Media 1 and Media 2 Areas

The Media 1 and Media 2 Areas setting specifies the media to use for the catalog backups. You do not have to assign both Media 1 and Media 2. If you do assign both, NetBackup alternates between the media.

Media Type

The Media Type setting specifies the media type. Select one from the drop-down menu:

• None: No media is assigned
• Disk: A directory on a disk drive
• Removable Media: A volume that is in a robot or drive under control of Media Manager

Depending on the storage devices that are available, VERITAS recommends the following choices for Media Type:

1. If you have a robot or a tape stacker, choose Removable Media and use this automated device to store the catalog backups. This is the easiest way to back up your catalogs because NetBackup automatically finds the volume if it is in a robot or tape stacker when the backup is started.
2. If you do not have a robot or tape stacker, but have an extra standalone storage device that you can devote to catalog backups, choose Removable Media and use the extra standalone device.
3. If you have only one standalone drive (no robot or tape stacker), the most convenient method is to choose Disk for the media type and send the catalog backups to a hard drive (though this is not as safe as method 4 below). The hard drive that you use for the catalog backup must be different than the hard drive where the catalogs reside. By default, the catalogs are stored in the following locations. If you choose to back up the catalog to disk, the destination of the catalog backup must be on a different drive.

   /usr/openv/netbackup/db

   /usr/openv/volmgr/db

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    Caution    The safest way to protect your data is to save all backups (including your catalog backup) to removable media, then move a full set of that media to offsite storage on a regular basis. A backup written only to disk will share the same risks as the computer(s) being backed up. A natural disaster (for example, lightning, flood or fire) is more likely to destroy both your primary data and its backups if the backups are only on disk.
   
   If the disks holding the catalogs and the catalog backup are both destroyed, it will be much more difficult to recover your business data. Assuming the backups of your business data are on tape, recovering without the catalog backup means manually importing all of the backup tapes to rebuild the catalogs. This process takes time that you may not want to spend when you need to resume your business activities.

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4. If you have only one standalone drive (no robot or tape stacker) and there is not enough space available on a different hard drive, choose Removable Media. In this situation, you must back up the catalogs to the same tape drive as the backups of your business data. This involves swapping tapes in and out of the drive each time the catalogs are backed up. Swapping tapes is not convenient, but is required because NetBackup will not place catalog backups and the backups of your business data on the same tape.

Media ID

If you've chosen Removable Media, specify a valid media ID.

The volume you specify must be configured under Media in the same manner as other NetBackup volumes. This means the media ID must appear under Media and Device Management > Media. The volume must also meet the following requirements:

• The volume must be in the NetBackup volume pool. To verify, look under Media and ensure that the Volume Pool column for the media ID displays NetBackup.
• The volume cannot be currently assigned to NetBackup for backups because NetBackup does not mix catalog backups and regular backups on the same media.

To locate an available volume, expand Media and Device Management > Media and find a volume where the Time Assigned column is empty and the Status column is 0. Once a catalog backup occurs, the Time Assigned and the Status column for the volume updates.

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  Note    If a column does not appear, size the columns by right-clicking in the pane and selecting Columns from the shortcut menu.

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The Last Written information under Media 1 and Media 2 indicate when the volume specified in the Media ID field was last used. The value is never if the volume has never been used for NetBackup catalog backups.

The Allocated information under Media 1 and Media 2 indicate when the media was allocated for NetBackup catalog backups.

Notes on the Media ID

• To delete the media for Media 1 or Media 2, set the Media Type value to None. Do not use backspace to leave the Media ID box blank.
• If you delete a volume from the catalog-backup configuration, Media Manager makes it available for reassignment. This can cause problems if, for example, you temporarily change to a different volume.
• You must manually track catalog-backup media separately because NetBackup does not keep a record of catalog-backup media in its catalogs as it does with other backup media. If NetBackup did track catalog-backup media in the catalog, and the disk containing the catalogs crashed, the record would be lost with the catalogs.

A convenient way to track the media is to configure the E-mail global attribute. When this is done, NetBackup sends an E-mail that indicates the status of each catalog backup and the media ID that was used. You can then print the E-mail or save it on a disk other than the disk containing the catalogs.

If the catalogs are intact, you can also find these media IDs in the Media Manager volume listing. The Status column shows 1 for these volumes. However, these IDs do not appear in the NetBackup media reports.

Pathname (Disk Media type)

For disk media, this is the path to the directory where you want to store the catalog backup. Type the path in the field. For example:

The path can be any of the following:

• A directory on a disk attached to the master server. NetBackup creates the directory if it does not exist.
• An NFS-mounted file system or a link to an NFS-mounted file system that grants write access to the root user.

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 Caution    When backing up the catalogs to disk, observe the following precautions:

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• Always back up to a physical disk other than the one containing the catalogs. For example, if your computer has two physical disks and the catalogs are on the first disk, back up the catalogs to the second disk. If you back up the catalogs to the same disk and that disk fails, both the catalogs and the backups are lost and it will be difficult or impossible to restore data for your NetBackup clients. By default, the catalogs are stored in the following locations, so the destination of your catalog backup must be on a different disk:

/usr/openv/netbackup/db
/usr/openv/volmgr/database
/usr/openv/var

• Ensure that the disk has adequate space for the catalogs. If the disk fills up, the catalog backups will fail.
• Ensure that the path is a directory rather than a file. If the path is a file, an error occurs when the backup is done (not when you specify the path).
• The following rule applies to the path you specify:

In addition to the platform-specific file path separators (/ and \) and colon (:) within a drive specification on Windows, use only alphabetic (ASCII A - X, a - z), numeric (0-9), plus (+), minus (-), underscore (_), or period (.) characters. Do not use a minus as the first character.