Keep historical backups of a server to a different Networker

Technically, yes this is possible, practically is another issue. A lot will depend upon the relationship the two Companies have. Setting up a new data zone for the new Company is fine and no different to someone setting up from scratch (apart from the servers file entries on the client), I assume they will also be upgrading the clients also to a supported version also? This could cause some communication issues but these should be able to be worked through if they come up (we normally recommend not running clients at higher versions but it does work).

Now there are a couple of options for them, one is to have the clients still available to both new and old servers (from the servers file on the client containing both NetWorker server names as opposed to only one). This would allow restores directly to the clients from the old server (providing other company retains this information on the server for restores to be possible). If they do not want clients still to be able to talk to both servers then it’s a little more challenging for the historical restores. They will either have to change the servers file when a restore is required, restart the NW software and then do it or have one server within the environment which will receive the data and then internally transfer (via ftp, scp to the original client). On the original NetWorker server they would have to place this servers name in the client definition to allow directed restores to this server for all their clients.

HTH

Bill Mason

Hi Bill

My costumer has problems with other company. So after a few months my customer will not see the server in the other company. So the idea is buy a new server to install there the networker software and be independent... and the client has backups for 5 years ago and the customer wants to mantain and recover this backups in the new networker server. That is the big idea...

OK - sorry I misunderstood your initial question. So basically what you need to is to DR the existing server to the new one porting the information for all their backups only.

To have any chance of this working your Customers backups must have been done to different pools to all of the other backups the existing Company is securing. If this is not the case you will be unable to separate the volumes out which contain only your Customers backups to use going forward, therefore is not possible.

If the backups were taken to separate pools the next hurdles are: -

1. New Server OS is the same (i.e. windows to windows or UNIX to UNIX) as the present one.

2. Present Company is willing to supply bootstrap backup of the existing server to you to allow the volume information to be ported to the new environment.

If both of these are met then you can achieve this by: -

3. Build the New server following the procedure for changing a NetWorker server name, there is documentation on how to do this in the Disaster Recovery Guides for NetWorker, available on Powerlink, but given the expertise of the Customer with NetWorker will most likely be low I would suggest they get some help with this from a Consulting group (EMC could provide this is required also).

4. Recover the Media Database only, not the existing configuration/resources

5. Create the clients using the same names as previously (this is an important point as this will match the historical backups to the client). If the same name is not used the clientid will be different and the backups will not match up. You would have to get the current names used from the existing Company.

6. Delete all the volumes from the pools other than the ones which contain your Customers backups.

7. Get all your tape media and either store in a vault or jukebox going forward.

8. Unless a special index backup for your clients was taken with the bootstrap backup you would be unable to recover individual files as this detail would not be available (index backups belong to the NetWorker server not the clients) so only saveset recoveries would be an option. This could cause issues with NetWorker module backups etc but unless its Exchange this should not be an issue as most other Application rarely keep data for extended periods. It is possible to configure a Client file index backup for just your clients and have this taken to a bootstrap backup so you could recover the indexes and have the detail for file restores going forward.

If you cannot get the bootstrap backup information from the existing Company, but can get the volumes, then you have a further two options: -

9. Scanning the tape volumes in (which is not a quick process depending upon the media type and number of volumes).

10. Compiling via mminfo queries from the existing server details of the backups the volumes contain so you can say build up a spreadsheet of the backup contents for date, time, saveset etc and then use this to scan in tapes as required when restores are needed. Again you would need the existing Companies co-operation to do this and ensure you have all the information for the volumes transferred.

11. As you would not get any index backup information (this backup belongs to the NetWorker server) only savesets recoveries would be possible for recovery (not individual files etc) as you would not have this detail.

Given the co-operation required to achieve this from the existing Company I would be prepared to loose the history given the relationship problems……

Regards,

Bill Mason