cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

NetBackup running backups over virtual ethernet interfaces

DPeaco
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP   

Greetings,

  1. Here's my question:
  2. AIX 7.1 running on a P Series server
  3. 3 AIX LPARS in the system
  4. Customer IP Network is on xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx network
  5. Customer wants all backup traffic to go across the Virtual Ethernet configured on each AIX LPAR (1.1.1.1, 1.1.1.2, 1.1.1.3, 1.1.1.4)
  6. All virtual ethernet addresses and virtial names are added to each /etc/hosts file on each LPAR
  7. nslookup fails, ping works, ssh from one host to the next via the VE interface works fine

How would I configure NetBackup to use and only use the 1.1.1.X address/interfaces for backup traffic and restore traffic? I've read a lot about this but I'm only more confused than ever.

  1. VE Config:
  2. 1.1.1.1 host_a_ve
  3. 1.1.1.2 host_b_ve
  4. 1.1.1.3 host_c_ve
  5. 1.1.1.4 host_d_ve

If you can help clear the mud out of the water in my mind over this, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks,
Dennis
7 REPLIES 7

Marianne
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

It should work if the AIX server is a media server.

The policies will use the STU for this server and have the LPARs '_ve' names as policy client names.

Nicolai
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP   

Is the production IP subnet different from the backup network interfaces ?. Answer depends upon that.

All backup interfaces need to have a DNS entry, that entry is used in netbackup. All backup and restores going forward need to use the the name of the virtual backup interface. 

Pls see:

Best practices for Preferred Network, usage, and how it affects source and destination

http://www.veritas.com/docs/100037945

Required Interface or Preferred Network settings seem to cause connections between non-routed networks on weakhost platforms

http://www.veritas.com/docs/100028792

DPeaco
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP   

@Nicolai

Please see line #4 above in the original post. The customer IP / network is on a production 10 GBit network and the "backup network" that was setup for the backup traffic is on the virtual ethernet "network". The AIX engineer says that that 1.1.1.1 - 1.1.1.4 "virtual ethernet" network is really just "memory channel" routing from LPAR to LPAR. I forgot what he set the jumbo packet size for the virtual network but he said it was "huge".

So...in short, customer prod network is like 10.11.12.13 while the backup network is 1.1.1.x

Thanks,
Dennis

DPeaco
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP   

@Marianne

Server is a P series server. Each host is an LPAR inside that P Series hardware platform.

Your info is eye opening for me. Thank you for that.

Thanks,
Dennis

Nicolai
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP   

so - can you ping the backup interfaces from the media server ?

Marianne
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

Please confirm - the P-series server does have access to the 1.1.1.x network of its own LPARS, right?
Meaning that the server also has a 1.1.1.x IP address? 

If this is correct, it will work if the P-series server is a media server and backups are configured as per my previous post.

A backup network can only work if the media server and clients are on the same network.

DPeaco
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP   

Sorry, been really busy! I'll get to test this out tomorrow. Update to follow.

Thanks,
Dennis