Vault configurations

[liuyang]

Hi, I installed Vault my master server. I have another media server. Both master server and media server are NBU 7.0.1 on Windows 2008 R2. My tape library is IBM TS3310 with 6 FC LTO5 tape drives. I plan to use Vault to duplicate backup images from production tape to offsite tape.

I have a few questions regarding Vault configurations:

1. What is the recommended retention for offsite tape and Vault catalog? Should Vault catalog retention be longer than backup images? Assume the company requires 7 years retention.

2. If the backup images in the offsite tape expire, can I still restore the backup images? If can, how to do that?

3. Currently the Vault uses the media server's storage unit for duplication. I found it is about 100GB/hrs to duplicate backup images from production tape to offsite tape. My data is over 1TB. Is there a way to increase the speed?

4. When Vault is doing the duplication, it can only do one Vault job at a time. If I start another Vault job, that job will queue. There is a message which said it reaches resource limit. Is it possbile to run two or more Vault jobs concurrently?

5. When Vault is doing the duplication, I cannot perform backup and/or restore jobs via media server. This is because the media server is used by Vault. Is there a way to run backup/restore when Vault jobs are running? Do I need to add another media server?

Thanks.

[HEMANPR]

Hello

Here my opinion (BTW Sorry for my English):

1. What is the recommended retention for offsite tape and Vault catalog? Should Vault catalog retention be longer than backup images? Assume the company requires 7 years retention.

Daily Dup = 30 Days Retention

Monthly Dup = 1 Year Retention

Yearly Dup = 10 Years Retention

With those 3 type of retention, you pass all the audit regulations.

2. If the backup images in the offsite tape expire, can I still restore the backup images? If can, how to do that?

Yes, Just insert the tape with the lock on, go to catalog and search on Tape ID and you will see the images on the tape. Then Just Import the image.

3. Currently the Vault uses the media server's storage unit for duplication. I found it is about 100GB/hrs to duplicate backup images from production tape to offsite tape. My data is over 1TB. Is there a way to increase the speed?

The speed will be more faster just If you have a good LTO Drive (LTO4 or better)

Currently I duplicated 8TB on 6 LTO2 drives This take me almost 24hrs

I do the same dupplication on 2 LTO4 drives and my duplicated are complete in 11hrs.

4. When Vault is doing the duplication, it can only do one Vault job at a time. If I start another Vault job, that job will queue. There is a message which said it reaches resource limit. Is it possbile to run two or more Vault jobs concurrently?

You can run just 1 Profile at same time ( You can have many Vault Profiles) If you set 2 Vault (Same Profile) Then you will be see 1 running and the other on Queue. You can run differents Vault Profiles at same time.

5. When Vault is doing the duplication, I cannot perform backup and/or restore jobs via media server. This is because the media server is used by Vault. Is there a way to run backup/restore when Vault jobs are running? Do I need to add another media server?

I have my master server doing the Vault Jobs on my site, I can perform backups and restore at same time. You need to check what is wrong on your config because this is possible to do on the same Master/Media server. If you have just 2 drives (Example) and you set 2 drives for use on Vault Job, Then you will be see the Backup and Restore on Queue because drives are in use.

[RonCaplinger]

The NBU Catalog Backup should be run at least once per day (we run ours twice), and kept for, maybe, 30 days.  You would only need to recover the NBU catalog from the most recent version; the previous versions might only be needed if you found a problem with the most recent one.

You can still recover the expired images on tapes that are offsite, but it is going to be a multi-step process.  When a backup image on a tape expires, the data is still on the tape, but all information on what files are stored within that image has been removed from the NetBackup Catalog.  In order to ever recover any data on the tape, you have to first import the tape (which is a two-step process) so that NetBackup can identify all the files within the image.  Once that is done, then you can restore data from those images.

I don't know what you are using for connectivity between onsite/offsite, but I would not recommend duplicating tape backups across a WAN.  Espeicially if you are using LTO4 or LTO5, which require much faster streming speeds to keep the drives from shoe-shining.  If this is going to be an ongoing process, you would probably want to look at some disk-based deduplication technology.  NetBackup has dedupe tech available, and there are hardware vendors (Data Domain) that also work great with NetBackup and can deduplicate data on disk and across locations using OST.

