Moving MSDP pools from one Domain to another

[PaulStevens]

Looking for a sanity check on my plans.

Old environment

bak01 Master NBU 7.7.3  2-node cluster

     bak03  Media 7.7.3     MSDP dedup3  16TB

     bak04  Media 7.7.3     MSDP dedup4  10TB

New environment

alb001  Master 7.7.3  standalone

     alb010  Media 7.7.3  MSDP dedup10 30TB (unused so far)

My end-goal is to move all the images in dedup3 and dedup4 fom the old bak01 environment and combine them together in dedup10 in the new environment, after which I will be backing up the clients in the new alb001 domain.

Can I do a file copy on everything from the two MSDPs on the old env into the one big MSDP, then import the images on the new environment?  Don't worry about two domains backing up the same client...  once I move it over I will stop all backups from the old environment, and point the clients to the new master.  So they will only be backed up in one place.

or do I need to bpexpdate -nodelete the MSDP pools, decom the media servers, point them to new environment, and import the MSDP pools, then duplicate them over to the new bigger MSDP.

Or is there a better way?

[PaulStevens]

I have set up a trust between the two masters.  can I just AIR the backups over to the new domain?  After the AIR is done I would then migrate the clients so they are backed up in the new domain.

[davidmoline]

Firstly you cannot retrospectively AIR images from the old environment to the new. It can work for new backup images processed as part of an SLP with a replication phase. This does not address the existing images in the pools. 

You can import the contents of an MSDP into a new domain - I would refer to the two posts https://vox.veritas.com/t5/NetBackup/Import-MSDP-images/td-p/462337  and  https://vox.veritas.com/t5/NetBackup/Import-MSDP-images-from-old-server-to-new/td-p/742944 for more details. 

You cannot combine the contents of the two pools as your original thought and import this. They two pools need to remain intact as they are to be usable.
You can copy the contents of one pool over and do the import. I'm not sure (as in I don't think it would work) that you could then copy the contents of the second pool across (to separate storage) and import this into the existing pool. You may need to stand up a second media server to import the second pool, then duplicate to the larger target pool.

Let us know how you go

[Marianne]

As per @davidmoline nbreplicate is not really meant for pre-existing images, but we have seen in this forum and in the NetBackup Appliance forum how many people have used this command to successfully migrate old images to a new environment.

e.g:

https://vox.veritas.com/t5/NetBackup-Appliance/Migrating-Images-between-Netbackup-Domains/m-p/615851

https://vox.veritas.com/t5/NetBackup/Does-anyone-know-the-format-of-a-Bidfile/td-p/662330

One more suggestion from my side:

Please upgrade the current NBU environment ASAP, as NBU 7.7.x has reached EOL.
Then prep the new environment with latest NBU version. 

[sdo]

And a tip here about getting the number on the rcn switch correct:

https://vox.veritas.com/t5/NetBackup/NBREPLICATE-no-entity-was-found-227/m-p/871205

...by adding 101 (yes, one hundred-and-one) to the copy number of the originating source image, to generate the target rcn (receiving copy number) (which then has 101 subtracted again at the target), example:

nbreplicate -Bidfile mylist.bid -cn 2 -rcn 103 -slp_name MY_SLP_AT_REMOTE -target_sts myremote.mysite.com -target_user root -target_pwd blahblah

[PaulStevens]

We built the new master at 7.7.3 because that is the version the old one was on and we wanted same version for using AIR.  As has been discussed AIR is not the right solution for this, so now we are just going to move all the clients over and import the MSDP pools.

So What I get from David is to migrate both pools as they are, import them, then duplicate them over to the larger combined pool.

When that is done we are planning a stepped upgrade from 7.7.3 to 8.0 on the master, then 7.7.3 to 8.0 on the media servers.  Then upgrade master to 8.2.  I am not upgrading the media servers to 8.2 because at that point we are intoducing an appliance 5240 as a media server.  So I think we bring the MSDP pools over as is, then once we put in the appliance we can just duplicate them into that MSDP, instead of having to do it twice.

Or are you telling me that I should upgrade the master and media servers to 8.0 prior to importing the MSDP images?

[davidmoline]

Hi Paul

I would strongly suggest starting the new environment at 7.7.3 to avoid any compatibility issues with the import process.

As for the next steps - your plan seems fine. There will be no issue leaving the existing media servers at 8.0. Although if you are going to introduce an appliance, why bother combining the the two pools first, can you leave that until the appliance is available (it will save time not having to repeat the duplication process)?

Note that the duplication to the appliance will also incur a performance penalty (so will be slower than you may expect) as duplicating from 8.0 MSDP to 8.1+ MSDP requires a finger print conversion (MD5 to SHA2) as the images are transferred (and more if any MSDP encryption is also involved).

Cheers, David