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NetBackup 7.5 Vault

bc1410
Level 5

Hello

Im thinking we have a pretty basic Netbackup setup and Im thinking that the vault option that we just got should be somewhat simple in terms of vaulting and ejecting the tapes out so we can send offsite...  For our backups we are backing up solaris/unix servers, solaris NAS, and windows servers(including SQL & exchange)..  I guess my question is whats is the best approach in terms of setting up the vault in terms of how frequent I should vault/duplicate the backups and should I have more than one vault profile..   We run FULL level backups every week with retention for 6 months.  We run differential-Inc everyday with a retention of 1 month. Also run Catalog Bkups everyday(differential) with retention of 2 weeks.  Then a full catalog once a week with 2 week retrntion. Should I create a separate profile to vault the Full level backups and then a vault profile to vault the Differential backups?  I have posted on here before and I still consider myself a novice with Symantec products..  Im just looking for some feedback from some people that have used the vault and can maybe give me some examples/ideas on a typical vault setup in terms of vault profiles etc...  I appreciate it...  Im still studying the NBU Vault Administrators guid 7.5...

 

5 REPLIES 5

Mark_Solutions
Level 6
Partner Accredited Certified

Best practice usually dictates that tapes go off site each day

If you have different retention periods for on-site and off-site, as well as Daily and Weekly tapes then you will want a Daily Vault and a Weekly Vault Profile (and matching policies) so that you can set everything exactly as you want it.

The timing of when the vault policy runs is down to your knowledge of the site and when all backups will have finished so that you can allow the vault policy run

Again best practice is to have a copy of the catalog backup accompany your tapes off site so if you have the tapes alaos select the catalog part of the vault profile so that also gets ejected with the tapes each day.

If you do not need vault to change the retention of your backups when you duplicate them then you could just use one vault profile and one vault policy that duplicates everything from the last ** hours / **days which will work fine when run each day - the profile would just include everything

Dont worry about the number of hours (or days) specified - just keep it in excess of the last time it ran as it will not re-duplicate anything that has already been duplicated - so you can use a value of several days if you wish once your initial run has been done - this ensures that you capture everything that has not previosuly been duplicated

Hope this helps

bc1410
Level 5

Thanks for your feedback and comments:

I just wanted to add some more info and comments and maybe you can reply on your thoughts about the following..  Hopefully I can type what Im trying to do (lol)

 

We are working with one  Oracle SL500 Tape Robot containing 2 LTO4 tape drives..  Now we have a lot of tapes but not a ton of tapes and therefore I dont think I could send tapes out everyday.. Im thinking that I could send them out once a week for a month rentention and so forth..  I was thinking since our current Netbackup Policies FULL Level backups(ran weekly) are with a rentention of 6 months and that our current NBU differential policies(ran daily) are with a rentention of 1 month that I could create a Vault Profile to contain a duplicated copy of both the Full Level and the differential level and have a retention level of 1 month and have this vault profile run once a week (maybe on saturday night).  Now does it matter if my Vault profile has a different retention level then the original Netbackup Policy job.?  It doesnt screw anything up?  I mean basiclly the Vault is just a duplicated copy - right?

I was also thinking that I could create a second Vault profile to run at the end of each month for just the full level net backup policies and put a rentention level of 6 months on this vault profile and that this tape(s) would be sent to a different location for safe keeping.  

And of course I would have a copy of the vault catalog sent offsite also

Does this make sense to you what Im trying to do??  Not sure if Im looking to much into this.  Like I said previously Im a novice to this backup process and to the symantec products and I just want to make sure Im covered in case of the whole disaster recovery thing..  I look forward to your comments..  Thanks again

 

bc1410
Level 5

Mark soluations - Thanks for your feedback and comments:

I just wanted to add some more info and comments and maybe you can reply on your thoughts about the following.. Hopefully I can type what Im trying to do (lol)

 

We are working with one Oracle SL500 Tape Robot containing 2 LTO4 tape drives.. Now we have a lot of tapes but not a ton of tapes and therefore I dont think I could send tapes out everyday.. Im thinking that I could send them out once a week for a month rentention and so forth.. I was thinking since our current Netbackup Policies FULL Level backups(ran weekly) are with a rentention of 6 months and that our current NBU differential policies(ran daily) are with a rentention of 1 month that I could create a Vault Profile to contain a duplicated copy of both the Full Level and the differential level and have a retention level of 1 month and have this vault profile run once a week (maybe on saturday night). Now does it matter if my Vault profile has a different retention level then the original Netbackup Policy job.? It doesnt screw anything up? I mean basiclly the Vault is just a duplicated copy - right?

I was also thinking that I could create a second Vault profile to run at the end of each month for just the full level net backup policies and put a rentention level of 6 months on this vault profile and that this tape(s) would be sent to a different location for safge keeping.

of course I would send a copy of the vault catalog offsite also.

Does this make sense to you what Im trying to do?? Not sure if Im looking to much into this. Like I said previously Im a novice to this backup process and to the symantec products and I just want to make sure Im covered in case of the whole disaster recovery thing.. I look forward to your comments.. Thanks again

watsons
Level 6

Best practice needs to be relate back to your business requirement.

An important question is, how much data and what type of data do you want to protect against disaster?

I came across a real-life example before, that we need to offsite all our full backup tapes (regardless of retention or schedule), but we will keep all incr backup tapes onsite in the library.

In this case, since our full backup runs once a week, we only need to run the vault job once a week before the actual offsite happens. We don't need vault duplication as we have already made a 2nd copy during the initial backup, so we just need vault to do catalog backup, eject and report. With the weekly vault job configured, the "day from" we need to set is 7 days to 0 days. Reason being, our weekly backup may fail in their usual backup window, so if there is a re-run later, we can ensure it's able to capture all the full backups run since last week.

If your business requirement varies within different type of data, say for instance your SQL database backup needs to offsite both full and incr tapes, then a daily or weekly run can be created using a new profile. Consider also your resource needed to physically offsite the tape if it's done (tapes ejected) daily. That's why most people opt for weekly or on-demand (adhoc) vault run.

A few more notes about vault best practice:

1) Within a vault name, if you have different profiles, and if you start all of them at the same time, one profile can only run and the rest has to wait.

2) Vaulted images cannot be vaulted anymore, or simply won't be selected using another profile. So if you have a profileA that select images from last 0-7 days (weekly) and it run well with all images vaulted successfully, creating another profileB that select images from last 0-30 days (monthly) is not going to inclue those images completed in profileA.

I can't work out how you are going to configure, it takes some time to play around the selection criteria and testing, but given the above example and methodology, I hope you get a better idea to move forward.

 

Mark_Solutions
Level 6
Partner Accredited Certified

Sorry for the delay getting back to you ...

I think i know what you are saying - effectively take everything from the last week and duplicate it to tape with a retention of 1 month for your off site copy.

That is fine in theory but do bear in mind the comments above from watsons and also how long it is likely to take if you only vault once a week and have to duplicate an entire weeks worth of backups in a single session.

So you can make it as simple as you want but just take into account the consequences and physical practicalities of what you want to do, especially based on only having 2 tape drives

Hope this helps