Temporary apply MP7 only on master

[Mindaugas_Lauci]

Hi,

I'm in the middle of upgrading my 6.0 MP5 environment to 6.5.3. I'm thinking of applying MP7 on master few weeks before I'll move to 6.5.3. I would like to utilize catalog archiving feature, which is not working in MP5 prior the upgrade. My catalog is ~250gb at the moment and I believe archiving would shrink it at least 50%... So it would help me a lot during upgrade. I'm upgrading hardware at the same time, so I'll have to backup/restore catalog on new server before I upgrade NB to 6.5.3.

What you guys think about this plan? Would it be OK to have MP7 on master for few weeks, while media servers would stay at MP5?

Thanks!

[Nathan_Kippen]

As far as compatibility it your proposal will work.  I don't know if archiving is going help all that much in the transition.

[YK]

If catalog size is an issue, you can compress your catalog by tick "Compress catalog interval" after x days. The compression saved us 50% space, reduced the catalog size from 400GB to 200GB. 

So, it's better to upgrade to 6.5.3 instead of temp MP7 upgrade.

[Mindaugas_Lauci]

Hi,

Yes, I had this feature in my mind.

My goal is to upgrade to 6.5.3, but our catalog is ~250gb right now and it would take more than 10 hours to backup and restore it. So if I would be able to shrink catalog by 50%, I would save at least 5 hours of waiting time..

My main question if would 6.0 MP7 master work with 6.0 MP5 media servers and 6.0 MP4 clients... This configuration would be in place only for two weeks.

Message Edited by Mindaugas Laucius on 02-18-2009 04:27 PM

[udubplate]

Not sure if its what you're experiencing or not exactly, but there was a bug in MP5 which impacted the ability to restore from a compressed catalog. If that is why you are not able to utilize catalog archiving as mentioned in your post, there is a hotfix available from Symantec that will patch your existing 6.0 MP5 install without having to go to 6.0 MP7 before 6.5.x if you want to get your catalog compressed before upgrading to 6.5.x.

[Mindaugas_Lauci]

Hi,

Thanks for the answer.

Bug fix would work too, but where I could get it. I don't think Symantec will give me bug fix then MP6 or MP7 are out...

[Anton_Panyushki]

1. You can ask Symantec support to send you a binary patch. I'm sure they won't refuse to offer you a couple of files. I personally pretty used to this approach of bug-fixing.

2. Have you any other means of catalog protection except tape backup? If I were in your shoes, I'd consider disk mirroring. So you can break mirror before upgrade to 6.5.x and use the submirror with your old catalog in case of failback.

[Mindaugas_Lauci]

I'll try to contact Symantec support.

I backup our catalog to tape. In my case I'm also upgrading hardware, so I'll have brand new server, other HDD and so on. Actually currently I have NetBackup installed on SAN attached disk, so mirror brake won't work for me. On new server I'm planning to initial NetBackup on local drive. I will have to backup catalog before server swap, and restore it to new server. So any time savings are important to me.

[Anton_Panyushki]

Well, if you have NetBackup catalog on SAN attached disk, I suppose the LUN where the catalog resides belongs to a disk array so you've got two options to take advantage of mirrorring feature

1. Use hardware mirroring (business copy, shadowImage etc)

2. Use VxVM mirroring and DGSJ.