Netbackup 7.1 Upgrade Recommendations

[kmille1398]

Hi All,

I am currently a Symantec customer that has been running Netbackup Puredisk for quite a while.  We are currently running NBU 6.5.5 on a Dell 2950 (Win2003 Standard 4 GB RAM).  This server is our Master/Media Server, and backs up our datacenter.  Our Puredisk Server is running 6.6.0.2 of the Puredisk OS.  This is running on a Dell 1950 attached to a Dell MD1000 Storage Pool.  This server is used to back up our Remote offices using a Puredisk agent.  The NBU 6.5.5 server backs up into the Puredisk pool via PDDO.  We also run some of our backups to a Dell PV 136T Library.

We are currently considering upgrade options.  We have been wary of going to NBU 7.0 at this point, as we have had major issues in the past whenever something in the environment was upgraded.  But, we have since reconsidered.  Is there something on the site that can be recommended in terms of what people are using in terms of hardware?  I know there is an HCL, but I want to know what people are REALLY using.  If the HCL says that NBU 7 will run on 1 CPU and 4 GB RAM, but people find that in reality, this won't work, then I would like to know.  It helps me from a budgetary standpoint to know if this is feasible.

Also, we are looking at Disk to buy and integrate into the new environment.  What are most customers using?  We are looking at Exagrid and Domain appliances, but will NBU 7 do target side Deduplication to a regular and cheap disk array?  If so, what do you recommend?

Sorry for all these questions, but I did not find a lot of resources on the main plage for Netbackup 7.  Kind of surprising to me, since one would need this sort of recommendation to make any sort of decision on purchase.

Thanks!

Kevin

[S_Williamson]

Hi Kevin

We run NBU 7.01 on Win2008 R2 on Dell R710 with MD1000 and also HP DL380 G5 with a MSA70 attached. Both of these configs have been fine. All our servers have a minimum of 12GB ram. Netbackup 7.01 is really stable and I have only 1 EEB applied (which is fixed in 7.1) We have not needed to upgrade past this and are just really happy just to have the stability (after MANY issues on 6.5.X)

The NBU Dedupe storage pool has been pretty good so far. We used Puredisk 6.6.1 to backup remote sites but due to the limitations in restorng Exchange Data we have moved all our remote site backups to Netbackup and away from Puredisk. This has been pretty good assuming your remote sites have a stable link. When the link isnt so stable (We backup Oil & Gas platforms) we have found the Puredisk Client better able to handle drop outs then Netbackup so we still have a mixed environment at this point.

Our new servers (Dells) are now coming with MD1200's which I have had issues getting into Puredisk (Due to SUSE10) but havent used on Windows but I am sure they would be fine.

Hope this helps.

Simon