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Windows Server Backup to backup NBU master

Zippo0526
Level 3

Hello,

Wondering thi viability if using Windows Server backup to back up our master server in the event of a disaster.  I know NBU has it's own catalog recovery options but jut wondering on if there i any reason it would not work.

Thanks,

Scott

5 REPLIES 5

RamNagalla
Moderator
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yes, it is not recomendened way to backup of master server database..

during the catalog backup one job perfrom the staging of the database before it takes into backup to ensure the consistancy of the backup, i am not sure how windows backup accomplish this.

Netbackup support team may not help you  in recover of the database in case you ran in to any issues while doing the recovery from windows backup.

and i am curious to know.. why you are trying to take this route instead of catalog backup? do you see any challanges in catalog backup?

Mike_Gavrilov
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During "traditional" master-server recovery you need to:

1. Re-install OS

2. Re-install NBU

3. Re-connect  storage devices

4. Recover NBU Catalog

5. Re-install another software

If you want to speed up Master sever recovery AFAIK you can combine two methods: you can backup your server using Windows Server backup (because it can give you ability to recover whole system during re-installation if you use network shared drive for backup) but you _MUST_ backup NBU Catalog too (using NBU-Catalog policy type) to be able to recover NBU Catalog correctly. Don't use Windows Server backup to backup everything because you might end up with corrupted NBDB. 

Just looking for an easier way to recover from a disaster.]

I inherited the NBU administration job a bit ago.  We went from tape to disk storage.  It was not fun to setup and we had some professional services that left us short on documentation.  Frankly I worry I can setup the storage properly again.  I don't even care if I don't back up the database as I am getting that through NBU but I would love to capture the setup to import the cats to.

Also something I have to figure out is how to move my catalogs off of local disk.  Yes I know it is bad to keep there and we reciently had a controller failure that is making us look at all these things.  Did I mention I inherited this setup? 

Thanks for the replies.

Scott

Marianne
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The reason why a MS-Windows policy will not work is because of the relational database. This database cannot be backed up with file-level backup while online.
Catalog policy has a special way of dumping the database to staging area and then backed up with rest of catalog files.

Please read through the Disaster recovery chapter of NBU Troubleshooting Guide.

mph999
Level 6
Employee Accredited

Once the OS and NBU is installed (or I should say re-installed) the catalog recovery will, using the DR file, recover 'everything'.

The DR file contains all the information NBU needs to run the catalog restore, which is effect, just any other backup.

The only additional step before running the catalog restore would be to set up the storage were teh catalog backup lives, for example:

Add the robot and tape drives back in, and run a robot inventory

Add the disk storage back

There is a slight complication if the catalog backup is on disk, as you need to get the media ID (example, either /some/path/to/basicdisk or @aaaad ) to match what is in the DR file.  If basic disk, it's easy just use the same path. If advanced disk or OST and the current media ID is @aaaab, it's also easy, as recreating the storage would give it the same media ID, as this is the first media ID allocated.  If it is currently say, @aaaaf it's a bit harder, as you would need to use nbcatsync to get the media ID in the DR file in sync with the media ID of the storage.

I really hope your catalog backup is on tape, as this really is the safest place for it.  If it is on disk, do you have multiple copies of it, as in the case of disk failure you could lose everything.  Unless you are using AIR, it's kinda difficult to get an offsite copy of the catalog, unless you have SAN attached storgage or similar that is in a different location than the master server.

I realy wouldn't recommend backing up the catalog to MSDP.