About Vault catalog backups

NetBackup catalogs are databases that contain information about the NetBackup configuration and backups, including the files backed up and the media on which they are stored. Vault creates a new catalog backup with up-to-date information. It does not duplicate an existing NetBackup catalog backup. A NetBackup catalog backup is not a substitute for a Vault catalog backup because it does not include the latest information about duplicated media and media location. Therefore, you should perform a catalog backup in Vault.

To perform a Vault catalog backup, Vault uses a special schedule of type Vault Catalog Backup in an NBU-Catalog policy. (NetBackup uses a special backup policy of type NBU-Catalog to perform catalog backups.)

A Vault catalog backup occurs when a profile that performs catalog backup runs; it does not occur on the schedule defined in the NBU-Catalog policy. A Vault Catalog Backup schedule always performs a full backup of the entire NetBackup catalog.

You can create multiple copies concurrently of a Vault catalog backup.

Vault does not duplicate existing catalog images, but it ejects the media on which those images are stored if both of the following are true:

Those images are selected during the choose backups step.
The media is assigned to the dedicated Vault catalog volume pool.

If the catalog backup fails but the remainder of the Vault job succeeds, the session ends with a status 294 (vault catalog backup failed). Data is vaulted with no associated catalog backup. Symantec believes that it is better to vault the data without a catalog backup than to fail the job and vault nothing at all for that session.

The Recovery Report for Vault shows the three most recent Vault catalog backups. If you vault your regular NetBackup catalog backups, they do not appear on the Recovery Report but do appear on other reports.

See the NetBackup Administrator's Guide, Volume I for information about the location of the NetBackup catalog and the files included in a catalog backup.