Our current NB server is running:
Server 2003 SP2
4 CPU Core
NB 7.5.0.4
4GB of ram
6.2TB of disk storage
Robotic tape library with 2 drives
2 GB Nic Cards
We have a mixed bag of physical and VMware hosted virtual servers and our Netbackup server doubles as a Master and Media server. We have standard policies that run on a daily basis to disk then duplicate to tape, there is no physical connection to the SAN so VM backups are through NBD transport. With the above configuration you can see that our server is overburdened and we are due for an upgrade. Fortunately I have a new server at my disposal and would like to take the opportunity to split the master and media server roles; we have also purchased the Data Protection and Optimization Add-on which includes dedup.
The new server:
Server 2008 R2 x64
8 CPU Cores
16GB Ram
6GB Nic cards
My intention is to attach the tape and storage drives, make this new server the Media server and configure the Master as a virtual machine. I need to be able to do server side or client side de-duplication and retain the ability to duplicate images to tape. What is the best way to go about this upgrade, how would you do it if this was your environment? Can my 6.2 TB storage be a de-duplication storage unit and still duplicate images to tape? How do I take advantage of the multiple Nics? How do I bring up the new master and media servers and decommission the old one? Thanks in advance for your ideas.
