cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Netbackup Catalog Deduplication

milanda
Level 4

I have a few questions --

  • Is netbackup catalog backup applicable for deduplication
  • If a  policy is deactivated and activated again will it be considered as a modified policy and still be applicable for the deduplication
9 REPLIES 9

sdo
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Certified

1) Yes, catalog backups can be deduplicated, but in some scenarios, sometimes it is best to not leave your only copy of a catalog backup in a deduplication pool/device/server.  Some of us prefer to keep the most recent few catalog backups on tape, or basic disk, or advanced disk.

2) A re-activaed policy is not considered as a modified policy, in so far as all clients will not be considered to have changed nor appear to be new.  Yes, the usual deduplication will still be ok.  But really it depends how long the policy was deactivated for.  If the policy was only de-activated for a few minutes or hours, then you shouldn't notice anything.  If it was deactivated for several weeks, then previous backups may have since expired from dedupe storage, in which case all backups of all clients in the policy may become effective new full backups.

Marianne
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified
I personally prefer NOT to backup catalog to dedupe or advanced disk. If you lose your master server, restore from dedupe or advanced disk needs additional steps. Restore from tape or basic disk is quick and easy.

mph999
Level 6
Employee Accredited

I would really really really really really really really really really really really really  NOT recommend 'deduping' the catalog backup.

 

sdo
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Certified
@milanda - you have some great advice there. Whilst you can dedupe the catalog backup, most of us wouldn't actually do that. When designing/scoping new builds, it is worth ensuring that the catalog backup is saved to "easy to recover from" type storage. BTW, this should not be thought of as a NetBackup limitation... *all* backup products must suffer the same considerations. Anyone that says otherwise is stretching the truth.

milanda
Level 4

 

Thanks all for the posts/suggestions --

However --

In our environment we tested for the catalog backup deduplication

We had the ddboost plugins on the media server and started the catalog backups on the DataDomain. The Storage type for the diskpool being OST-DataDomain.

We did not find any deduplication taking place also the catalog backup grabbed each and every file in the catalog db.

Not sure why the data was not deduplicated any thoughts on that would be really helpful.... :)

mph999
Level 6
Employee Accredited

The first copy of the backup won't dedup much, if at all.  Try again and you'll should see 'dedup happening'.

However, I still don't recommend it.   The catalog is the most important backup you have, and catalog recovery from anything but basic disk, advanced disk or tape can be problamatic.

 

milanda
Level 4

A full backup was run twice but no effect on the size of the the catalog backups backed up. It takes same time and size for all the copies...

Can it be since its a database it doesn't get deduped...?

sdo
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Certified

Show us screen shots, or text.

Marianne
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified
Where are you looking for dedupe stats? In NBU or DataDomain? Please show us what you see.