DR Catalog Replication - How?

[Michael_Haslam]

Hello,

I am looking for some advice on options for replicating the catalog between our main site and DR site.

We have a netbackup master running NBU 5.1 MP4 (L Class HP-UX server) and the same spec machine running NBU 5.1 MP4 at the DR site. The method for replication should be appropriate for this level, but we are also looking for replication options if we upgrade both environments to NBU 6.

Currently we backup the catalog (22GB approx, compressed) to tape and then take the tape down to the DR site, the configs are wiped down at the DR site and we import the relevent images from the catalog tape etc and get the system available to start restoring data from. All backup policies are disabled so we simply carry out the restore jobs.

I am looking for alternative methods to make this quicker and easier - whether this means utillising a SAN based method to replicate data between the sites including information on how we accomplish it and things like frequency of replication and methods, whether we use something like Veritas Volume Replicator, rsync or other methods or whether upgrading to NBU 6 is a better option and why.

There is a 1GB pipe available for pushing the data through, so any thoughts on how I can best achieve this would be greatly appreciated.

[TapeMan]

I used VVR for about 3 years, and its a good option from the perspective that it is (or at least was) the supported method as well as being version independant and really even software independant. As long as you have your alerting setup so that you're notified when the secondary becomes out of sync, you're golden. We outgrew it, but you won't have that problem unless your catalog gets over at least 500GB. Its much harder to get a good sync as size gets larger unless you've got one heck of a pipe. The other important note about VVR is that you can still cluster your master with VVR if you ever choose to.

Other good options include SRDF-A or if you're using lower-end disk, you can always use any other vendor's replication, even a NetApp snapshot. If you have plans on using VTL, most VTL's will also replicate long-distance and you can backup the catalog locally and replicate the copy long-distance to be available for restore.

Hope that helps.

Kevin