Non supported OS VM backups

[su_A_ve]

Currently running the latest 7.5.  We do have some older VMs (Netware 6, RHEL 4 32bit, RHEL 5 32bit) that have the latest supported client installed (netbackup client 6x).

We are looking at upgrading to 7.6.0.2 so we can upgrade vmware to 5.5.  Questions are:

* Will the old non-supported clients still work for individual file restores?  Anyone trying this?

* Would a VM snapshot still work and I would at worse, be able to restore the whole VM if needed?

I'd hope to upgrade soon those old Linux VMs but I know I have no hope on doing anything with the old Netware VMs.

Thanks in advance.

[Mai_Ali]

For client supported with Netbackup 7.6

Client - Supported Linux Operating Systems

• Red Hat
• SUSE
• Open Enterprise Server
• Asianux/RedFlag
• Debian/CentOS/Ubuntu

Client - Other Supported Operating Systems

• OS X
• OpenVMS
• FreeBSD

Supported Hypervisors

There are numerous possible combinations of hypervisors that may occur; this list is provided as a general supported list of hypervisors for NetBackup.

• HP-UX Integrity VM
• IBM VIO Server
• Microsoft Hyper-V
• Solaris Zones
• Solaris Logical Domains
• VMware ESX
• VMware vSphere

Also you can refer below links

http://www.symantec.com/netbackup/system-requirements

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH214999

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/blogs/netbackup-appliances-2602-now-available

[SymTerry · Accepted solution]

The rule usually is that we support any guest os that VMWare supports with the exception being only a few OS you can perform individual file restores

Looking at the Support for NetBackup 7.x in virtual environments (updated May 7, 2014) I see 2 of the OS's can do file level.

VMware guest operating systems supported for file-level recovery:

RHEL 4 (32bit*/64bit)

RHEL 5 (32bit*/64bit)

* NetBackup 7.x no longer includes Linux 32-bit clients. Consequently, file-level
restore directly to the Linux 32-bit virtual machine is not possible. As an alternative,
you can perform a file-level restore to network shared storage. Recovery of the
entirevirtualmachineis supportedforboth32-bitand64-bitLinux virtualmachines.

Netware is not listed in this doc but, the NetBackup admin guide says:

From the backup, you can recover the guest OS and the entire virtual machine. Depending on the type of backup and the guest OS file system type, you can also recover individual files from the same backup

So make sure you look at what 5.5 supports for guest OS's. If VMware supports it, NetBackup will at least restore the whole VM.

********************

EDIT: I didn't see the little * part, so while file-level restore directly to VM is not possible, just mount a share to it and restore there :D 

[su_A_ve]

Netware 6 is still supported by vmware 5.5.  We currently back this up via the latest netbackup 6 client but also backup the VM via snapshots.  It looks like the netbackup client will not be supported so I would have to restore the whole VM and then pull the individual files as needed.  

The question is will the netbackup 6 client still work even though it's not supported?

[Marianne]

NBU 6.x client will still work. 
See Version Compatibility TN: http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH29677 

[su_A_ve]

Thanks - but this document only references up to version 7.5.  I cannot seem to find a revised version that makes refernce to 7.6 and/or the fact that netbackup 6.x products have become EoL.

[CRZ]

The information you're looking for has been moved to the Release Notes, I think.  TECH29677 is deprecated and really needs to be expired.  (Unfortunately, we even still link to it in the Release Notes!)

NetBackup 7.6.0.2 Release Notes (see Table C-1)
 http://symantec.com/docs/DOC6840

NetBackup 7.5.0.7 Release Notes (see Table 2-1)
 http://symantec.com/docs/DOC6695

You will notice that we don't even put 6.x in these tables anymore.  Our boilerplate response now is "we'll only talk to you about 7.x; everything else has been EOSL for over a year" and there are notes about 6.x's end of support life underneath both of these tables.

While it's UNSUPPORTED, we make no determination as to whether or not it may WORK.