[Networker] Some questions on upgrading

Hi,

We have an older NetWorker release (6.1.1) running on Solaris 2.8,backing up mostly Linux clients, and we have a Linux storage node serverrunning the same release. We're running a Quantum P1000 SDLT 1 tapelibrary and a STK L80 LTO 1 tape library on the storage node and anolder DLT 7000 tape library on the primary server. We can no longercontinue to use the same physical primary server box as it's no longerunder hardware support from Sun, and we're way behind on our NetWorkerrelease which I suspect is fraught with bugs. We've seen sporadicproblems with block size error messages during backups, etc. Legatosupport has basically told us that there were a lot of issues that werecorrected in later releases, and they can't really help further us untilwe upgrade. We have the option of moving the primary server to a newerSun Ultra 4 box running Solaris 2.9 or a Linux box (RedHat ES release 3)but either way it will be a fresh install. we back up directly to thetape drives using the LAN, no SAN involved.

o What is the latest version of the NetWorker software that we *should*use? Does anyone have any recommendations or advice on the install andor pit falls to avoid? Is it reasonably straight forward?

o We don't have the latest media kit, but we do have support. Not surewhy they've not sent us anything, so not sure which media kit to askfor? I've never seen any checksums or signatures for anything they haveon line so was thinking the media kit would be safer.

o I've heard there are some security patches? Is this a separate step orincluded in the release?

o If we set up a temporary licensed server on the new host, is itpossible to transfer a few of the existing clients over, test somebackups/recovers but continue to backup the other hosts on the current(older) server until we can get everything moved? The reason I ask isbecause I doubt we can complete all the testing and transfer of indexesin one day. Might require a week or more. Not sure if Legato will allowtwo copies of the media database to exist on two separate servers sinceeach would be updated nightly. At some point everything would need to bemerged. Can this be done, and if so, how?

o Does anyone know if NetWorker depends on the endianess of the machine?For example, since Linux is little endian, and Solaris is big endianthen if I copy a client index over to a Linux box will it have a probleminterpreting the data? Obviously, the client indexes are non-sparse, andmd5 checksums can be used to validate the transfer, but I'm concernedabout any potential endian problems. I have no way of knowing ifNetWorker relies on the endianness of the OS or not. If this is anissue, and we move to Linux, we'd need to re-run fulls and start all theindexes over again from scratch. That would be very time consuming with60+ clients. They say they do not support transferring to different OS,but they don't say why. Is this the reason? Should we just play it safeand stick to Solaris?


Thanks

George

To sign off this list, send email to listserv AT listserv.temple DOT edu and type 
"signoff networker" in the
body of the email. Please write to networker-request AT listserv.temple DOT edu 
if you have any problems
wit this list. You can access the archives at 
http://listserv.temple.edu/archives/networker.html or
via RSS at http://listserv.temple.edu/cgi-bin/wa?RSS&L=NETWORKER