You can create and run more than one Vault Profile in a Vault Name at once.  You can also select how many drives to read from and write to.

Vault should not be preventing a media server from being used.  You do not need a separate media server for that.  But if you have netBackup misconfigured and are limiting the number of jobs per Storage Unit, that could expalin why no other jobs will run at that time.

[liuyang]

Thanks a lot for your replies. They are really helpful to me.

I have a few more questions regarding Vault:

1. I created one offsite volume pool for each type of servers, e.g, offsite volume pool for duplication backup images of database servers, another volume pool for duplication backup images of exchange servers. Can I mark tape media full after duplication of backup images to tape in the offsite volume pool?

For example, everyday I duplicate yesterday's full backup of exchange servers to tape. I want the duplication job to write to a new tape everyday when it starts to run. I know some other backup software has mark media full option, so the next job will start to write to a new tape media. Can I do that in NBU?

2. When I export media from an offsite volume pool, can I choose which media to export? Or all media in that particular offsite volume pool will be export?

3. Is it possbile to export the tape when the duplication job completes? According to best practise in NBU Vault admin guide, I shall create two profile: one for duplication, one for eject.

Thanks.

[Rajesh_s1]

1. You can not mark the tape as full instead you can use "suspend" . Right click on the media and click suspend.

Suspended
 Indicates that the volume cannot be used for further backups until retention periods for all backups on it have expired. (The bpmedia command can also be used to suspend or unsuspend volumes.)

In Netbackup untill a media is full or it hasn't used by some other backup i.e. if the media is not removed from libaray then in that case same media will be used . It is as simple as a media which was written earlier and still some space in free then the same tape will be used insted looking for a new free tape.

I am not getting why are you looking for changing medias every day , by doing this you may end up with unused free space in medias (Space wastage)

2. You can eject which ever media you like , just right click on the media/medias and clieck eject volume from robot .

3. You can eject manually / automatically once vault completes .

[liuyang]

Thanks a lot for your replies.

I understand I can right click and select eject to eject a specific tape media. But I am not sure how to automate this process.

I have another question:

1) I create a few vault profiles in a vault. Each profile duplicate backup images of a certain type of servers. Do I need to backup Vault catalog in every profile? Or I just need to backup Vault catalog in the last duplication profile?

Thanks.

[HEMANPR · Accepted solution]

Hello liuyang:

If my last post help you to resolve this issue, please mark as solution. Thanks

Hello

Here my opinion (BTW Sorry for my English):

1. What is the recommended retention for offsite tape and Vault catalog? Should Vault catalog retention be longer than backup images? Assume the company requires 7 years retention.

Daily Dup = 30 Days Retention

Monthly Dup = 1 Year Retention

Yearly Dup = 10 Years Retention

With those 3 type of retention, you pass all the audit regulations.

2. If the backup images in the offsite tape expire, can I still restore the backup images? If can, how to do that?

Yes, Just insert the tape with the lock on, go to catalog and search on Tape ID and you will see the images on the tape. Then Just Import the image.

3. Currently the Vault uses the media server's storage unit for duplication. I found it is about 100GB/hrs to duplicate backup images from production tape to offsite tape. My data is over 1TB. Is there a way to increase the speed?

The speed will be more faster just If you have a good LTO Drive (LTO4 or better)

Currently I duplicated 8TB on 6 LTO2 drives This take me almost 24hrs

I do the same dupplication on 2 LTO4 drives and my duplicated are complete in 11hrs.

4. When Vault is doing the duplication, it can only do one Vault job at a time. If I start another Vault job, that job will queue. There is a message which said it reaches resource limit. Is it possbile to run two or more Vault jobs concurrently?

You can run just 1 Profile at same time ( You can have many Vault Profiles) If you set 2 Vault (Same Profile) Then you will be see 1 running and the other on Queue. You can run differents Vault Profiles at same time.

5. When Vault is doing the duplication, I cannot perform backup and/or restore jobs via media server. This is because the media server is used by Vault. Is there a way to run backup/restore when Vault jobs are running? Do I need to add another media server?

I have my master server doing the Vault Jobs on my site, I can perform backups and restore at same time. You need to check what is wrong on your config because this is possible to do on the same Master/Media server. If you have just 2 drives (Example) and you set 2 drives for use on Vault Job, Then you will be see the Backup and Restore on Queue because drives are in use.