Here are some tips to help your migration go smoothly:
1. Check the
NetBackup OS Compatibility List to make sure that the functions on your current Windows 2003 master/media server will work on Windows 2008 x64. Not all of the possible options in NetBackup work on Windows 2008 x64 yet. For example, a Windows 2008 machine cannot be a NOM server yet (note that you would not want to make your NetBackup master server a NOM server as well -- bad things can result if the same computer is acting as both the NetBackup master server and the NOM server, due to the fact that both of them are trying to run their own copy of Sybase).
2. Check the
NetBackup 6.x Hardware Compatibility List to make sure that your tape library, NDMP clients, and VTLs will work with a Windows 2008 x64 master/media server. Many of the devices that were certified to work with a Windows 2003 32-bit media server have not yet been certified to work on a Windows 2008 x64 media server.
3. Your new master/media server must have the same hostname as the old server. The only supported way to change the hostname of the NetBackup master server is to have Symantec Professional Services do it for a hefty fee.
Here are the general steps that I would use:
1. I would recommend that you upgrade your old NetBackup master server to NetBackup 6.5.4 first, just in case there are any database schema changes made as part of the 6.5.4 patch install. You can't install the NetBackup 6.5.3 master server code on a Windows 2008 machine, which is why you need to upgrade your old server first.
2. Once the old server is up and running on NetBackup 6.5.4, let it run that way for several days (or a week or two) to iron out any kinks that might crop up with the NetBackup upgrade.
3. After this burn-in period on NetBackup 6.5.4, do a cold NetBackup catalog backup on the old master server and save any custom scripts that might be on the old server (nbmail.cmd, *_notify.cmd, etc.) as well as any touch-files that you may have put in place (SIZE_DATA_BUFFERS, etc.).
4. Turn off the old NetBackup server (or at least unplug the NICs and FC HBAs from your LAN and SAN). Do not let anyone re-purpose this machine at this point.
5. Turn on the new NetBackup server and make sure that it has the same hostname (and ideally the same IP address) as your old NetBackup server. Also make sure that it is zoned in the SAN to your tape and/or VTL devices in the same manner that your old NetBackup server was (if your tape libraries or VTLs are SAN-connected to your NetBackup master/media server).
6. Install NetBackup 6.5.4 on the new server. Remember that you will need (at a minimum) the "NetBackup Server" or "NetBackup Enterprise Server" license key from your old server in order for the NetBackup installer GUI to let you even install the NetBackup master/media server binaries.
7. Do a NetBackup database recovery using the NetBackup catalog backup that you made in step 3, and also restore any scripts and touch-files that you saved in step 3.
8. Make sure that the new NetBackup master server has all of your backup policies, volume pools, and devices. You may need to reconfigure your tape libraries and VTLs due to the new SCSI paths on the new server.
9. Run your backups and restores on the new server for a couple of weeks to iron out any kinks. Once you're satisfied that everything is running well on the new server, you can re-purpose the old NetBackup server to be something else (a file server, a VMware ESX server, etc.).
