Advance Disk Licensing Question

[mudabo]

We are currently licensed to use SSO to share tape drives.   We want to share disk also.  Do we need another license to share disk, or will we be forced to use Basic Disk until we can secure a license ?

[revarooo]

Have a read of this:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO34525

edit: and this old forum thread

[Marianne · Accepted solution]

Only Advanced Disk can be shared.

As Symantec Partner, you will be able to download the NetBackup Licensing Guide from PartnerNet.

Look for 'Enterprise Disk'.

Read through this manual for config options: NetBackup AdvancedDisk Storage Solutions Guide  http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC5149

See About AdvancedDisk storage servers

If you configure more than one storage server, be aware of the following:

■ Each media server must mount the file systems of all the disk volumes within

a disk pool.

■ The mount points must be the same on each media server.

NetBackup does not validate mount points, so you must ensure that the mount

points are the same for each media server. You also must ensure that the mount

points are valid.

■ To obtain a consolidated list of disk volumes, NetBackup queries every media

server. For large sets of servers, queries may affect performance.

■ Disk volume status is monitored on a single media server. Which server

monitors the status can change. Therefore, a change in disk volume availability

on one media server may not be reflected in the disk volume status NetBackup

reports.

Some forum posts:

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/advanced-disk 
https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/nbu-app-cluster-advanceddisk

[Mark_Solutions]

I may be wrong but is shared disk even an option now?

From the 7.6 Release Notes:

NetBackup SharedDisk support notes
■ The SharedDisk option was no longer supported beginning with the NetBackup
7.0 release.
■ You can use a NetBackup 7.x master server to configure, manage, and operate
SharedDisk on NetBackup 6.5 media servers.
■ For information about using SharedDisk, see the documentation for your
NetBackup 6.5 release.

And from the Enterprise Disk Guide:

About AdvancedDisk file system requirements
AdvancedDisk can read and write any nonshared file system that NetBackup
supports. However, AdvancedDisk is subject to any operating system or file system
requirements or limitations. Requirements and limitations may exist beyond
those mentioned in this topic.

Of have i confused myself here?!

[Marianne]

You are 100% correct Mark - SharedDisk is no longer available as selection, but 'normal' Advanced disk can be simultaneously mounted on multiple media servers (CIFS for Windows media servers) and then all Media Server names used in config as per my extract from the manual.

[mudabo]

Thank you all for your input.   Very informational

[Marianne]

Please let us know if you have further questions.

If your query was answered, please close off this discussion by marking helpful post as Solution (or select 'Request split solution'.)