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Ksmith169's avatar
Ksmith169
Level 3
12 years ago

Netbackup 5220 + netbackup 7.5 + vmware + netapp NFS use NDMP for backups

Hello All,

I have Netbackup Appliance 5220. It runs latest Netbackup 7.5. I also have VMware ESXi 5.0.0. My storage for vmware is NetApp with volume shared over NFS.

I also have other NFS shares on the NetApp Filers. I back these up over NDMP. The advantage being that backup traffic goes directly to the NetApp Filers and doesn't have to go to the actual servers mounting the NFS Shares. In the case of physical Linux client NDMP backups of NFS is fully granular. That is I can browse any file in the NDMP backup and restore. Basically NDMP is the transport.

I understand that vmware backups on NetBackup us vStorage APIs. I also understand a full backup of vmdks is done followed by scan to allow for file level restore. On a block based SAN / Disk Array the backup server would be zoned in to see the VMware LUNs and transport is over fibre saving the ESX Hosts network cards taking the backup trafic. This also saves the virtual machines.

I have read that vmware running on NFS must use the ESX Server Network cards for backup transport. Is this correct. Is it possible instead to send backup traffic of VMDKs over NDMP from the NetApp Filer and meta data gather from VMDK scan over the ESX Server Network cards?

Best Regards,

Kevin.

 

7.5
Backup and Recovery
NetBackup
Not Applicable
  • RLeon's avatar
    RLeon
    Level 6
    12 years ago

    What you are describing is exactly what the NetBackup Replication Director does.

    Currently in 7.5.x, doing this with VMware on NFS Datastores is not yet supported, but it will be starting in 7.6.

    Please refer to this video.

    It's in the "A Peek Into The Future" roadmap section if you want to skip ahead.