Tips for maintaining the Backup Exec database servers and the shared ADAMM database in the SAN Shared Storage Option

The ADAMM database and the Backup Exec database server are important components of the SAN Shared Storage Option. To protect against possible loss of the ADAMM and catalog databases, you should run frequent backup jobs of the entire Backup Exec directory tree on the primary server.

Note:

Each secondary server also has its own local Backup Exec database instance that is independent of the other servers. You should ensure that you back up the Backup Exec database instance on the secondary server since it contains data about the server.

When scheduling backups of the database server’s Backup Exec directory, base the frequency of these backup jobs on the rate at which backup sets are being created and the number of tapes affected by all of the media servers on the SAN. All backup sets and tapes affected since the last shared database/catalog server backup would have to be recataloged if all information on the database server was lost.

Create a special media set just for backing up the Backup Exec directory tree and the Windows operating system on the primary server. This will reduce the number of tapes that must be cataloged to find the files for restoring the ADAMM database and catalogs.

Caution:

If you allow the backups of these files to go to a large media set, you may have to catalog every tape in that large media set in order to find the latest versions of the ADAMM database and catalogs to restore.

If the primary server is not operational, Backup Exec is unusable on all of the servers on the SAN. The Intelligent Disaster Recovery Option is strongly recommended for protecting each Backup Exec database server. Should this entire system be lost, you can use IDR to quickly recover this system.

If you deem the Backup Exec functions to have a high availability requirement, you should consider setting up one of the other media servers on the storage network as a standby primary server.

Tips for maintaining the Backup Exec database servers and the shared ADAMM database in the SAN Shared Storage Option