NetBackup Support Licensing Questions

[Chris_Babcock]

Can anyone help decipher this? This is my support contract.

Product DescriptionTierQuote Qty
NetBackup Client,NetWare,Protect Server,v6.0,License3
NetBackup Client,Windows,Protect Server,v6.0,License13
NetBackup DataCenter,Cross-Platform,Library Based Tape Drive Support,v4.5,License1
NetBackup Option,Cross Platform,Library Based Tape Drive Support,v6.0,License1
NetBackup Option,Cross Platform,Library Based Tape Drive Support,v6.0,License2
NetBackup Server,Windows,Enterprise Server,v6.0,License21
NetBackup Server,Windows,SAN Media Server,v6.0,License24

I don't have any Netware Server anymore and the salesperson said they would convert them to Windows licenses. Does this actually apply to windows client licenses for NetBackup or only to support of Windows lisences?

What is SAN Media Server? I would think that is support on SAN Media Server (or SSO). Is this not the same? Technically, our company never installed the SSO option and the salesperson is saying we did not buy support for the SSO this last year because we said we were not using it. What is the diff between SSO and SAN Media Server?

I use a STK L700. If I add more drives to it, I need to buy more NetBackup licenses for Library Based Tape Drives correct?

Thanks!!!

Chris

[DavidParker]

Chris,
I think I can help decipher some of your questions (lord knows licensing is a royal pain).
Yes, you need 1 license per tape drive in your library.

It looks like you have:
16 (13+3) client licenses
4 (1+2+1) Tape drives (library style)
1 Server license
4 SAN Media Server license

SAN Media Server is different from SSO. SSO lets you share the same physical drive(s) to multiple master/media servers.

I believe (and I could very well be wrong) that SAN Media Server is intended to be used with systems that have SAN attached disk and to turn them from regular clients into their own media server (thus not requiring you to send data over the network to the master server). If you had that, and SSO for your tape drives, you could use the same library for all your backups and would have better performance from the SAN attached server.

I hope that helps at least somewhat.

DP

[Stumpr2]

just adding to David's info about SAN media servers:
A SAN media server is limited to only be able to backup itself up. It cannot backup other NetBackup clients. If you want to backup additional Netbackup clients then they would need a (full) media server to service their backups.

[DavidParker]

Oh yeah, forgot to add that in.
This being the case, I suspect that SAN Media Servers are cheaper to license than regular Media Servers ...

I think they tried to talk my company into that when they first went to NBU; didn't work so hot for our environment. Now we just have 2 regular Media servers and a master. Works quite well. =)

[Chris_Babcock]

The L700 has 7 drives. Right now I have 4 to the netbackup master/media server. IF I bring a SAN media server online and map it through the SAN switch to a different drive, They would not be sharing and I would not need the SSO option, correct? My thought is, what would control the robot?

[Stumpr2]

I can not say that you will not need the SSO. Theoretically you should not need SSO if you are not sharing the tape drives.The only documentation I have seen is with both SSO and SAN media server licenses keyed. Only one of the servers can control the library if you are using TLD. I would like to point out that it is not "Best Practice" to have your master server acting as the main media server. It would be better to have the SAN media server licensed to be a (full) media server w/7 drives.
Please see:
VERITAS NetBackup (tm) Enterprise Server / Server 6.0 Backup Planning and Performance Tuning Guide for UNIX, Windows, and Linux

http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/281842.htm

[DavidParker]

There is a setting on the robot device under the Media Server that you can specify an alternate 'controlling host' for the robot ...
So, when the media server needs to use the robot, it goes and asks the controlling host (the master) to perform whatever it needs.

You would still need a license for the drive to be connected to the media server I would think ...