Restoring Data from Duplicated Tapes

[SteveDown]

Hi all,

During the past couple of weeks I have been importing and duplicating tapes that were used to backup systems such as Sharepoint and Exchange.

These were initially being backed up to many LTO2 tapes,  and I have now successfully completed duplicating and appending these backups to 3 LTO6 tapes.

Due to my lack of experience with Netbackup, and never having restored data before. I'd like to know how I can identify the various tape sessions that were created for the numerous environments that existed. Ultimately, I need to identify how I can rebuild an environment such as Sharepoint using the data I have to hand.

I'm using NB v6.0 on Server 2003.

Thanks,

Steve

[RiaanBadenhorst]

Hi Steve,

Just to clarify, you had a bunch of media with backups on them from some other domain, or backups that had expired but you still had the media available and probably in a write protected state.

So you proceeded to import them. And once imported you duplcated them to LTO6.

NetBackup doesn't have "tape sessions" as you call it. We create backup images, and those images are kept on tape/disk. During your imports you might have seen reference such as clientname__1409261547. This is a combination of clientname and a timestamp.

You can query the catalog for these images by using the Catalog section in the Remote administration console, or you can do it via cli using bpimagelist. In both cases you'd specify the client name and the start/end for your search.

NetBackup would then come back with a list showing you where the images reside. In your case it would be some LTO2 and LTO6 tapes (unless you expired the images from LTO2 media already).

Alternatively you can use the bpimmedia command to query what is on a media. The output of this command would be the actual images (clientname__1409261547).

Bpimagelist would also give you information about what type of backup it was. In case you didn't know.

I hope that helps.

[GulzarShaikhAUS · Accepted solution]

HI Steve,

Each copy has a copy number assiciated with it. First backup is primary copy and assigned copy no.1. Subsequent copies get subsequent numbers like copy 2 , 3, and so on. 

In order to restore from a specific tape first you need to identify the copy number by looking into catalog. You can find the copy on the LTO6 drive by looking at the destination which will be a LTO6 tape. Then if you want to restore the data in the same envionrment you first need to make that primary copy so that this copy is used for restore. In case you want to restore it in a different Netbackup environment, you need to import those tapes and then perform restore.

[areznik]

Not really sure what you're asking...

If you just want to list the backup images and copies you can use the "Images on Media" or "Images on Tape" report in the GUI. This will show you all the images you have for a specific client (or all clients) and any copies of these images. 

If you want to change anything, you can run a "Verify" search under the Catalog section of the GUI. This will show you about the same info as the report above, but you will also be able to do things like initiate more copies, or make certain copies the primary. Netbackup will by default restore from the primary copy so you will want to set that here if you want to restore from the new tapes you wrote. 

All this can be done from the CLI as well.

HTH

[SteveDown]

Hi Riaan,

Your bang on with your clarification of the processes that I have followed so far.

During the import and duplication process I ensured each tape was set as the primary, I also spotted the clientname which was shown in the 'File list' part of the window.

In the Catalog section and to view the duplicated tapes, under Verify I see all the Policy Names and Media ID of the new tapes.

My next step is to attempt a test restore, however when I click the Backup/Restore window and click the Restore button, I'm struggling to understand how to restore data from the duplicated tapes.

Cheers,

Steve

[RiaanBadenhorst]

Hi Steve,

Ok that's good. Your best bet is to get onto the support site and download the guide for each application you're trying to restore, they have different processes in certain cases.

If I recall correctly you were running an old vesion, so the version 7 docs might closely resemble what you're seeing https://support.symantec.com/en_US/article.TECH126327.html

Please try and upgrade to the latest. Otherwise if your restores fail you'll and you don't have a supported configuration you're stuck.

[SteveDown]

Hi Riaan,

I've read through the documentation and looked at other threads for importing and restoring. I am however discombobulated as I'm not seeing anything that I can restore in the BAR.

[RiaanBadenhorst]

To recover an Exchange database

1. On the master server, open the Backup, Archive, and Restore interface.
2. Click File > Specify NetBackup Machines and Policy Type.
3. In the Specify NetBackup Machines and Policy Type dialog box, specify the following:
   
   Server to use for backups and restores >> Select the NetBackup server that performed the backup. Source client for restores >> Select the client from which the backup was performed. For a clustered or DAG environment, this client is the virtual DAG name or the virtual cluster name.
   Policy type for restores >> Select MS-Exchange-Server.
   Destination clients for restores >> Select the client where you want to direct the restore. This client is either the alternate or the repaired Exchange server.
4. Click OK.
5. Restore the databases and transaction logs.

[SteveDown]

Okay, I figured it out... me being a nitwit...

In the BAR, I need to specify each client name. I assumed this information was part of the import process. Rather surpisingly for this product, it would appear that I need to manually type in all of the client names. That's going to keep me busy for a while.

[RiaanBadenhorst · Accepted solution]

Yes BAR is a client component, so default behaviour is for it to just no about itself.