NetBackup Catalog is a place where information about the NetBackup configuration and backups are stored such as records of the files that have been backed up and media where those files copied. NetBackup Catalog is kept on the NetBackup master server and consists of the following components:
- The NetBackup configuration files such as policies, schedules - flat files.
- The NetBackup database (NBDB) - a relational database (Sybase SQL Anywhere).
and NetBackup image database (flat + NBDB).
NetBackup configuration files
The configuration files consist of directories and flat files:
- class* - policy information
- client - master server client attributes
- cltmp* - policy temporary information
- config - host properties, data classification properties
- DBVERSION* - NetBackup version
- error - activity logs
- failure_history - list of failed backups
- IDISTRUCT - structure of images database
- images - backup image database (flat files)
- jobs - job information
- media - temporary area for media activity
- sched - staging schedules
- ss - storage lifecycle policy (SLP) information
- vault - vault properties
Above directories/files are located at \NetBackup\db (Windows) or /usr/openv/netbackup/db (UNIX).
NetBackup image database
NetBackup image database stores image information as:
- backup header - it defines the backup ID, size, state etc
- file metadata - it defines the files that have been backed up + metadata
Above files are not stored at the same place:
- backup header - prior to NetBackup 7.5 as flat files, later in the NBDB
- file metadata - \NetBackup\db\images\ (Windows) or /usr/openv/netbackup/db/images/ (Unix)
The NetBackup relational databases (NBDB)
The NetBackup relational database (NBDB) is created during the installation of the Master server. As already I mentioned the NBDB runs on Sybase SQL Anywhere.
Database files (located at \NetBackupDB\data (Windows) or /usr/openv/db/data (Unix) are as follows:
- NBDB.db - main database used by many NetBackup services and processes
- EMM_DATA.db and EMM_INDEX.db - used by the nbemm (EMM service)
- DBM_DATA.db and DBM_INDEX.db
- DARS_DATA.db and DATS_DATA.db - used by the Database Agent Requester Service (DARS) for Oracle database recovery and cloning purposes
- SEARCH_DATA.db and SEARCH_INDEX.db - used by the NetBackup Search and Hold feature for legal holds
- JOBD_DATA.db - used to populate job information in the activity monitor
- SLP_DATA.db and SLP_INDEX.db - contains information about SLP
- NBAZDB.db - used by the NetBackup authorization and authentication services
logs files:
- NBDB.log
- NBAZDB.log
- BMRDB.log
configuration files (located at \NetBackupDB\conf (Windows) or /usr/openv/var/global (Unix):
- vxdbms.conf - contains configuration information specific to the database server installation
- server.conf - contains configuration information for the NetBackup databases
- databases.conf - contains the locations of the main database files and the database names for automatic startup
I hope that I do not need to remind that the NetBackup Catalog should be protected 🙂 A backup of catalog can be done online using a special NetBackup policy.
Note: There is a special NetBackup Catalog Manipulation services (provided by Authorized Consultant) when the following scenarios are required:
- Migration from an existing master server to a NetBackup appliance master server
- Merging of two or more NetBackup domains
- Splitting of a domain into two or more domains
- Clustering of a non-clustered Master Server
- Renaming of a Master Server <--- yes, just change a name of Master server is not supported without mentioned services!
- Moving a Master Server to a new machine involving a host name change
- Moving a Master Server to a different platform/operating system (Windows to Linux/Unix or Linux/Unix to Windows)
- Un-clustering a clustered Master Server
