cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

New Netbackup Appliance 5230 - Have a couple questions

flinttown
Level 2

I have been a Netbackup user for several years, however I am new to the appliance itsself and have some basic questions if someone can help.

 

It is my understanging that the appliance has basically 2 usable partitions, AdvancedDisk and MSDP. A couple questions on that:

1. If most of the data being backed up is from a Netapp that has already been deduped on the Netapp side, is there any reasons/gains from deduping with MSDP on the appliance.

2. Can you not have muliple partitions of the same type. For example can I not have 2 MSDP or 2 Advanced Partitions, or can I only have 1 of each. I just ask because to me, it seems logical that if  I wanted to keep both NFS and CIFS backups on the same type parttion, but on separate partitions. 

 

Also, this appliance shipped with version 2.6.0.4 and Netbackup 7.6.0.4. Should I go ahead and update it to 2.6.1.1 and 7.6.1.1?

 

 

Thanks.

2 ACCEPTED SOLUTIONS

Accepted Solutions

sdo
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Certified

Q1. If most of the data being backed up is from a Netapp that has already been deduped on the Netapp side, is there any reasons/gains from deduping with MSDP on the appliance.

A1: Depends upon whether the NetApp NDMP stream is itself effectively re-hydrated/re-constitued by NetApp.  i.e. You need to ask NetApp whether their NDMP stream of an ASIS de-duped volume contains the 'post ASIS' view of the volume, or an effective 'pre ASIS' view of the volume.

.

Q2. Can you not have muliple partitions of the same type. For example can I not have 2 MSDP or 2 Advanced Partitions, or can I only have 1 of each. I just ask because to me, it seems logical that if  I wanted to keep both NFS and CIFS backups on the same type parttion, but on separate partitions. 

A2: I know that you can have only one MSDP instance per NetBackup Media Server.  I'm not sure about how many Adv.Disk pools an appliance can have.  I suspect only one, because AFAIK the CLIsh only lets us create one.  Whereas, I beilieve that roll-your-own Media Servers can have multiple Adv.Disk pools, but still also only one MSDP pool/instance.

.

Q3. Also, this appliance shipped with version 2.6.0.4 and Netbackup 7.6.0.4. Should I go ahead and update it to 2.6.1.1 and 7.6.1.1?

A3: Some of us have had problems upgrading a new configured but essentially unused N5230 from v2.6.0.3 to v2.6.1.1 - for different reasons.  Others had problems due to presence (or lack) or certain EEBs.  Whereas my upgrade went smoothly, except that afterwards the appliance complained about incorrect BIOS - and so needed a manual re-flash of certain low level components.  If it's a new appliance, and not yet productionised, I would go to the highest version possible, i.e. v2.6.1.2.  FTI, I've just upgraded two largish N5230 from v2.6.1.1 to v2.6.1.2, and all went well - but took about 2 hours for each one.  (P.S. Don;t forget to upgrade OpsCenter to v7.6.1.2 first - if you have one).

Before upgrading from v2.6.0.4 to v2.6.1.1 why not open a support case to determine whether your current BIOS version needs to be re-flashed.

View solution in original post

Chad_Wansing2
Level 5
Employee Accredited Certified

Unfortunately the deduplication on the NetApp is not the same as the deduplication in use within NetBackup (as well as any other dedupe device other than a NetApp actually).  One methodology that I've seen to be a huge help to many of our customers is to check out the Accelerator functionality within NetBackup.  It will mean you need to have a client with visibility to the CIFS/NFS shares on the NetApp but will give you the ability to restore the data to anywhere as opposed to being constrained to restoring to a similar device as is the result with NDMP backups/restores.

On the appliances you can only have a single MSDP as well as only a single advanced disk pool.  This is also the case for BYO NBU media servers.  The reason is that the media server acts as a storage server for each of these kinds of storage and a media server can only act as a storage server for a single pool of each type.

Personally I would recommend upgrading to the most recent version you can prior to initial configuration, but that's really more of a personal preference thing and less of any kind of requirement.  If you can I would absolutely go to a 2.6.1.x release if possible.

View solution in original post

4 REPLIES 4

sdo
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Certified

Q1. If most of the data being backed up is from a Netapp that has already been deduped on the Netapp side, is there any reasons/gains from deduping with MSDP on the appliance.

A1: Depends upon whether the NetApp NDMP stream is itself effectively re-hydrated/re-constitued by NetApp.  i.e. You need to ask NetApp whether their NDMP stream of an ASIS de-duped volume contains the 'post ASIS' view of the volume, or an effective 'pre ASIS' view of the volume.

.

Q2. Can you not have muliple partitions of the same type. For example can I not have 2 MSDP or 2 Advanced Partitions, or can I only have 1 of each. I just ask because to me, it seems logical that if  I wanted to keep both NFS and CIFS backups on the same type parttion, but on separate partitions. 

A2: I know that you can have only one MSDP instance per NetBackup Media Server.  I'm not sure about how many Adv.Disk pools an appliance can have.  I suspect only one, because AFAIK the CLIsh only lets us create one.  Whereas, I beilieve that roll-your-own Media Servers can have multiple Adv.Disk pools, but still also only one MSDP pool/instance.

.

Q3. Also, this appliance shipped with version 2.6.0.4 and Netbackup 7.6.0.4. Should I go ahead and update it to 2.6.1.1 and 7.6.1.1?

A3: Some of us have had problems upgrading a new configured but essentially unused N5230 from v2.6.0.3 to v2.6.1.1 - for different reasons.  Others had problems due to presence (or lack) or certain EEBs.  Whereas my upgrade went smoothly, except that afterwards the appliance complained about incorrect BIOS - and so needed a manual re-flash of certain low level components.  If it's a new appliance, and not yet productionised, I would go to the highest version possible, i.e. v2.6.1.2.  FTI, I've just upgraded two largish N5230 from v2.6.1.1 to v2.6.1.2, and all went well - but took about 2 hours for each one.  (P.S. Don;t forget to upgrade OpsCenter to v7.6.1.2 first - if you have one).

Before upgrading from v2.6.0.4 to v2.6.1.1 why not open a support case to determine whether your current BIOS version needs to be re-flashed.

sdo
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Certified

See this post re the BIOS issues:

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/choice-upgrade-path-v2603-v2611

The above post also contains a link to another post where another user had different issues with upgrades due to EEB problems.

elanmbx
Level 6

There should be no problem keeping CIFS and NFS backups on a single MSDP pool.  In fact, I'm not sure why you would want to separate them?

Chad_Wansing2
Level 5
Employee Accredited Certified

Unfortunately the deduplication on the NetApp is not the same as the deduplication in use within NetBackup (as well as any other dedupe device other than a NetApp actually).  One methodology that I've seen to be a huge help to many of our customers is to check out the Accelerator functionality within NetBackup.  It will mean you need to have a client with visibility to the CIFS/NFS shares on the NetApp but will give you the ability to restore the data to anywhere as opposed to being constrained to restoring to a similar device as is the result with NDMP backups/restores.

On the appliances you can only have a single MSDP as well as only a single advanced disk pool.  This is also the case for BYO NBU media servers.  The reason is that the media server acts as a storage server for each of these kinds of storage and a media server can only act as a storage server for a single pool of each type.

Personally I would recommend upgrading to the most recent version you can prior to initial configuration, but that's really more of a personal preference thing and less of any kind of requirement.  If you can I would absolutely go to a 2.6.1.x release if possible.