Merging Legato NetWorker Servers

Published   Read time 5 min(s) 0 sec(s)   (2581 views).  NetWorker  

This document provides the necessary steps to allow Backup Administrators to Migrate or Consolidate several Legato NetWorker servers.

  • All backups servers must first be at least at a minimum of Legato NetWorker 6.0.1. If not upgrade Legato NetWorker on all servers to at least this release, preferably upgrade all servers to the latest version.
  • Designate one Legato NetWorker server to be the one whose bootstrap base information you want to be preserved. We will be merging all other old backup servers onto this chosen host. Your choice may be decided by the size of the media database. A large media database indicates many tapes and savesets, thus, choosing to preserver the largest media database results in fewer tapes needing to be scanned in by the Legato NetWorker scanner command, possibly saving many hours.
  • If the merge of Legato NetWorker servers is to take place on a new host server and not to an existing Legato NetWorker host, then first move the Legato NetWorker server chosen to be the preserved server to the new host system using the appropriate instructions found by going back and referring to knowledge object legato71241.
  • If you will be using licenses, like client connections, from old servers moving to the new Legato NetWorker server and if the new Legato NetWorker server is also a new host system then the authorization codes for these license will be invalidated. This is due to hostid differences from the old systems which Legato NetWorker licenses are based on. You must get a Host Transfer Affidavit, complete the form, and submit it to Sun Microsystems. You will receive new authorization codes, which you must install within 15 days, or the Legato NetWorker software becomes disabled and/or various licenses will expire.

IMPORTANT

  1. Before starting the Legato NetWorker software on the new server, you must remove the server software from the computer you transferred it from, or at least shut down that Legato NetWorker server daemon.
    2. If you start the nsrd daemon on another computer with the same enabler or authorization code, you will receive a Copy Violation error message and the software will become disabled.
  2. Use mminfo in verbose mode on each of the old Legato NetWorker servers to get a list of all tapes and contents known by that server, for example: 
    # mminfo -a -m -v -s <servername>
  3. Print out or copy that information to a safe place. You do not need to do this for the server you choose to be preserved in Step 2.
  4. Use the Legato NetWorker administrator program on your new server to define all the remaining Legato NetWorker Clients from the other old Legato NetWorker servers you now wish to have backed up or recovered by the new Legato NetWorker server.
  5. You may now configure Legato NetWorker to backup the clients from the non-preserved old Legato NetWorker servers. You will have to redefine any information that was unique to the non-migrated servers, such as pools, groups and browse and retention policies that were on those servers.
  6. Use scanner to repopulate any indexes of any old tapes that you want online indexes migrated to the new server using the command: 
    # scanner -i tape_device
    or 
    # scanner -i tape_device -c <client>
    to populate indexes of only a specific client on the volume). To only scanner in the volume to the media database and not populate indexes as well use the command: scanner -m tape_device. Use the data from the mminfo command as a catalog for all tapes. This can be done at any time (future days, weeks, months) but you must have Legato NetWorker read each tape to populate any indexes that you want online on the new server. You do not have to do this for tapes that were created by the old Legato NetWorker server that you preserved.
  7. Add the new Legato NetWorker server hostname to the /nsr/res/servers file for each Legato NetWorker client. After adding the Legato NetWorker server hostname to the /nsr/res/servers file, you must restart the Legato NetWorker client daemon (nsrexecd).
  8. Instead of scanning in tapes of data whose indexes you want online you may wish to keep the old Legato NetWorker servers around until most of their backups have passed their retention policy. You would then use the mminfo command as a permanent record of past tape and you would not need to use scanner on any tapes, except if you wish to restore data from a very old tape.
  9. Once done, verify that the indexes are browsable. Test backups and recoveries and other Legato NetWorker operations to verify correct operation.

NOTES

  1. There is not a way to merge the bootstrap information from all the old servers. You must redefine the Legato NetWorker clients to be backed up for all except the one server you have selected to migrate to the new server.
  2. You must upgrade to a minimum of Legato NetWorker 6.0.1 in order to use this merge procedure. Although there is no need to upgrade the clients to Legato NetWorker 6.0.1 to perform the merge your clients should be upgraded so that you can enjoy all of the latest enhancements.
  3. If you have offsite archive tapes then you can use your mminfo output as a permanent record of those tapes and what data is on them. If you ever want to recover data from those tapes you can run scanner on them at that time.
  4. You may merge servers over a period of time, such as one server per week.
  5. You may merge servers of any operating systems to a server of any operating system.

If the old preserved Legato NetWorker was moved to a new host server then the preserved server's old host server must be isolated (Legato NetWorker shut down) and it's backups stopped during the merges, as it will have the same server name as the new Legato NetWorker server.

Please note that merging servers is not a trivial task and that Legato strongly recommend that you engage Legato Professional Services when attempting this.