Forum Discussion

RamK619's avatar
RamK619
Level 3
10 years ago

AWS VTL Tape drive issue

Hello techies,

Need to help to fix the below issue.

Environment:

NetBackup appliance 5230 : 7.6.0.3

Media server: Windows 2008 Enterprise server (VM server)

In my set-up i have 10 AWS glacier VTL tape drives connected to my Media server. A Gateway server is lying in the middle of Media server and AWS.

My problem is most of the time the tape drives are not getting detected from OS end. while checking the eventlog i can the error "Operator/EMM server has Down'ed drive".

When i re-start the media server the drives are getting detected. I suspected the issue on server load and increased CPU & RAM..Still issue persists.

Please advise me on it.

7.6
Backup and Recovery
NetBackup
Troubleshooting
Windows Server (2003-2008)
  • RamNagalla's avatar
    RamNagalla
    Moderator
    10 years ago

    Connecting Tape Drives to VM media server is not supported..

    since you have the appliace you can consider to connnect the tape drives to appliance and start using from there.

    please go though below T/N

    https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/article.TECH127089

  • RamK619's avatar
    RamK619
    Level 3
    10 years ago

    Hi Ram,

    Appliance is fully loaded, So we got a VM media server to manage all duplication jobs. Also it's not a physical drive, All 10 drives are from Amazon cloud Glacier VTL.

  • RamNagalla's avatar
    RamNagalla
    Moderator
    10 years ago

    Netbackup does not have any diffrencation with VTL or physical tape Drives, it considers both as same.. so when it say tape it not support for Windows VM media sever, it it for both Physical and VTL Drives.

  • areznik's avatar
    areznik
    Level 5
    10 years ago

    Im not familiar with the Amazon Cloud Glacier service but maybe if you can use the gateway as a VTL you can also use it as a disk device? I think that would be a supported config and would probably work better (VTL in the cloud sounds like a major pain) 

  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    Level 6
    10 years ago
    Please check Event Viewer System logs for device loss at OS level. The NBU Application log is simply a reaction to repeated write failure attempts. Have you checked the VTL section in Hardware Compatibility Guide if this setup is supported? My gut feel is probably not.
  • RamK619's avatar
    RamK619
    Level 3
    10 years ago

    @ Areznik: Earlier we had mounted as a AWS S3 disk, Due to cost efficency client turned to VTL, And it became a painful subject.

    @Marianne: In the Event Viewer System log i can see error " event id 129 from source iscsiprt cannot be found". Am checking with my Windows team now.

    Earlier i suspected the issue with Hardware compatibility and increased the CPU to 4 core and to 12GB RAM. It worked fine for couple of months after the upgrade. Now it's occuring again.

  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    Level 6
    10 years ago
    Compatibility is more than resources. It means that the devices have been tested extensively by Veritas and certified to work with NetBackup. Please locate the Master Compatibility list in Handy NBU Links in my signature and look for 7.x HCL.
  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    Level 6
    10 years ago

    MASTER Compatibility list: http://www.veritas.com/docs/000033647 

    7.0 - 7.6.x HCL : http://www.veritas.com/docs/000040791 

    If we look at VTL section of html version: https://download.veritas.com/resources/content/live/SFDC/41000/000040791/en_US/nbu_76_hcl.html?__gda__=1452118901_fe6ce2f1ec374d1de1a6eb72003a3321#virtual_tape_libraries_drives 
    it seems that AWS Storage Gateway VTL - iSCSI is supported.
    Please see these notes listed in HCL:

    1. Please refer to AWS documentation for hypervisor and host requirements.
    2. The AWS Storage Gateway VTL is also supported when deployed as an Amazon EC2 instance.
    3. This solution uses S3 and Glacier storage. Please refer to the Best Practices guide for the Gateway-VTL before deployment.