Hello,
Getting ready to do a Netbackup migration from v7.1.0.3 to v7.6.0.4. - with the migration moving from one Netbackup domain with servers running W2K3 joined to Active Directory Domain "X" to a new Netbackup domain with servers running W2K8R2 joined to Active Directory Domain "Y". The same storage devices (ie. tape libraries, OST devices, etc) are being used.
Familiar with the limitations of moving a Netbackup catalog to a new master server with a different name. We have gotten around this in the past - albeit the new Netbackup system had all new storage devices. Essentially - what we did is built a "net new" Netbackup environment and retired the existing environment (including storage devices) with the exception of the lone Master Server. The lone Master Server was essentially turned into a read-only catalog look-up for restoring legacy data. When one of the backup operators get a request to restore data that pre-dates the existing Netbackup system - they would go to what i call the "Legacy Master Catalog Lookup Server" to lookup the tapes needed to restore the requested the data. Once they had identified and recalled the tapes - they would simply perform an import of the tapes into the new Netbackup environment and restore the data. This has worked well for several years and allowed us to avoid having to import the old catalog and a few thousand tapes into the new Netbackup system (the legacy NB was using LTO2 drives and the new Netbackup system had new LTO4 drives - hence we didn't want to import all of the LTO2 tapes). No disk/OST existed on the orginal Netbackup system. The only caveat was that you have to essentially freeze the lone Netbackup server so no changes would ever be made to the databases/images etc. - we even virtualized the Catalog Lookup server - so we didn't have to maintain the old hardware.
With this upcoming migration - we do not have new storage devices. Currently, the new 7.6.0.4 Netbackup environment can see all of the storage devices/OST shares, etc. of the existing 7.1.0.3 Netbackup environment. We - for obviously reasons have not run any jobs on the new system - looking at doing a cut-over on a single weekend. We were originally planning on doing what we had done with the previous migration - creating a stand-a-lone NB Catalog lookup server but after reading through the Recovery Without Import - Whitepaper - it appears we might be able to leverage it to move the exsiting catalog info into the new system without having to touch the physical media. At least from what i'm reading - it warrants looking into further.
If anyone has successfully used the Recovery Without Import methodology - would greatly appreciate any insight, tips, gotchas that would help us make a decision on whether or not to use this methodology.
Thx,
Greg