NetBackup 6: Catalog Compression

[dragon-x]

Hi,

Here at work I'm using NetBackup 6.0MP4 and everything was working great till last week.
Last week I noticed that I've only got 8GB left on our 120GB HDD, when I sat and checked what was causing the disk space issue I came across the Catalog folders that were hogging a full 108GB.
When researching I read that compressing the catalog is possible.

I wanted to know how can this be achieved?
I have no idea what commands to use.
On another note, is it possible to set a compression job to automatically run and check what images are more than 14 days old then automatically compress them?

Thanks,

Vincent.

[Andy_Welburn · Accepted solution]

This is for 6.5, but I presume it's the same for 6:

On the GUI : Host Properties/Master Servers/master server/Global Attributes tick "Compress catalog interval" & select the number of days.

Do this slowly to start with as this may take some time if you try & compress 'all' at once.

[scorpy_582]

Check the planning and performance tuning guide on page 45:

ftp://exftpp.symantec.com/pub/support/products/NetBackup_Enterprise_Server/281842.pdf

This will give you a good understanding of catalog strategies and catalog compression.

If you have many images with infinite retension level, you might also wanna go for catalog archiving.

Note: Restoration from archived catalog is a complex process.

http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/274027.htm

These are the features given by netbackup to manage catalog, however, my opinion will be to go additional disk space.

[dragon-x]

Hi,

Thanks for the help :) it's very much appreciated.

I've got one more question: How can I run the compression job immediately after the appropriate changes have been made?
*The changes I made are in the Global Attributes -> I've marked the Compress catalog interval after: 14 days - the reason for picking 14 days is because that's how long I have tapes in the robot and onsite after that I have copies offsite.

So just a little refresh: How can I run an immediate compression?

Thanks for all the help guys!

Vincent

[Andy_Welburn]

"...
If you choose to compress the image catalog, NetBackup uses the compress command on the server to perform compression after each backup session, regardless of whether successful backups were performed. The operation occurs while NetBackup is expiring backups and before running the session_notifyscript and the backup of the NetBackup catalogs.
The time to perform compression depends on the speed of your server and the number and size of the files you are compressing. Files are compressed serially, and temporary working space is required in the same partition.
When numerous compressed image-catalog files must be processed, the backup session is extended until compression is complete. The additional backup time is especially noticeable the first time you perform compression. To minimize the impact of the initial sessions, consider compressing the files in stages. For example, you can start by compressing records for backups older than 120 days and then reduce this value over a period of time until you reach a comfortable setting.
..."

Admin Guide: ftp://exftpp.symantec.com/pub/support/products/NetBackup_Enterprise_Server/279263.pdf

[dragon-x]

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for all the help guys! it works great.

I've managed to reduce the Catalog size by 45%, that's very impressive.

Thanks again for all the help! it is very much appreciated :)

Cheers.

[scorpy_582]

Hi Dragon-x,

Glad that your problem is solved. Please mark the thread as solved with the solution so that everyone knows that this problem is solved and what the solution was..

 

[DavidParker]

Compression is great, but be aware that sometimes NBU has to un-compress parts of the catalog (like during a restore).

If you can extend the size of the disk, that's always a good option.

There is also the option of moving the image catalog (the largest part of the catalog): see page 354 of Admin Guide Vol 1.