Selective Catalog backup within 7.5

[wojo]

Hi again and thank you in advance for your assistance.

I have a HP-UX master running 7.5.0.6. The catalog backup is quite large and the client has not been keeping the production and matching DR servers sync'd as far as file system size. Upon arriving at the DR, the initial catalog restore failed due to not enough space. I tried to create more space, but unfortunately not enough. Is there a way to restore the catalog for only the clients I'm attempting to restore?

And, moving forward, is there a way to a catalog backup for only the clients that I wish to restore at the next DR?

Thanks again!

[mph999]

For the first part, you can use recovery without import. http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH28722 For the second part possibley - you could take a regular cat back, then copy across just the image dirs of the clients in question. You'll have 'NBCC' issues, but these won;t be a problem on a DR server - never done it, but I think it would work. Other possiblity is as above, but using the 'full catalog tape' - browse this as a regular backup by selection nbu-catalog as policy type in the BAR gui, and select everything, apart from the clients you don't want to restore. Again, never done it so only an idea. TBH, the solution is to add space in the DR server, what you have at the moment is not a proper DR solution. M

[wojo]

Oh I know the DR solution is not proper, but the box is out of my control. I'm just trying to salvage a DR exercise that I've been asked to support. Thanks again for the above suggestions.

[mph999]

Yep, appreciate it isn't your doing ...  Perhaps you could make some suggestions.

[wojo]

The above suggestions were not tried by the client as it was felt that the 'recovery without import' was not going to give them the space needed to recover the catalog.

What was tried by the customer is as follows:

restart the catalog recovery via bprecover

cd /usr/openv/netbackup/db/images

rm unwanted image files as they are written in order to keep size within limits; only leave desired clients for DR exercise in place.

remove/rebuild all devices

proceed with restores

Isnt there a Symantec approved/supported way of doing this?

very uncomfortable running adhoc solution as I could get different results every time I do the above for them.

[Marianne]

.... it was felt that the 'recovery without import' was not going to give them the space needed  ....

Not sure what you mean here?

With Recovery Without Import you copy only the catalog folders you need to restore from.

[wojo]

The customer went to the suggested link and read the solution (as posted) and felt that limiting tape and device info would not give them the desired affect to free up sufficient space.

'This paper describes the "recovery without import" method of disaster recovery in
which image data held in the NetBackup catalog is recovered at the disaster recovery
 site but aspects like tape assignments and device configurations are not recovered.'

Then we went into the suggested document and read the section associated with 'Changes to partial catalog recovery in NetBackup 7.5' and the supporting line, '1. Restores the image database component of the flat file database (/usr/openv/netbackup/db/images or the Windows equivalent) to its original location.'

This again was not what they were looking for as they wanted to limit the restore of images in order to regain needed space.

The issue is that they were hoping for a solution that would allow them to fit a 2TB catalog into a 1.6TB space.

I'm sorry if I'm missing something as far as process put forth by the documentation, but I'm not really seeing

the steps needed in order to give the client  what they want without trial and error........

Is there a way to do a partial/selective restore of the image database component of the flat file database (/usr/openv/netbackup/db/images) ?

Again, Thank you for your patience.

[mph999 · Accepted solution]

My suggested steps would work - recover the NBDB (not that large) and then browse the catalog tape as a normal backup and select only the clients you want to resore under /usr/openv/netbackup/db/images ... Provding NBU is installed at the same version and has no issues, the fact that you ae not recovering all the NBU config files should matter, though you can pick and chose what you want as you browse the catalog tape. I can't think of any other way, this as you are aware, is not (proper) DR as you are not recovering the catalog as it was - it is probably also unsupported, but that it what happens when the DR system is insufficient to meet requirements of a proper DR - though I can't see why it won't work - you would probably need to reconfigure drives, but there is a wizard so thats easy enough.