Backing up the NetBackup Catalog

The Catalog is an integral part of NetBackup and should be protected. In a nutshell the NetBackup Catalog is the internal database containing two fundamental areas:

• Configuration containing information about backup schedules, policies, media and storage devices.
• Backups which contains information including records of the files that have been backed up and the media on which the files are stored.

This post provides a step by step guide to create a backup policy to proctect the NetBackup Catalog.

Creating the Backup Schedules

To protect the NetBackup Catalog, perform the following:

1. Start the NetBackup Administration Console and create a new policy.
2. On the Attributes tab:
   1. Select policy type: NBU-Catalog
   2. Select the desired Storage unit in the Policy Storage field
   3. Select the Schedules tab
3. On the Schedules Attributes tab:
   1. Type the name of the schedule in the Name field. For example Catalog FULL
   2. Select Full Backup in the Type of backup field.
   3. In the Schedule type select Frequency:
      1. Enter 1 in the frequency field
      2. Select weeks in the frequency field.
   4. In the Retention field specify the retention period (how long to keep the backup of the Catalog). For our example select 2 weeks
   5. Click the Start Window tab
4. On the Start Window tab, define a time window when full backups can start:
   1. In the Start day field select Sunday and in the Start time enter 18:00:00
   2. In the End day field select Sunday and in the End time enter 23:00:00
5. Click Add.
6. On the Attributes tab:
   1. Type the name of the schedule in the Name field. For example Catalog INC
   2. Select Differential Incremental Backup in the Type of backup field.
   3. In the Schedule type select Frequency:
      1. Enter 1 in the frequency field
      2. Select days in the frequency field.
   4. In the Retention field specify the retention period (how long to keep the backup of the Catalog). For our example select 2 weeks
   5. Click the Start Window tab
7. On the Start Window tab, define a time window when incremental backups can start:
   1. Highlight the backup window from 18:00 through to 23:00 for every day with the exception of Sunday
   2. Click OK
8. Click the Disaster Recovery tab
1. In the Path field specify a path where the NetBackup DR file will be stored (the Catalog disaster recovery file is useful during recovering NetBackup Catalog and can be local path and remote).
2. Specify the E-mail where the DR file will be sent (highly recommended).
3. If you have CRITICAL policies that should be recovered before backups from other policies are recovered, you can add then in the Critical policies field.
4. Click OK to save the policy.

Summary

In the above steps we have created two backup schedules:

1. a Full Backup which runs once a week on a Sunday
2. an Incremental Backup which runs everyday except Sunday

You can now run the policy at any time maually outside of the scheduled window.

WARNING: Without regular catalog backups, you risk losing regular backups if there is a problem with the disk that contains the catalogs.