Recovering Data Associated with Deleted Clients and Storage Policies

In a disaster recovery (DR) scenario, use the following procedure to recover data associated with the following entities:

• Deleted storage policy

• Deleted client, agent, backup set or instance

Before You Begin

This procedure can be performed when the following are available:

• You have a Disaster Recovery Backup that contains information on the entity that you are trying to restore. For example, if you wish to recover a storage policy (and the data associated with the storage policy) that was accidentally deleted, you must have a copy of the disaster recovery backup that was performed before deleting the storage policy.

• Media containing the data you wish to recover is available and not overwritten.

• If a CommCell Migration license was available in the CommServe when the disaster recovery backup was performed, no additional licenses are required. If not, obtain the following licenses:

  • IP Address Change license

  • CommCell Migration license

  See License Administration for more details.

• A standby computer, which is used temporarily to build a CommServe.

Procedure

1. Locate the latest Disaster Recovery Backup that contains the information on the entity (storage policy, client, agent, backup set or instance) you are trying to restore.

   • Check the Phase 1 destination for the DR Set or use Restore by Jobs for CommServe DR Data to restore the data.

   • If the job was pruned and you know the media containing the Disaster Recovery Backup, you can move the media in the Overwrite Protect Media Pool. See Accessing Aged Data for more information. You can then restore the appropriate DR Set associated with the job as described in Restore by Jobs for CommServe DR Data.

   • If the job is pruned and you do not know the media containing the Disaster Recovery Backup, you can do one of the following:

     • If you regularly run and have copies of the Data on Media and Aging Forecast report, you can check them to see if the appropriate media is available.

     • If you do not have an appropriate report, and know the media that contains the DR Backup, catalog the media using Media Explorer. Once the cataloging process is completed, details of the data available in the media are displayed.

2. On a standby computer, install the CommServe software. For more information on installing the CommServe, see CommServe Installation.

3. Restore the CommServe database using the CommServe Recovery Assistant tool from the Disaster Recovery Backup described in Step 1. (See CommServe Recovery Assistant tool for step-by-step instructions.)

4. Verify and ensure that the Commvault Client Event Manager Commvault Communications Service (EvMgrS) is running.

5. If you did not have a CommCell Migration license available in the CommServe when the disaster recovery backup was performed, apply the IP Address Change license and the CommCell Migration license on the standby CommServe. See Applying a License in the CommCell Console for step-by-step instructions.

6. Export the data associated with the affected clients from the standby CommServe as described in Export Metadata from the Source CommCell.

   Alternatively, you can use the CommCell Client Migration by Storage Policy workflow to export the data based on storage policies.

7. Import the exported data to the main CommServe as described in Import Metadata on the Destination CommCell.

   This brings back the entity in the CommServe database and the entity is visible in the CommCell Browser. (Press F5 to refresh the CommCell Browser if the entity is not displayed after a successful merge.)

8. You can now browse and restore the data from the appropriate entity.

   Warning: As a precaution, mark media (tape media) associated with the source CommCell as READ ONLY before performing a data recovery operation in the destination CommCell.