In one of my previous articles I briefy informed about EADR for Data Protector 9.06 on Windows 2012 R2 – please refer to https://www.data-protector.org/wordpress/2016/05/prepare-and-execute-eadr-cell-server-on-windows-2012-r2-data-protector-9-06/.

However, if you don’t need EADR as a complete recovery option and the preparation for disaster recovery for the IDB is required only, then you can use the regular backup of the internal database. A standard restore requires a working internal database and this might be a problem for some environments. There is a more efficient method to recover the IDB, using the command omniofflr. The content of this article was verified for a Cell Manager on Windows 2012 R2 and Data Protector 9.06.

Offline Restore – how it works:

• Enables restore of any type of DP backup objects in the absence of operable Data Protector internal database, including IDB itself
• Can also be used indirectly by the higher-level omnidr command, which automatically generates appropriate omniofflr command-line options, based on the information retrieved from the SRD file
• Omniofflr command might be used to „just“ recover the internal database
• To execute omniofflr command you need to specify the details about backup and restore devices and the backup media – information about these details is stored in SRD file or obrindex.dat; can also be specified in the command-line
• Phases of omniofflr
  • DP services stopped (except for Data Protector Inet service)
  • IDB restore
  • Rollforward operation on the IDB using transactions from the available archived logs
  • Starting DP services

Omniofflr modes:

• Autorecovery mode
  • Omniofflr operation is fully automated, all required information is retrieved from obrindex.dat
  • Obrindex.dat updated during each IDB backup
  • Maintain a copy by using RecoveryIndexDir in global option file
  • Omniofflr can use the copy in case orginial file is missing
• Read mode
  • Omniofflr retrieves information from an option file
  • Option file can be generated using -idb -autorecover -save
  • Allows modification of devices (in case media agent resides on different system)
• Manual mode
  • In case obrindex.dat and option file are not available, specify all required parameter in command line

To make the process automated and prepared in advance, you can use a post-exec script during the IDB backup. Script:

SET IDB_SESSIONID=%SESSIONID%
copy "C:\dr\obrindex.dat" "\\ServerMA\C$\dr\obrindex.dat"
move "\\ServerMA\C$\dr\idbrestore_omniofflr.txt" "\\ServerMA\C$\dr\idbrestore_omniofflr_old.txt"
"C:\Program Files\OmniBack\bin\omniofflr" -idb -autorecover -session %IDB_SESSIONID% -skiprestore -save "\\ServerMA\C$\dr\idbrestore_omniofflr.txt"
exit

Assumption used for this example: Cell Server – ServerCS, Media Agent – ServerMA, copy of obrindex.dat – c:\dr\obrindex.dat (see global option file)

To start the restore of IDB use the syntax:

omniofflr -idb -read „\\ServerMA\C$\dr\idbrestore_omniofflr.txt” -verbose -target ServerCS