Veritas-bu

[Veritas-bu] HELP! Data lost for good? (detailed version)

2003-03-27 06:57:44
Subject: [Veritas-bu] HELP! Data lost for good? (detailed version)
From: Dave.Zarnoch AT sungard DOT com (Dave.Zarnoch AT sungard DOT com)
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2003 06:57:44 -0500
Folks,

Can you help us?

We have a client <ABC> who would like us to recover their data

<Detailed version>

Dave,
As we discussed on our conference call below is the short summary of ABC
recovery:

The ABC retention for the server "cleint1" is set for three months,
retention period is given by the clients. "client1" is the only server that
we are backing up for ABC.
In Late January of 2003 ABC requested to recover their databases from  the
EOM months of August 2002, September 2002, October 2002 and November 2002.
Unfortunately the backups had gone past their retention of three months in
Late January 2003 when the recovery was requested.
Now, the only way for me to perform this recovery would be to first
initiate the Media recovery and rebuild the backup catalogs and than import
the media and rebuild the client images with newer retention, than follow
the normal recovery procedure.
In order to perform the media recovery I have to have the complete set of
tapes from the particular dated backup that is needed to be recovered i.e.
since the tapes are now recyclable they could have been over written with
newer backups.
In January I was asked to recover the EOM October 2002 and November 2002
and the month of August  2002. The EOM August 2002 could not be recovered
since some of the tapes expired were overwritten in January for new backups
which is normal media cycle. October and November 2002 were successfully
recovered in first try.
In the case of the August EOM recovery I was unable to rebuild the images
on the netbackup server since the media recovery can not be successful
unless we have a complete set of tapes/media which was used for the
particular backup, ABC EOM backups use about 7 to 9 tapes each time.
Two weeks back i.e. in the beginning of March 2003, ABC asked me to recover
the September 2002 EOM data which was also expired. ABC also asked me to
re-try recovering the August 2002 EOM data.
I was able to recover the September 2002 data again first try but was not
able to recover the August 2002 database second try, as I had already
informed them that the August 2002 will not be recoverable since the media
were missing/reused.
Now, As per ABC feels that I should be able to recover the August EOM data
which again last week I was asked to give it one more try i.e third try
which I had informed them that is not recoverable. As I had mentioned the
recovery did not work for the third time for August 2002 data. Each time I
perform the media recovery it takes about 16 to 19 hours and I can not stop
the recovery once it has started.
The number of media that are required for the recovery are about 15 to 17.
In our Jukebox we have 29 slots. This jukebox also holds some of our other
clients which needs several tapes every night for their nightly backups.
Now, Whenever I perform the media recovery we are using up about 60% of the
jukebox capacity with the media required for the recovery, the tape drives
are also used up just as slots for at least eighteen hours. This could have
very serious impact on our other clients, with delay in their backups and
failed backups since they can not be queued up for long, we have just two
tape drives in the Jukebox.
I absolutely understand that we should be able to give client successful
recovery at any given time, but in this case the data has gone past its
retention, the retention was given to us by the clients we do not set up
the retention by ourselves. Also, I have already tried this recovery three
times and using up the resources, in one case we had a backup failure due
to the resources being used up.
ABC has informed us that they do not feel that I am doing the recovery in
the correct way, Now, if I could recover the month of September 2002,
October 2002 and November 2002 all in first try, I do not think I am
following any different procedures for August 2002. I had also opened case
with Veritas support and   Veritas Support informed me that I am following
the correct procedures and the month of August  2002 can not be recovered
since the expired media are already been reused.
ABC wants to come here and perform the recovery as per their own procedure,
which I feel is extremely risky since we have several other important
clients on this backup server which hosts some of their most critical
databases. Also, we need to keep in mind that we will be again occupying
the server and jukebox for another eighteen hours or more for something
that we have already tried three times. This could cause some serious
impact to our environment.
Veritas Support has confirmed that we are following the correct procedures
and if the tapes are missing or re-used the media db can not be recovered
for the particular client for the given date.
If you need any further information please let me know,  Please advice.
Thank you.


Thank you!

Dave Zarnoch
SunGard Resources Group
SunGard eSourcing
Voorhees, NJ
Dave.Zarnoch AT sungard DOT com





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