NDMP Client on RHEL x64 Media Servers

[Mike_Pruett]

 Is this possible? We just acquired a pair of NetApp FAS3140 Filers. We have moved all of our CIFS shares off our old windows File Server, onto the NetApp filers directly.

It looks like the only way that we can backup the data on the Filers is thru NDMP. But my Backup Admin is telling me that the NDMP Agent for NB6.5 does not support RHEL x64!!!!

Stats: (Same for Both the Media & Master Servers)
- Netbackup v6.5.1
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES release 4 - Update 6

Any guidance would be appriecated.

Thanks!

[John_Stockard]

I believe that your backup admin is mistaken.

According to the OS compatibility list for NetBackup 6.x, RHEL AS 4 x64 is supported as a NetBackup master/media server, a BMR server, a BMR client, a NOM server (starting with NBU 6.5.4), a NOM-managed server, and an NDMP remote server.

Note that some of the NetBackup binaries for this platform might be 32-bit executables.  There is a note in the compatiblity list that says "Next major release following NetBackup 6.5; Master server, Media servers and Clients will be supported with 64-bit binaries only. Back level support of NetBackup Media servers and Clients will be available until NetBackup 6.x reaches end of support.".

Keep in mind that you will need to purchase the NDMP licenses for NetBackup (consult with your Symantec sales rep or Symantec reseller for the correct quantity and Tier of licenses needed for your NetApp FAS3140 filers) and your backup admin will need to manually install and patch the NetBackup NDMP binaries on the master server.  The NDMP binaries are not automatically installed when installing a Unix/Linux-based NetBackup master/media server (they are automatically installed on Windows-based NetBackup master/media servers).

[Mike_Pruett]

 So wierd that the HCL list RHEL v4 x64 as capable of supporting NDMP. The NetBackup NDMP Administration guide has not been updated.

https://fileconnect.symantec.com/SerialProductFiles.jsp?pager.offset=20

Oh well... we will give it a shot.

Thanks for your help John!

[John_Stockard · Accepted solution]

The NetBackup manuals are written in advance of the product becoming GA (General Availability).  It's quite possible that support for remote NDMP on RHEL 4 x64 servers was added to NetBackup 6.5 after the manuals were written.  Also note that the manuals for NetBackup are not updated once the product is released.  Documentation of new features is in separate documents (usually the "Release Notes" and "Documentation Updates" PDFs released with each patch).

For example, check out the Documentation Updates for NetBackup 6.5.4.  This document also includes the documentation updates that were released with NetBackup 6.5.3 and 6.5.2 (apparently no new features were added in 6.5.1, so there's no section in this document for it).  There is some extra documentation of remote NDMP in the 6.5.2 section of this document.  NetBackup 6.5.2 added the ability to do remote NDMP backups to a disk device.  Previous versions of NetBackup only allowed remote (or local) NDMP backups to a tape device (VTL counts as a tape device in this context).