> I think backing up the catalog to disk and then letting the regular
> server backup put it to tape works.  If you lost everything, you'd
> rebuild your Master server at an alternate location.  Have the offsite
> vendor bring back the latest tapes, import them and restore the /catalog
> directory.  Then recover the catalog.
> 
> If you didn't loose everything, you recover the catalog from the disk.
> 
> What am I missing?

For me it's that randomly importing tapes would take *way* too long.
The catalog backup is there to prevent the need for that.

If you keep a separate record of the catalog backups at hand (a la
Networker's Bootstrap report) or have a portion of the date on the tape
itself, then I think it would be a lot more workable since you could
import only the necessary parts.  But since that's not part of the base
product, I'd be afraid that many sites would skip creating it.

Scary for me would be a server room with a server, 4 tape drives, and 75
LTO-2 tapes.  All the tapes have a random looking barcode.  Someone
hands you a copy of Netbackup installation media, clicks a stopwatch,
and says "go!"

-- 
Darren Dunham                                           ddunham AT taos DOT com
Senior Technical Consultant         TAOS            http://www.taos.com/
Got some Dr Pepper?                           San Francisco, CA bay area
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