NetBackup Appliance 5240 HBA

[RansOupZI]

Hi All,

We have a new NetBackup Appliance 5240. We have 4 HBA cards on slot 2, 4, 5 and 6. All zone correctly at the switch level. Hardware compatibility wise is compatible.

Slot 2 Port 2 for San Storage (VMware Datastore)

Slot 5 Port 1 For Tape Library

Slot 6 Port 1 For San Clients

Issues faced:

The Storage FC port light is kept flickering although the zoning is done correctly. Is there a way to troubleshoot this problem.

Thanks.

[Marianne]

You need 2 or 4 ports for SAN Client.

See this section of Appliance Admin Guide:

Settings > Network > Fibre Transport 

FT option
Enable SAN Client Fibre Transport on the Media Server (use FT for backups to this appliance)
■ 2 target port Fibre Channel connection
■ 4 target port Fibre Channel connection 

Description:
■ NetBackup 5240 - FC HBA cards in slots 5 and 6 

By default, the option is disabled and all ports are in the initiator mode.
When the option is enabled and 2 target port Fibre Channel
connection is selected, Port 1 on all affected FC HBA cards is
set to the target mode. The appliance can now use these ports
for deduplicated backups with the use of FT.

[vtas_chas]

You're trying to use an invalid configuration.  You must use a minimum of 2 ports for SAN Client, so you'd want to use Slot 5 port 1 for SAN Client as well and move your tape connection perhaps to Slot 5 port 2.

You could start troubleshooting this by looking at the FC configuration and making sure everything is seen properly as initiator/target ports, and what the initiator ports are seeing by logging into the CLISH and looking at Manage>FibreChannel> Show.  I wouldn't bother with troubleshooting anything else until the configuration is correct, though.

[RansOupZI]

Hi All,

Thanks for the replies. 

Please do enlighten further on this if my team and I left out something or misconfigured

We in fact are moving from our initial NetBackup Appliance 5220.

So the previous configurations for our old appliance is:
Slot 2: San Client Port 1
Slot 3: Tape Library Slot 1
Slot 4: Storage Slot 2

Basically we are just moving over to the newly purchase NetBackup Appliance 5240.

Appreciated.

[Marianne · Accepted solution]

Please read through the section in Appliance Admin Guide that I have mentioned above.

It explains on page 265 which ports are used for Fibre Transport on the different Appliance models. 

■ NetBackup 5220 - FC HBA cards in slots 2 and 4
■ NetBackup 5230 and NetBackup 5330 - FC HBA cards in slots 5 and 6
■ NetBackup 5240 - FC HBA cards in slots 5 and 6

The NetBackup 5240 Appliance and Storage Shelf Product Description explains on page 19 and 20 the PCI slot layout. 

NetBackup 52xx Appliance Documentation : http://www.veritas.com/docs/000002217 

[RansOupZI]

Hi all,

My team and I really appreciated the assistance much earlier on the clarifications.

In Summary:
1. Slot 5 and 6 Port 1 are automatically changed to Target mode after Fibre Transport enabled. San Client remained at Slot 6 Port 1, Slot 5 reserved for future usage. 
2. We zone changed for the tape library to Appliance 5240 Slot 4 Port 1 (Initiator). 
3. Changed to Slot 2 Port 1 (Initiator) for San Storage (VMware Datastore).
4. Datastore and Tape Library seen. San Client detected at NBU Admin Console.
5. Successful backups. 

Thanks.