Netbackup Appliance VMWare configuration / Zoning

Do I need to zone in the ESX servers or just the WWN's of the storage arrays ?

You only need to zone the storage arrays to the Appliance so it can access the luns (as the ESX does).

You should use single initiator zoning - this is best practice.

Think of the appliance as an ESXi server, in that it reads (backs-up) and writes (restores) - so I/O is essentially the same as an ESXi host.

So, zoning would be like:

$ alicreate AL_APPLIANCE1_HBA1_PORT1, "nn:nn:nn:nn:nn:nn:nn:nn"

$ alicreate AL_ESX1_HBA1_PORT1, "nn:nn:nn:nn:nn:nn:nn:nn"

$ alicreate AL_STORAGE1_FE1_PORT1, "nn:nn:nn:nn:nn:nn:nn:nn"

$ zonecreate ZN_APPLIANCE1_HBA1_PORT1, "AL_APPLIANCE1_HBA1_PORT1; AL_STORAGE1_FE1_PORT1"

$ zonecreate ZN_ESX1_HBA1_PORT1, "AL_ESX1_HBA1_PORT1; AL_STORAGE1_FE1_PORT1"

$ cfgadd CFG_FAB_A, "ZN_APPLIANCE1_HBA1_PORT1; ZN_ESX1_HBA1_PORT1"

$ cfgsave

$ cfgenable CFG_FAB_A

And if you present a VMFS data store LUN to both server WWPNs, i.e. of APPLIANCE1 and ESX1, then both the appliance and the ESX host will see the same LUN with the same LUN number (i.e. avoid using LUN masking - to make your life easier) - and you should be good to go.

Do you see how you need a minimum of three aliases - one for each node, and one for the storage array.  In practice you'll have many many more - for multi-pathing, and fabric resiliency?

Post back if you'd like a larger more comprehensive multi-path'd multi-fabric zoning example.

HTH.