I think this begs for a little more explanation...

I think we're talking about the NetBackup images database, aka "the 
one that never stops growing", ...netbackup/db/images/

This database is where the files lists (the path and permissions info 
for EVERY SINGLE file that NBU has backed up) are stored, and until 
NBU 4.5 these lists were in the form of ASCII files.  very space 
in-efficient!

NBU 4.5 introduced a binary format for these files, in the name of 
reducing disk usage and improving browse performance during restore. 
The feature is mentioned on p.173 of the NBU 4.5 SysAdmin Guide for 
Unix.
(http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/246847.htm)

The question most upgraders face is whether or not to convert the OLD 
catalogs from ascii to binary (by default NBU doesn't convert them, 
but all new catalogs are written as binary).  Such conversion is 
carried out using the provided "cat_convert" utility, (see p.699 of 
that same manual...)

I personally haven't seen any issues with the binary catalogs, aside 
from an os-related performance issue doing the ascii-->binary 
conversion of very large backups (~30 million files) on HPUX 11.

HTH
rob


At 1:44 PM -0800 1/12/03, Wood, Jason wrote:
>  I just did an upgrade to 4.5  and spent some time talking to a Veritas
>support engineer.  He raised the issue of converting the database from 3.4
>format to 4.5.  I'm not sure what the details of that process would be, but
>the engineer made it sound as if the process had some quirks.  Since we have
>a very short retention period, we just did the upgrade and did not need to
>use the old catalog.
>
>Jason Wood
>Systems Administrator
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Steven L. Sesar
>To: veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
>Sent: 1/12/2003 10:11 AM
>Subject: [Veritas-bu] Upgrading from 3.4_4 --> 4.5 MP2 on Solaris8
>
>In our case, I am not only upgrading NBU from 3.4_4 to 4.5 MP2, but I am
>
>upgrading the OS, as well. I'm bringing the OS from patched Solaris 2.7
>to patched Solaris 2.8.
>
>I've done some testing and it appears that the upgrade should run fine
>as described in the 4.5 documentation.
>
>But, before I make the jump, is anyone aware of any gotchas that I might
>
>encounter?
>
>Here's a quick synopsis of my plan:
>
>1. build/patch Solaris8 server. Same hostname as prod. box.
>2. Install 3.4 and all patches to 3.4_4
>3. scopy /opt/openv/netbackupdb, /opt/openv/volmgr/database from
>production master server to new server.
>3. perform upgrade to 4.5 and apply mp2.
>
>
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