Veritas NetBackup™ in Highly Available Environments Administrator's Guide

Last Published:
Product(s): NetBackup (9.0)
  1. About in this guide
    1.  
      What's in this guide
    2.  
      Documents related to NetBackup in highly available environments
  2. NetBackup protection against single points of failure
    1. Protecting against component failures
      1.  
        Network link failures
      2. Storage device connection failures
        1.  
          SAN connection failures
        2.  
          Robotic control connection failures
      3.  
        Storage device failure
      4.  
        Media availability failures
      5.  
        Master server failures
      6. Media server failures
        1.  
          Dedicated media server failures
        2.  
          Non-dedicated media servers failures
        3.  
          SAN media server failures
        4.  
          Restoring tape backups using an alternative media server
        5.  
          Restoring disk backups using an alternative media server.
      7.  
        LAN client failures
      8.  
        SAN client failures
    2.  
      Site failures
    3.  
      Protecting catalog in highly available environments
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. Deploying NetBackup master servers with full catalog replication
    1.  
      About replication considerations
    2. About non-clustered NetBackup master server with catalog replication
      1. Installing and configuring non-clustered NetBackup master server with catalog replication
        1.  
          Installing and configuring the primary NetBackup master server
        2.  
          Installing and configuring secondary NetBackup master server
        3.  
          Upgrading NetBackup master server in a non-clustered replicated configuration
    3. About globally clustered NetBackup master servers with catalog replication
      1. Installing and configuring a globally clustered NetBackup master server with catalog replication
        1.  
          About clustering considerations
        2.  
          Installing and configuring primary NetBackup master server cluster
        3.  
          Installing and configuring secondary NetBackup master server cluster
      2.  
        Populating the server tables in the EMM
      3.  
        Upgrading NetBackup in clustered replication configuration
      4.  
        Failing over to secondary master server cluster
      5.  
        Testing the NetBackup master server cluster in clustered replication environment
  6. 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
  7.  
    Index

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.