Consider the following items before catalog archiving:

• Perform catalog archiving operations when NetBackup is in an inactive state (no jobs are running).

• Catalog archiving modifies existing catalog images. As a result, it should never be run when the catalog file system is 100% full.

• To ensure that catalog backup images are not on the same tapes as user backups, create a separate media pool for catalog archives.

• You may find it useful to set up and then designate, a special retention level for catalog archive images.

  To specify retention levels, open the NetBackup web UI. On the left click Hosts > Host properties. Locate the primary server and click Edit primary server. Then click Retention periods.

• Additional time is required to mount the tape and perform the restore of archived .f files.

• There is no simple method to determine to which tape the catalog has been archived. The bpcatlist -offline command is the only administrative command to determine what images have been archived. This command does not list what tape was used for the archive. As a result, exercise caution to ensure that the tapes used for catalog archiving are available for restoring the archived catalog images. Either create a separate volume pool to use exclusively for catalog archives or find a method to label the tape as a catalog archive tape.