Netbackup 32 to 64-bit upgrade -- worth it?

[CraigL]

Hi Folks -

I did some forum searches here to see if anyone else had asked this question before and the general consensus was "No", but many of the posts were quite stale, so I figured it would be worth bringing up again and see if attitudes have changed.

Currently, we're on Netbackup 7.5.0.5 running on Windows 2003 R2 Standard 32-bit.  We're not having any issues hitting our backup windows, performance is completely acceptable, etc.  My question is this -- what would we gain by upgrading to 64-bit?  (We'd move to 2008 R2).  From a performance standpoint, our bottlenecks are the NICs -- we see them saturated during backups and nearly the same transfer rate hit the SCSI-attached tape loader.  Additionally, the RAM on the server doesn't even touch 2GB, so it's not like we're bumping into the page file or anything and bumping the RAM up would help there.

Am I missing the boat here?  Are there NBU features (I believe dedupe requires 64-bit?) that we're missing by sticking with 32bit for now?

Any help/guidance here would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a ton.

-Craig

[Dyneshia]

Going to 64bit has been a reccomendation since 7.1 came out.  I will do some more research as to the list of requirements and perks.  The migration is fairly easy : http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH77447

However if you currnlty do not have an issue, then I do not see an issue staying there.  Let me see what I can find.

[CraigL]

Yes, I was reviewing that article just this week regarding the migration.  It doesn't look all that difficult..I'm just trying to determine how much, if any "bang" we'd get out of upgrading.  Additionally, the software we use for virtual machine backups (vRanger Pro) also lives on the same server, so there is that to take into account as well.

Our current setup performs very well and we really have no issues to speak of other than some sporadic issues with the tape loader, which isn't Symantec's fault ;)

[mph999]

If it is working, and you are happy with the performance then I would be tempted to leave it alone.

Martin.

[huanglao2002]

for windows upgrade to 64 bit is not nessary, I think upgrade was trigger by business need or vendor product lifecycle.

[StefanosM]

netbackup 7.6 beta does not have a 32 bit master or media server code. I do not now if it will have a 32 code when is GA, but I think that netbackup is dropping 32 bit for master and media

[CraigL]

Stefanos -

There we go, THAT's the info I was looking for.  Thanks a ton.

Huanglao2002 -

I agree, that's how we have handled it in virtually every other situation.

-Craig

[Rusty_Major]

The Software Compatibility List states that 2003 is not supported for NBU Servers at 32bit for the next major release after 7.5. I would assume this means version 8.0.

It also shows that 2008 NBU Servers is supported for 64bit only. I would assume that this trend will continue with 2012 also.

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH76648

I think you'll be ok for at least a year, but I would give migrating some serious thought as this is the direction of enterprise (and even home) operating systems and obviously NBU Server support for Windows 32b is gone once you migrate off 2003. You also have to consider when MS will stop support for 2003 (I couldn't find a clear, quick answer on that).

[CraigL]

Rusty -

Windows 2003 loses support in mid-2015, so we have a little bit of time on that one. If 7.6 and beyond requires it, then that is all I need to know.  Next time we need to upgrade NBU, we'll move to a 64-bit OS.

Thanks a ton for the info.

-Craig