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IBM drivers needs to be installed for two new drives in existing environment

DNT
Level 3
Partner

Good day,

 

My environemnt: 

Solaris 10 SPARC. 

Netbackup 7.5.0.1

I have IBM Ultrium LTO4 drives running using the native st drivers of Solaris. I recently aquired two additional IBM Ultrium LTO4 drives and need to get them on the same FW revision level as the current drives. The tload utitlty is not loading the FW and I was advised that I need to install the IBM drivers and use the ITDT tool to update drivers on the tow new drives. The manual recommends I remove the existing st drivers and install the IBM drivers to allow only that to control the devices.

My question is, will this cause issues with the existing drives?

I've never used drivers other than the native Solaris drivers, so I'm a bit tentative to install something new and risk breaking the current very important environment.

If anyone has done this before, please provide some tips.

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Marianne
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

Do not install the IBM driver.

On Solaris, NetBackup needs the native st driver and its own sg driver.

See Before you begin on Solaris in the Solaris chapter of NBU Device Admin Guide:  http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC5186 

Extract:

■ Verify that the Solaris st driver is installed.
■ Verify that the devices are configured correctly. To do so, use the Solaris mt
command and the NetBackup /usr/openv/volmgr/bin/sgscan utility. For the
NetBackup shared storage options, ensure that the SAN and storage devices
are configured correctly.

Please read through the entire Solaris chapter of this manual.

View solution in original post

7 REPLIES 7

V4
Level 6
Partner Accredited

haven't heard any such instances ... Two drivers cannot control device at anytime.. thus you would need to keep one only... native or vendor specific... Install IBM drivers and ensure OS and NBU both can see drives....

Perform backup and restore tests and other operations as well .... if everying goes well ... stay on IBM drivers.. else rollback to native drivers and check your previous state isn't compromised....

 

RiaanBadenhorst
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

Hi,

 

If you have other Solaris servers, zone the drives to one of them, install the IBM drivers and perform the Firmware upgrade. When you're done, zone them onto the media server.

 

Just a thought :)

DNT
Level 3
Partner

Hi Riaan

That's an idea. I do have another Solaris server connected. I'll give it a go and let you know how it went.

 

Marianne
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

Do not install the IBM driver.

On Solaris, NetBackup needs the native st driver and its own sg driver.

See Before you begin on Solaris in the Solaris chapter of NBU Device Admin Guide:  http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC5186 

Extract:

■ Verify that the Solaris st driver is installed.
■ Verify that the devices are configured correctly. To do so, use the Solaris mt
command and the NetBackup /usr/openv/volmgr/bin/sgscan utility. For the
NetBackup shared storage options, ensure that the SAN and storage devices
are configured correctly.

Please read through the entire Solaris chapter of this manual.

DNT
Level 3
Partner

It turns out that the drives I received are not STK/Oracle SL500 (the type of library housing them) compatible. Looks like the other drives, but aren't compatible, hence me struggling. 

Thanks for the responses, nonetheless. 

Marianne
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

Always best to purchase drives from the library vendor. 

They will then install the drives in the library and ensure that the library can see and control the drives. 

My previous advice still stands - regardless of drive manufacturer, NetBackup needs the drivers on Solaris to be the st and sg drivers.

DNT
Level 3
Partner

The drives have actually caused some issues in the backup environment that took a few days to sort out properly, so I fully agree with you.