Forum Discussion

Manumohan's avatar
Manumohan
Level 4
9 years ago

NBU media package install on Hyper-v host

Hi Veritas,

Can i install NBU media package on Hyper-V hosts itself and backup to tape. If possible to zone tape drive to Hyper V hosts directly, is that i need to add addition HBA or i can utilize any existing ports of the Hyper-V host, please suggest.

Except DB client do i neeed to install agent on every VM for normal client backup?

SAP has a limitation to install media package on SAP node,only client package is allowed.  If we can install Media package on Hyper-V host does it allow to backup the VM whihc has SAP function, SAP VM is installed with client agent.

Backup and Recovery
NetBackup
Windows 8
  • sdo's avatar
    sdo
    9 years ago

    Yes, you can install NetBackup Media Server on a physical Hyper-V host and have native FC zoned/attached, and/or SAS attached, tape drives visible to the Windows OS which is running on the physical Hyper-V host... but...

    ...be careful with FC zoning...

    ...most definitely NEVER mix tape and disk in the same fabric "zones"...

    ...and it is very strongly recommended also not to mix tape and disk on the same HBA ports - even if they are in different zones...

    .

    So, if your Hyper-V physical host only has two HBA ports, *and* you want FC multi-path support to disk *and* FC access to tape - then you can't have both.

    If your Hyper-V physical host has two dual port HBAs, i.e. four HBA ports in total, then I would do this:

    HBA1 port 0 - cable to switch/fabric A - zone to disk 

    HBA1 port 1 - cable to switch/fabric B - zone to tape

    HBA2 port 0 - cable to switch/fabric A - zone to tape

    HBA2 port 1 - cable to switch/fabric B - zone to disk

  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    Level 6
    9 years ago

    Media server is supported on a virtual host, but using disk storage ONLY. 
    Media Manager Storage is not supported on Hyper-V or VMware vm's. 

    See Statement of Support for NetBackup 7.x in a Virtual Environment:    http://www.veritas.com/docs/000006177 

    PS:
    You have selected Windows 8 as OS?
    NBU media server is not supported on Windows 8.

     

  • sdo's avatar
    sdo
    Moderator
    9 years ago

    Yes, you can install NetBackup Media Server on a physical Hyper-V host and have native FC zoned/attached, and/or SAS attached, tape drives visible to the Windows OS which is running on the physical Hyper-V host... but...

    ...be careful with FC zoning...

    ...most definitely NEVER mix tape and disk in the same fabric "zones"...

    ...and it is very strongly recommended also not to mix tape and disk on the same HBA ports - even if they are in different zones...

    .

    So, if your Hyper-V physical host only has two HBA ports, *and* you want FC multi-path support to disk *and* FC access to tape - then you can't have both.

    If your Hyper-V physical host has two dual port HBAs, i.e. four HBA ports in total, then I would do this:

    HBA1 port 0 - cable to switch/fabric A - zone to disk 

    HBA1 port 1 - cable to switch/fabric B - zone to tape

    HBA2 port 0 - cable to switch/fabric A - zone to tape

    HBA2 port 1 - cable to switch/fabric B - zone to disk

  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    Level 6
    9 years ago

    Careful... It may be physically possible, but NOT supported by Veritas.

    See page 5 of 'Support for NetBackup 7.x in virtual environments':

    Virtual media server The NetBackup media server is supported within a virtual machine, under the limitations described in the “General guidelines for support.”

    The following storage units are supported within a virtual machine:
    ■ Basic Disk
    ■ AdvancedDisk
    ■ Media Manager (tape storage units) For details on the supported virtualization technologies, see Table 3.
    ■ Media Server Deduplication Pool (MSDP) 
    ■ PureDisk Deduplication Pool (PDDO) including the NetBackup 5000 Series Appliances.
    ■ OpenStorage, where the Data Interface is Ethernet

     

    Hyper-V is NOT listed in Table 3.

  • sdo's avatar
    sdo
    Moderator
    9 years ago

    Before you act... have you thought through the consequences and the performance impact and the resiliency impact of making the Hyper-V hosts also act as media servers.  Whilst it may appear to be a quick win, you may end up painting yourself in to a corner.

  • sdo's avatar
    sdo
    Moderator
    9 years ago

    Yes - Marianne is right - I was only talking about installing NetBackup Media Server on/in the Windows OS instance which is the physical Hyper-V host itself - I was not talking about installing NetBackup Media Server inside the OS of a guest VM.

  • Manumohan's avatar
    Manumohan
    Level 4
    9 years ago

    FYI , the NBU servers are WIN2012 R2 , NBU 7.7.X . 

    Thank you Marine and sdo, really appreciated.. 

     

  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    Level 6
    9 years ago

    Apologies if I misunderstood.

    NBU media server is fully supported on the Hyper-V server.

    I agree that tape and disk should be zoned to different hba's.

    The reason can be found all over the internet (just google 'tape and disk on same hba').

    For example: http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/answer/Sharing-tapes-and-disks-over-the-same-HBA-not-a-best-practice 

    Yes, it is possible to see and share tapes and disks over the same HBA in a Fibre Channel fabric but it is not best practice to do so. The reason for this is simple. Tape devices tend to send out a lot of SCSI reset commands on rewind and this can wreak havoc on disk data streams. Also, tape traffic, since it is usually one long continuous data stream, will try to hog the bandwidth of the link. If you are trying to do backups while production is running, it will affect performance.

    Zoning tape ports to dedicated HBAs used for tape backup is a better method.

     

  • Manumohan's avatar
    Manumohan
    Level 4
    9 years ago

    This is a good day of Green Lights!

    We are using Physical Server DL380p, OS Win 2012 R2, Hyperv server, dual port HBAs (Total 4 ports) 2 for disk SAN and 2 for TAPE SAN, for tape san we only need one port since no redundancy required targent tape drive, incase more tape drive we will utilize one more port..Not Mixing DISK and TAPE on same ports. Current setup hyper-v is hosting less VM so backup will go fine. Incase any issue i will update here so it will be useful.

    NBU 7.7.X,

    Below is standard rule DISK and TAPE , also sdo has suggested in the above note..

    HBA1 port 0 - cable to switch/fabric A - zone to disk 

    HBA1 port 1 - cable to switch/fabric B - zone to tape

    HBA2 port 0 - cable to switch/fabric A - zone to tape

    HBA2 port 1 - cable to switch/fabric B - zone to disk

    Thank you Marine!