 tape library. V420R is acting as a master as well as media server .We have to replace this server and DLT with new SUN T5240 server and two LTO4 drives. Any ideas / procedure pls ? The old V420R server can be kept only for restore of the old data.

[kunal]

 I believe this is just an hardware upgrade.

Here are the summary of the steps:
1. Take a DR backup with netbackup on the old server.
2. Setup the new server. - Install OS and make sure that the hostname is same.
3. Install Netbackup.
4. Perform a DR restore.
5. Connect the new LTO4 drives.
6. Run a device configuration wizard.

[Marianne]

What are you going to do with the old tape drives? You will at minimum have to keep one of the DLT tape drives for restores.
Are you keeping the L180? If that's the case, keep some of them in the library for restores.

[Dnyanesh]

Dear Kunal and Marianne ,

Thanks for your suggestion.  Considering your suggestion , i came up with the following procedure . Request you to pls check for correctness.

1. Install new hardware with solaris 10 OS with the same hostname. IP is not configured at this stage.
2. Make two new LTO4 drives and two old DLT drives visible to this server.
3. Install netbackup 5.1 on the new server .
4. Make a zip file copy of /usr/openv/netbackup* and /usr/openv/volmgr/* from the old server and ftp it to another server on the network.
5. Remove the existing master server from the network and configure the IP on the new master server.
6. Ftp the copy taken above in pt 4 to this server at the respective locations.
7. Create the storage unit as is in the old server.
8. Start the netbackup and check for the policies , devices and the media visibility in the GUI.
9. Take a catalog backup on the LTO4 tape
10. Run NBCC and get the catalog consistency cleared from SUN ( our vendor )
11. Upgrade netbackup 5.1 to 6.5 .
12. Check for backup and restore.

Pls let me know if i need to add / delete any thing .

Regds
Dnyanesh

[kunal]

 Hi Dnyanesh,

Instead of copying /usr/openv/netbackup/, make sure you do a catalog backup and perform a catalog restore. This ensures that everything is copied over properly.

So your setup 4 will be "Take a catalog backup"
and your step 6 will be "Restore the catalog"

everything else looks ok.

[Marianne]

You cannot simply copy the entire netbackup and volmgr folders, as the binaries will be different for Solaris 8 and Solaris 10. Also, /usr/openv is just a symbolic link on Solaris with the actual installation somewhere else - default is /opt.
Do a catalog backup do disk. Copy/ftp the disk images to the new server and recover catalog from disk backup.

You also need to check device compatibility matrix - I don't think LTO4 is supported with NBU 5.1. You might only be able to use them after upgrading to 6.5.

Replace point 3 with:
Install and patch NBU 5.1 (Solaris 10 support was added with a patch - if I remember correctly, it was MP5. Look for documentation regarding Solaris 10 support on NBU 5.1).

After restoring catalog, you need to copy vm.conf and bp.conf from old server.

The chances are very slim that O/S device names will match exactly on the new server. For this reason, I would do the following after point 8:
Run sgscan. If all devices are not displayed, run sg.build and sg.install.
Delete all existing devices in NetBackup config.
Run device wizard to re-create devices.
Inventory robot.