client migration from backup exec to netbackup

[cimo]

Hello everybody! we are planning to migrate a Backup Exec installation to a new Netbackup installation.

the questions are:

Is it mandatory to uninstall backup exec client before installing netbackup client? Are some library/exe shared that can create some issue or conflict? Are there some best practices to follow?

Thank you very much!

Simone

[sksujeet]

We answered the same question yesterday https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/backup-exec-netbackup-migration Yes it is recommended to uninstall BE from server if you are planning to install NBU on same server as there are lot of conflictions and might cause issues.

[cimo]

And what can I do if I need to restore some old backup that reside on BE ?

Thank you very much.

Simone

[sksujeet · Accepted solution]

If you read the other Forum, if you want to restore from the old BE then make sure you keep the BE server intact and install the NBU on the new server. As far as remote clients restores are concerned you don;t get much restores. Whenever you get small restores you can always redirect the restore to the same BE server and then copy paste the file to target client.If you get a complete restore of server or very huge data then simply install the BE agent again as it hardly takes 5 minutes and no need to reboot the box. In our environment we had couple of machines with both BE and NBU client agent existing without any issues but recently we had some issues and Symantec suggested to uninstall one of the agent from the servers. We hardly get any restores and if any we follow the above stratergy.

[sksujeet]

Just to make it more clear make sure never install a NBU Master/Media software and BE software on the same machine. It is definately a NO NO to install 2 different backup base software on the same machine. Also it is not recommended to install BE remote agent on any of the Master or Media server.

[Mark_Solutions]

I have had customers that insisted on keeping the Backup Exec agents installed (services stopped and disabled) and they have been OK - but when ever possible i ask them to uninstall it! But I usually advise just to keep the main BUE server available or at least run a report or two so that they know what data is on what tapes and then if a restore is needed to import the tape into NetBackup and then do the restore from NetBackup Most Backup Exec data can be imported into NetBackup so it makes life fairly easy Hope this helps

[cimo]

I finally realized that my customer considers "out of scope" the old "BE executed" backups, so I don't care about this old backups. The last question is:

is it recommended to reboot the server after uninstalling BE client? I can get some problems to get a "safe time windows" to stop the customer application for the reboot.

Thank you very much for your fast answers.

Best Regards

Simone

[cimo]

Ok, that's all!

Thank you very much!

[sksujeet]

Nope no need and it won't ask for reboot, you can do it anytime if you want. But reboot it once whenever you can, the reason being we recently had an issue where virtfile.sys( one of BE file ) was causing the server to reboot and it won't get removed as it is kernel level drive unless you reboot it.