Netbackup Catalog retention

[def1010]

Hi there, 

I'm reviewing our retention periods for off-site catalog backups using Netbackup 7.5. We take tapes offsite every week and do a daily full catalog backup to tape on a one day retention. My question is, what retention period should be set for the off site catalog? If the catalog tape expires while it is off-site does that mean it would be impossible to recover it using the disaster recovery file? We aren't using vault, just standard Netbackup.

Any help on this would be great

Cheers

Ed

[mph999 · Accepted solution]

As soon as you take a new catalog backup, the old one is 'out-of-date' - of course, if you take incrementals you need to keep all the incrementals back to the previous full, including the full.   As restores can fail, I would certainly keep a few previous, if the system is lost restoring a slightly out-of-date caatlog is better than not having any at all.

If a catalog tape expires, it can still be used, providing it is not overwritten.

Just occassionally, we get issues where looking back at an old catalog take is required, even though we won't be recovering the catalog, it can give 'evidence' in certian cases.  For this reason, I would recommend keeping at the minimum a months worth.

Martin

[def1010]

Martin, thanks for the confirmation, much appreciated

Cheers

Ed