about Veritas Access Appliance

[FlyMountain]

Plan to buy Veritas Access Appliance as archviing storage. Can someone share your experience? thanks in advance.

1). can an Access Appliance be configured on existing media server as storage pool, run SLP from MSDP to it? 

2). Is the data in Access Appliance deduplicated ? Will any additional DDPO license be needed for Access Appliance. I heard the OpenDedu is being used on Access Appliance.

3). Can the Access Appliance be shared by multiple media servers?

4). Can the access appliance be used as CIFS/NAS servers?

5). Is there any way to test out before purchase?  

[RiaanBadenhorst]

Hello

1). The appliance can be configured as a new puredisk storage pool that you can use with your existing MSDP (duplicate to), or as standalone target (backup to)

2). Yes,it can be used as dedupe (puredisk) or non-dedupe

3). Yes, it can. It can even be shared by multiple NetBackup domains and will globally dedupe

[RiaanBadenhorst]

1). The appliance can be configured as a new puredisk storage pool that you can use with your existing MSDP (duplicate to), or as standalone target (backup to)

2). Yes,it can be used as dedupe (puredisk) or non-dedupe

3). Yes, it can. It can even be shared by multiple NetBackup domains and will globally dedupe

[Marianne]

5). Is there any way to test out before purchase?  

I believe the Veritas may have a 'try and buy' option. Obviously with conditions that need to be met by both parties. 
Please reach out to your local Veritas partner and Veritas SE. 

@FlyMountain you may also want to read through the Veritas Access Solutions Guide for NetBackup.

[EthanH · Accepted solution]

1). can an Access Appliance be configured on existing media server as storage pool, run SLP from MSDP to it? 

You configure the Access Appliance as a new media server, with its own disk pool, and duplicate data from MSDP to the Access Appliance (recommended method), or you can back up directly to the Access Appliance.

2). Is the data in Access Appliance deduplicated ? Will any additional DDPO license be needed for Access Appliance. I heard the OpenDedu is being used on Access Appliance.

Unsure about the licensing part, but the data in Access is deduplicated. The recommended configuration is to have the deduplication occur on the MSDP media server, then duplicate that data to the Access Appliance for LTR, but Access has a deduplication engine and can dedupe data sent directly to it. As Riann pointed out, the Access Appliance can be a replication target for other domains, and allows for global dedupe.

3). Can the Access Appliance be shared by multiple media servers?

Yes, it can be shared among one or many media servers.

4). Can the access appliance be used as CIFS/NAS servers?

The Access Appliance is a NAS server, and it can be configured as a CIFS server. See this section of the Access Admin guide for more info on CIFS shares: https://www.veritas.com/content/support/en_US/doc/125480392-133637289-0/uxrt-tot_v125453943-13363728...

5). Is there any way to test out before purchase?  

Speak to your Veritas account rep for info on pre-purchase trials.