P2V VM Master Server and the Robot Control Host

[RLeon]

Hi all,

I have gone through the following documents but couldn't find exactly what I'm looking for.

  Support for NetBackup 7.x in virtual environments:
  http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH127089

  Enabling multiple robotic paths from a single media server:
  http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH60395

Environment:
  All Windows 2008 R2 SP1
  1x Master Server 7.5 - Physical host, FC Robot Control host, no access to tape drives
  2x Media Server 7.5 - Physical host, FC SSO shared tape drives, no access to Robot Control

For one of our sites we are contemplating in doing a Physical to Virtual conversion (P2V) for the Master Server to become a VMware ESX VM.
The Master Server has never been used as a Media Server, which makes it an ideal candidate to be virtualized; it has no Storage Units, Disk Pools, Storage Servers, etc.

However, it does currently serve as the Robot Control Host for the tape library.
I'm trying to figure out the best thing to do with the Robot Control.

Shall I use some kind of physical device pass-through/RDM to present the Robot Control path to the VM Master Server? If this works, how would vMotion/migration from one ESX host to another affect this configuration?

Or, I could simply let one of the two physical Media Servers be the Robot Control Host.
But then, if the server fails, the other Media Server will not be able to do any backups.

If I present the Robot Control path to both physical Media Servers, I could designate one of them to be the Robot Control Host, and if it fails, I could MANUALLY make the remaining Media Server the Robot Control Host.
I don't suppose the failover of the Robot Control could be done automatically without manual intervention?
The document I linked to only talks about multipathing on a single Media Server.

What would you think is the best thing to do in this situation?

Any input would be appreciated.

RLeon

[Mark_Solutions · Accepted solution]

Pathing any sort of robotics to a VM is hardwork - if not near impossible! (unless it is iSCSI)

My advice is is to similpy designate one of your other media servers as the robot control host

To do this ...

1. Select all media in the robot - right click and select Move - move to stand alone

2. Open the properties of the robot shown for the Master Server and change the host to be one of the Media Servers - save it and say yes to device manager re-start

3. Open the robot properties for the other Media Servers (except the one you want to be the host) and do the same as above

4. Open the robot properties for the Media Server that is to be the host and change it to be controlled locally

5. re-inventory the library and all should be good

You can then delete the Masters robot / storage unit etc as it will no longer be needed

There is no auto failover so you will have to just choose one of them to be the robot host

Hope this helps

[Marianne]

I would not even try to get the robot to work in a virtual environment.

This seems to be you best possible solution:

If I present the Robot Control path to both physical Media Servers, I could designate one of them to be the Robot Control Host, and if it fails, I could MANUALLY make the remaining Media Server the Robot Control Host.

I don't suppose the failover of the Robot Control could be done automatically without manual intervention?

Automatic failover would have been possible in a clustered media server config, but this is no longer supported. Custered media server was previously supported in Active/Passive config, no Active/Active.

[RLeon]

Thank you both for your inputs.

Looks like I'll have to be doing the Robot Control failover manually between physical Media Servers then.

I just gave the following feature-suggestion a big thumbs up.

Netbackup multipath failover for robotic devices:
https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/idea/netbackup-multipath-failover-robotic-devices

Thanks all,

RLeon