Netbackup Catalog Backup retention recommendations - NB6.5

[Thomas_Olsen]

Hi All

I was just wondering if anyone has any recommendation regarding retention time for Catalog Backups?

Since only the last Full Catalog Backup is of real value (being the only one which is up to date), maybe retention could be set just a bit longer than the backup frequency.

Some thought anyone?

Thanks.

/Thomas

[Stumpr2]

Having an old catlog tape may be benificial in retrieving expired data. If you keep tapes on a shelf or vault them offsite then you should have a catalog tape for them otherwise you will have to import them to be able to restore the data after they have expired.

[Thomas_Olsen]

Hi Bob

Thanks for your reply.

For our case, once a tape has expired, it will always be recycled in the system.

I guess the only benefit keeping the Catalog together with older tapes is convenience in case you have to restore anything from an expired tape. It just takes a bit longer time if you have to import the tape as well before doing the restore.

Thanks.

/Thomas

[Stumpr2]

your welcome.

[Omar_Villa]

If you are sending tapes offsite the best is to send a catalog with those tapes and the catalog will not expire until the last image is expired, that way you will always have a DR option.

[Thomas_Olsen]

Hi Omar

Thanks for your feedback.

For the Catalog Backup, I have enabled disaster recovery option and that information is e-mailed to me every time a catalog backup has been performed.

Do you still recommend to send a copy of the catalog offsite together with any other backup tapes for DR?

Regards,

Thomas

[netcat]

hello Thomas

I would suggest doing 2 copies always, send atleast 1 copy to offsite for DR. Another thing there is no retention period set on catalogs as opposed to normal backups, therefore catalog tape expires soon after the backups but offcourse it won't become scratch as it belong to NetBackup pool.

nauman

[Thomas_Olsen]

Thanks Nauman

A very good point there.

The thing is that I only store tapes externally once every month, but I do a full Catalog backup every 2 days and incremental Catalog every 12 hours.

Do you recommend that I configure multiple copies on all Catalog backups, or maybe I should change the way I do Catalog backups (schedule)?

Thanks.

/Thomas

[netcat]

Thomas

I always advise regardless of whichever way your catalog backup is being backed up that you have at least 2 copies of your netbackup catalog because it gives you more than single point of failure.

yes you should activate multiple copies on all your catalog backups if you can afford time slot and availability wise but if you can't then try to do multiple copies at least on full catalog backup.

[Ron_Cohn]

With NetBackup Vault, I create 2 copies each day which go offsite.  I have them on a 5 day rotation.  My standard tapes are on a completely different retention schedule.

[Rakesh_Khandelw]

Best practice, always keep your catalog retention higher than your backups.

Since you mentioned you get DR info from catalog backup, which means you are performing HOT/online catalog backup and for the records you define retention period in your schedule under policy for these backups.

Though you have DR info, you should still keep catalog backup tape along with your offsite backup tape. DR info provides you report on which tape has backup images for your critical policies. In the event of DR if you do not have catalog tape you will have to import all the tapes and you can priortize it based on which tape belongs to the critical backups. But if you have catalog tape, all you need to do is recover from one single tape instead of multiple tapes.

Someone made the comment that you can not define the retention on catalog backup, that's the case with traditional  catalog backups only. Catalog backups performed through vault and online catalog backup in 6.0 onwards have retention period associated with them.

If you can afford additional media tape and time then it's good to have two copies just in case somebody drops or some other environmental related issue cause  the only media tape for catalog backup to go bad.



Message Edited by Rakesh Khandelwal on 01-08-2008 12:25 PM

[Ron_Cohn]

A Catalog Vault is the state of the catalog after a vault has occured.  This is your most current information.  Since we have a daily rotation to our offsite vault, a 2 month old catalog tape is useless and wasteful.  As long as the +0 and -1 (mainframe terms) of the tape are in our offsite vault, this is all that is required (we actually keep 5 days in our vault).  Why keep anything longer?

[Stumpr2]

---

Rakesh Khandelwal wrote:


... that's the case with traditional  catalog backups only. Catalog backups performed through vault and online catalog backup in 6.0 onwards have retention period associated with them.

---

The retention on a pre 6.x vaulted catalog tape does not effect the usability. The purpose is merely for keeping track of when it should be broughjt back on site. When it is brought back on site it can be used via bprecover regardless of the retention period that was assigned to it.

[Chuck_Stevens]

We vault a catalog every morning, with three-day retention.  We also write daily catalogs kept on-site, with a one-day retention.

[Thomas_Olsen]

Hi All

Thanks a lot to all of you for very good feedback on this topic.

I guess I should consider doing some changes to my Catalog Backup policy (retention, multiple copies, etc).

Regards,

Thomas

[Harpreet_Singh_]

Hi,

 

In my environment, I have 5 sets of backup tapes. Means Ist set will be over written after 5th week. But I use the same policies for every week.

 

i.e. SUN001, MON001M TUE001 … SAT001. right now I have set the retention period to 5 days for all the policies. How can retain the catalog backup of Ist week’s backup so after 4 weeks I can re-store back without importing the catalog. Right now I am ver 6.0 and going to upgrade to Ver 6.5.

 

In ArcServer backup software the backup goes via session ID ie. SUN001xxxxx. Means every backup has a unique session ID. So I can restore the backup without importing the catalog.

 

Please advise If  I can do in Veritas too.

 

With Regards.

 

Harpreet Singh

Harpreet_singh@ctl.creative.com