NBU 7.1 and vSphere 5

[DiverDawg]

So apparently I scoffed at those silly release notes about vSphere 5 support in Netbackup. I thought...incorrectly so it seems...that I could use my new 7.1 installation to backup this new vSphere 5 environment, just not have the performance gains that I would have with 7.5. Since 7.5 is still in beta, I can only play with it as we want this new 7.1 Netbackup server in service. Is there really no configuration magic that I could use to get my 7.1 environment to backup vSphere 5? I know I could simply install a client onto all of my VMs, which is how we have our 6.5 environment configured. With this new 7.x environment, we really wanted to move away from that and use the VMware backup capabilities. I await for some wisdom, hoping I've missed something.

Master/Media Server = Netbackup 7.1.0.2 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 6.1 (Santiago)

VMware Backup Host = Netbackup 7.1.0.2 (client only) on Windows 2008 R2 Standard

Also, could someone clarify what this is actually telling me feature wise???

NetBackup support for vSphere 5 will be provided in 2 phases:
•         NetBackup 7.1.0.3 will support vSphere 4.x capabilities within a vSphere 5 deployment.

TIA

-DD

[Mark_Solutions]

You havent missed anything but not long to wait now for 7.1.0.3

The only way at the moment is to backup the servers with a client as a normal server.

I believe what the statement is saying is that once you have 7.1.0.3 it will be able to back up a vSphere 5 environment in the same way 7.1.0.2 can in a vSphere 4 environment

I assume that this has been said as 7.5 will, or should, be able to do few few extra tricks above what the currentversion can do - so they are saying dont expect anything extra in 7.1.0.3

Hope this helps

[DiverDawg]

I'm hoping I can push this off for 7.1.0.3, then I wouldn't need to install local clients, which is the ultimate goal here. Then I would imagine that the configuration in place wouldn't need to change once 7.5 is finally released. Thoughts/Comments???

TIA

-DD

[oleg_rebrov]

Yes and no. The key with vsphere 5 is that they are introducing vms hardware level 8. This new hardware will have new features (like vmx 7 introduced change block tracking over hardware version 4). 7.1.0.3 will work but won't support vmx 8 capabilities... As for implementing today and just upgrading in place. That will work however in 7.5 a new policy type will be introduced. Policies can remain flash backup-windows but ultimately you will want to migrate them to VMware policies. I assume there will be a utility to perform the migration but didn't see it as a part of the beta.

[Anonymous]

So at the least you could upgrade your vcenter server to version 5 in preparation? This is really holding us back with new ESX hardware ready to deploy and have to succumb to installing ESX4 on it.!! Just to wait for NetBackup to catch up.

We are slowly coming round to the idea of moving to Veeam 6 Backup & Replication. And just leaving our Master Server to send production to tape for offsite.

The cost reductions are there but you do need 2 solutions (if you want the backup to tape), the flexibility and features of Veeam particularly v6 (just out) is just too hard to ignore when you are at 90% virtualised in your datacenter.

BTW Veeam supported vsphere 5 in v5 and now v6 of its B & R product.

Licensing is simpler too.

[Anonymous]

7.1.0.3 is now out http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH174256

[Anonymous]

Bit of a rant above....Installing ESX is no great deal as not much to configure really.