Forum Discussion

PetaM's avatar
PetaM
Level 2
6 years ago

NetBackup Virtual Appliance compatibility with vSphere 6.5

Hi,

we are considering deploying NetBackup for a newly installed VMware infrastructure. It's fully virtualized environment and we planned to use NetBackup Virtual Appliances - for both Master server and Backup media server. The installed vSphere version is 6.5 and we would use appliances ver. 3.1.2.

However the documentation says, in section "Notes on NetBackup Virtual Appliance as a VMware backup host", that "The appliance supports vSphere versions 5.5 and 6.0".

Does this mean the appliance is supported as a backup host in vSphere 6.0 and old 5.5 but NOT 6.5? It wouldn't be very nice. Does anyone have any experience using virtual appliances in vSphere 6.5 environment? I went through Software Compatibility List but it wasn't very helpful as details for Netbackup appliances as backup hosts are missing.

Thanks,

Petr

8.1.2
Compatibility
Virtual Appliance
VM backup
VMware
  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    Level 6
    6 years ago

    PetaM 

    I find this documented limitation very worrying and confusing, since Virtual an Physical appliances on 3.1.2 equates to NBU 8.1.2 that supports up to vSphere 6.7 U1.

    I see that NBU Appliances are ONLY mentionted in the 8.x SCL as being supported with NBU 8.0 / 3.0.
    I wonder if it has anything to do with the security enhancements from 8.1/3.1 onwards....

    Since you are at a stage where you are looking for solutions, it is extremely important that you work with a knowledgeable reseller who in turn has a close relationship with the local Veritas SE.
    I feel that these limitations and omissions from the SCL must be brought to the attention of Product Management.
    I honestly doubt that Support will have answers.... 

      • Marianne's avatar
        Marianne
        Level 6
        6 years ago

        Michal_Mikulik1 

        Veritas added some new Virtual Appliance offerings: 
        There is a new Virtual Master that is a 'master only'. No Advanced disk or MSDP.
        There is a different OVA download file for this. 
        There is also a Cloud Catalyst VA.

        The link posted above (3.1.2 documentation) says: 

        Additional features

        The appliance software supports the following additional features depending on the virtual appliance type.

        Master server                  ###    Master only

        • Adding media servers to the NetBackup domain.
          You can add media servers to this master server. The master server manages backups, archives, and restores.

        Combined master and media server      ### ROBO 
         - Media Server Deduplication Pool (MSDP) storage.
        ........
        - AdvancedDisk storage.
        .......

        Media server
        ....

        CloudCatalyst

         

        Unfortunately this was not published very well and there is nothing about this in the 8.1.2 Licensing Guide.
        I only got to know about this a couple of weeks ago. 

  • Michal_Mikulik1's avatar
    Michal_Mikulik1
    Moderator
    6 years ago

    Hello,

    I recommend to doublecheck this with support. it sounds like obsolete information, because traditional RedHat (OS on which appliances are based) supports vSphere up to 6.7 as a backup host.

    Attention - Virtual Appliance (VA) in master server role does not support remote Media Servers, so you cannot build up NetBackup domain in this way. You must have either traditional Master Server with VA's as Media Servers, or have one all-in-one VA serving as both Master and Media.

    Regards

    Michal

    • PetaM's avatar
      PetaM
      Level 2
      6 years ago

      Hi, thanks for your reply! I was hoping it might be obsolete information. Checking with support would be reasonable indeed. As we currently don't have any contract with Veritas I am having some problems reaching out to the support team. :|

      Regarding the Netbackup domain - are you sure abut this? I thought it should be possible to use one VA as a master server and another VA as a media sever for data centers - at least that's how I understood the VA documentation:

      "The appliance software supports the following additional features depending on the virtual appliance type.

      Master server

      • Adding media servers to the NetBackup domain.

        You can add media servers to this master server. The master server manages backups, archives, and restores."