About online, hot catalog backups

In NetBackup 7.0 and later, all catalog backups are online, hot catalog backups. The ability to configure offline, cold catalog backups has been removed in this release.

The online, hot catalog backup is designed for active environments in which continual backup activity occurs. It is considered an online, hot method because it can be performed while regular backup activity occurs.

The online, hot catalog backup is policy-based so it has all of the scheduling flexibility of a regular backup policy. Because the policy allows for incremental backups, catalog backup times for large catalogs can be significantly reduced.

Online, hot catalog backups use media from the CatalogBackup volume pool only.

The online, hot catalog backup performs the following tasks:

Backs up the catalog while continual client backups are in progress
Spans multiple tapes for a catalog backup
Allows for a flexible pool of catalog tapes
Performs a full or an incremental catalog backup
Restores the catalog to a different location
Runs scheduled catalog backups
Appends to existing data on tape

You can configure an online catalog backup by using one of the following methods:

By using wizards:
- The Catalog Backup Wizard.
  
  See Using the Catalog Backup Wizard.
- The Backup Policy Configuration Wizard.
  
  See Using the Backup Policy Wizard to configure a catalog backup.
By creating a backup policy manually and indicating the NBU-Catalog policy type.

See Configuring a catalog backup manually.