Storing data

[pct3ch]

Hi All!

I recently took over the job of performing backups using Netbackup 3.4 and have a couple of newbie question about backups.

1.Once a backup has been succesfully stored on a tape, do I just remove it and take it off-site?
2.Will I still be able to use the tape I removed?
3.Are there any commands I should use?
4.Should I label the tapes with the ID number?
5.Any tips on restoring the data?

I did a search but couldn't find my answer.

Thanks for your help!

 

[sdeb]

1- If you want !
2- Yes, media info is stored in netbackup catalogs.
3- No (maybe if the media has expired)
4- Netbackup uses the barcode to label the tape
5- Be patient !

Hope this helps.

 

[pct3ch]

Thanks but I was hoping for more info.

To elaborate on #1. I will be taking the tapes of full backups of our network storage off-site. When I do this by removing the tapes, will I be able to perform a restore of the tape a month or so later when needed?

Do I expire the media before I take it out? What does expiring do? Does it make it not usable?

I was trying to get on the veritas site but it wasn't available.

 

[sdeb]

Images on the tape will remain in your catalogs as long as you decided it in your schedule/policie.

So Netbackup don't care if the tape is inside our outside the robot because retention is managed through is catalog.

For exemple you can launch a backup today and decide to protect images written on the tape for 2 months.
If you extract the tape tomorrow you will still be able to view the tape content through the "USer backup/recover" interface, because you query the catalogs.

The only "problem" is if you want to restore data from that tape wich is outside the robot, Netbackup will tell you that it need it (just a warning message).

Then after two months, if all images on tapes are expired on media (and some other criterias, but its only an example), it will become eligible for recycling.

So you can extract tape from the robot without any danger.
Expiration remove the protection of an image and put it in a kind of "not protected mode".
Even an expired image could be re-read if it as not been overwritten.

Hope this helps ! (Again!)

 

[sdeb]

I just forget something !

Catalogs are stored on disk, that's why it doesn't need the tape to be "online".

 

[pct3ch]

Thanks a lot for your help!

I just wanted to make sure that the tapes I remove will still be able to be restored a month or a year after it's removed from the robot.

One last question...how would I view the catalog?

Thanks again

 

[sdeb]

In older versions Catalog was a flat file so we were able to view its content by this way.

But the easier way to query the catalog is to launch a reciver and to view available versions for a netbackup client.
You can also query a part of the catalog by using reports.
Another way (most powerfull) is to use command-lines, and think you could do whatever you want with it (view by date, by expiration, by client...).

A votre service !