BackBox H4.00 User Manual

Appendix C – Migration to the BackBox product
205 BackBox H4.00 User Manual
When there is a migration, the “Migration to BackBox” is usually set to “In
Progress”, corresponding to this sequence of stages:
1. Start-up: switch the writing of new backups to BackBox
2. Data of assigned volumes is acquired by BackBox.
During this period, BackBox executes new backups, and restores from recent
backups written by BackBox. For restoring from volumes not yet migrated, the
legacy system must still be able to load volumes.
o If new series of tape labels were created for the BackBox, the data
migration is made by BACKCOPY on different labels.
Each backup is catalogued twice in DSM/TC. The possible load automation in the
legacy system can be kept running, there will be no confusion.
o If the same set of volume labels must be re-used by the BackBox
system, the data migration is made by BackBox virtualization that
does not involve the NonStop tape system.
Each backup is kept catalogued once in DSM/TC. The legacy system must not
load automatically volumes that could also be automatically loaded by
BackBox. This confusion can result in losing track of which system contain
each backup and ultimately losing data.
3. Removal of the legacy tape system
When “Migration to BackBox” is set to “Being prepared”, the legacy system is still
used as usual for all NonStop tape applications, the only BackBox activity to acquire
the image of tape volumes. The sequence of stages is then:
1. Start-up: nothing changed in the production of backup and restore that are
still operated by the legacy system
2. Data of assigned volumes is acquired by BackBox virtualization.
Each backup is kept catalogued once in DSM/TC. Because of the “Being prepared”
status, BackBox will not modify the media type and will not automatically load the
volume if $ZSVR issues a mount request.
3. Switch to BackBox for backup and restore,
and removal of the legacy tape system.
Sample plan for a migration re-using existing catalogued labels
This can be applied to DSM/TC, TMF and QTOS, with these special notes for TMF:
− Re-using existing labels is not a choice with TMF that has a single pool of
virtual volumes.
− Round-robin should be enabled to help visually distinguish by which tape
system the volumes were written (
TMFCOM ALTER CATALOG, ROUNDROBIN ON).