Veritas NetBackup™ in Highly Available Environments Administrator's Guide

Last Published:
Product(s): NetBackup (8.1.1, 8.1)
  1. NetBackup protection against single points of failure
    1. About protecting against component failures
      1.  
        About protecting against network link failures
      2. About protecting against storage device connection failures
        1.  
          About protecting against SAN connection failures
        2.  
          About protecting against robotic control connection failures
      3.  
        About protecting against storage device failure
      4.  
        About protecting against media availability failures
      5.  
        About protecting against master server failures
      6. About protecting against media server failures
        1.  
          About protecting against dedicated media server failures
        2.  
          About protecting against non-dedicated media servers failures
        3.  
          About protecting against SAN media server failures
        4.  
          Restoring tape backups using an alternative media server
        5.  
          Restoring disk backups using an alternative media server.
      7.  
        About protecting against LAN client failures
      8.  
        About protecting against SAN client failures
    2.  
      About protecting against site failures
    3.  
      About protecting catalog in highly available environments
  2. About site disaster recovery with catalog backup and recovery
    1.  
      Disaster recovery packages
    2. About catalog recovery
      1.  
        About full catalog recovery
      2.  
        Performing full catalog restore
      3.  
        Making the DR environment consistent after a full catalog restore
      4.  
        About partial catalog recovery
      5.  
        Performing partial catalog restore
      6.  
        Making the DR environment consistent after a partial catalog restore
    3. About disk recovery in DR domain
      1.  
        Disk recovery in single-domain replication DR environment
      2.  
        Auto Image Replication
      3.  
        Disk recovery in cross-domain replication DR environment
  3. About site loss protection with auto image and catalog replication
    1.  
      About Auto Image Replication (AIR)
    2. About NetBackup catalog replication
      1.  
        About conditions for support of replicated NetBackup catalogs
      2.  
        About catalog synchronization
      3. About multi-site single domain replication
        1.  
          About multi-site single domain with stretched SAN
        2.  
          About multi-site single domain with optimized duplication
      4. About multi-site cross domain replication
        1.  
          About multi-site cross domain and BasicDisk storage
        2.  
          Planning a cross domain replication disaster recovery domain
      5. About full catalog replication
        1.  
          Recovering the catalog with full catalog replication
        2.  
          Making the DR environment consistent with full catalog replication
      6. About partial catalog replication
        1.  
          Preparing an environment for partial catalog replication
        2.  
          Recovering the environment with partial catalog replication
        3.  
          Making the disaster recovery environment consistent with partial catalog replication
        4.  
          Considerations for managing tapes with partial catalog replication
  4. Deploying NetBackup master servers with full catalog replication
    1.  
      About replication considerations
  5. Using NetBackup to perform backups and restores in a cluster
    1. About backups and restores with NetBackup in a cluster
      1.  
        Performing user-directed backups with NetBackup in a cluster
      2. About restoring data in a cluster
        1.  
          Example: Performing a user-directed restore in a NetBackup cluster
    2. About supported NetBackup application agents in a cluster
      1.  
        About backing up database files in a cluster
      2.  
        About user backups
      3.  
        About NetBackup client in a cluster

Restoring disk backups using an alternative media server.

NetBackup can share disk storage pools between multiple media servers. During restore, by default, NetBackup balances the job load and automatically directs the restore to the least busy media server rather than the one that made the backup. However, this process can cause problems if the media server selected to perform the restore is licensed as a SAN media server or does not have network access to the client which requires a restore.

There are three options available if you encounter this problem:

  • Configure the force restore media server setting as follows:

    • On UNIX and Linux master servers, you create FORCE_RESTORE_MEDIA_SERVER entry in the bp.conf file.

    • On Windows master server, you can define this setting in the NetBackup Administration Console.

      Go to Host Properties > Master Server.

      This setting works on a per-server basis. It lets you specify a media server for restore operations based on the media server that is used to make the backup. To ensure that the same media server is used to make the backup and the restore, specify the same name for the backup and restore server.

  • Create the touch file USE_BACKUP_MEDIA_SERVER_FOR_RESTORE, as follows:

    • On UNIX and Linux master server, create the file in /usr/openv/netbackup/db/config

    • On Windows master server, create the file in <install path>\veritas\netbackup\db\config.

      USE_BACKUP_MEDIA_SERVER_FOR_RESTORE is a global setting and always forces restore to the server that did the backup.

    Note:

    When the USE_BACKUP_MEDIA_SERVER_FOR_RESTORE touch file is created, all FAILOVER_RESTORE_MEDIA_SERVER and FORCE_RESTORE_MEDIA_SERVER settings are ignored.

  • Run the restore from the command line using the bprestore -disk_media_server command. This setting works on a per job level. It also lets you specify the media server that is required for the specific restore job. Unlike the other two options, this setting is dynamic and can be applied when needed.