NetBackup Hardware and Software Upgrade

[Paul_Esson]

Folks,

We are facing a combined hardware and software upgrade due to a combination of factors.  The current NetBackup version is 6.5.2 and we are looking to introduce v7.1 functionality, but our Master and Media Server hardware, Operating Systems plus tape libraries are aging too and need a refresh so we are thinking it makes sense to bring all of the infrastructure up to date in one project. 

What we are trying to get our heads around is how best to manage this and would welcome any insight from others who have followed this path.  We envisage installing v7.x on the new hardware and testing the functionality while we run the 6.5.2 environment in parallel, but eventaully we will have to cut across and bring the catalog with us which will mean upgrading the existing 6.5.2 Master Server first.  A complication arises in that the current Master Server runs Solaris 8, which is not supported in v7.1, so we would have to upgrade the SunFire V480 server Operating System before we could perform the NetBackup upgrade, before we could recover the catalog to the new hardware.

We have far too much media to contemplate importing tapes to rebuild the catalog on the new platform and we don't want to keep the 6.5.2 system running in parallel for restores if possible because some of are full backups have very long retentions (>1 year).  Are we missing a trick here?

Regards,

Paul.E,

Redstor Ltd 

[Mark_Solutions]

Paul

Your are in a bit of a catch 22 as you point out and the cost of upgrading the current Master servers hardware would be a waste of money.

You could just run a test environment to see what V7 offers you and make your decision from there.

You may also want to consider other factors such as using the vSphere backups available in V7 which require Windows Media Servers.

The best approach would be to Install 6.5.2 on your new hardware, recover the catalog and then upgrade to V7 (keeping the name the same)

If you decide to go across to a Windows platform this is also possible but needs specialist catalog manipulation which almost no one in the UK is accedited with (apart from my company!)

If you need any assistance with your project get back to me.

[Marianne]

I fully agree with previous post - please have a look at this TN: http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH77448

[Paul_Esson]

Mark,

Thanks for the feedback, I did want to do a clean V7 install on the new hardware rather than an upgrade but you are right it doesn't make sense to upgrade the existing system.  I will keep you in mind for the catalog conversion.

Regards,

Paul.E 

[Paul_Esson]

Marianne,

Thanks for the useful reference.

Regards,

Paul.E

[Marianne]

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[Anonymous]

FYI: Be well aware of this technote when upgrading NBU from 6.5.x direct to 7.1

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH156810

Or you could face a longer outage than expected.

I did a test upgrade and got caught out. Production upgrade went smoothly (applying this EEB hotfix)