Forum Discussion

ndxgwj's avatar
ndxgwj
Level 0
5 years ago

Layout/Configuration of disk storage for use with AdvancedDisk?

Hi Experts,

I'm hoping to get some insight from the experts out there on what might be the best way to configure disk storage for NBU AdvancedDisk use.

Current setup is a single Master Server with a DAS storage unit.  Storage is presented as a single logical drive.  The block device is configured as an LVM Physical Volume, which forms a Volume Group.  3 Logical Volumes make up the Volume Group.  These Logical Volumes are then mounted to separate mount points.

In NetBackup, the 3 filesystems are configured as AdvancedDisk and make up a Storage Pool.  The Storage Pool has a Storage Unit associated with it and the Storage Unit is used in a Storage Lifecycle Policy.

The relevant components and their names are:

  • Volume Group: vg-nbuadvstrg
  • Logical Volumes: xyz-dsu-001p[1-3]
  • Mounts: /advancedStorage/xyz-dsu-001/p[1-3]
  • NBU Storage Pool: XYZ-STRG-POOL-1
  • NBU Storage Unit: XYZ-DSU-001

(nbuadvstrg is 'netbackup advanced storage', XYZ is a location code and DSU is 'disk storage unit')

Note: Backups on the current storage unit are hitting their retention period and are rolling off monthly.

In order to expand capacity, an additional storage unit was added.  Storage is presented as a single logical drive, configured with LVM and was used to expand the Volume Group vg-nbuadvstrg.  An additional 3 Logical Volumes were created and the filesystems are mounted to 3 separate locations.  The new components are named as follows:

  • Logical Volumes: xyz-dsu002p[1-3]
  • Mounts: /advancedStorage/xyz-dsu-002/p[1-3]

So, this is where my questions come in.  What would be the recommended way to configure the new storage in NBU?  I figure I have at least a couple options here:

  • Create a new Storage Pool (XYZ-STRG-POOL-2) and a new Storage Unit (XYZ-DSU-002).  Merge XYZ-STRG-POOL-2 with XYZ-STRG-POOL-2, expanding XYZ-STRG-POOL-1.
  • Create a new Storage Pool (XYZ-STRG-POOL-2) and a new Storage Unit (XYZ-DSU-002).  Create a new Storage Unit Group made up of both XYZ-DSU-001 and XYZ-DSU-002.

With the first option, I wouldn't need to modify the Storage Lifecycle Policy and the concept of the Storage Pool spanning both physical storage units matches the LVM Volume Group concept.  Of course, the NBU Storage Unit (XYZ-DSU-001) is poorly named and makes things slightly ambigious.  

In the second option, I'm not sure that I need the benefits / features of a Storage Unit Group and using it creates additional configuration complexity and requires changing the SLP (I guess not really an issue).

One thing I would want to consider is if the original storage unit is eventually decommissioned, is NBU able to handle transparently moving backups across AdvancedDisk Disk Volumes and then shrinking the Storage Pool.

I hope my post & configuration make sense, I'd definitely appreciate getting some feedback from the NetBackup masters.

  • With First Option - once you merge the new disks, the size of the volume pool will increase and then you can create a new storage-unit for this same volume pool and update the SLP with new storage-unit name if you do not want to use ambiguous name.

    Second Option - You don't have to make any changes to SLP if you are changing the Storage Unit Group (which is used in SLP). It will be a transparent change for SLP. Just change the storage-unit of the Group.

    If I understood your concern correctly - decommission(Deletion) of storage unit does not affect any of your configuration. If you plan for second option and decide to decommission FIRST Advanced Disk Storage POOL eventually NetBackup will backup only to the SECOND Storage POOL and all the images in First pool will eventually expire as per you retention & give back the volumes.