Support for Netbackup master/media servers on LDOM or dynamic domains

[posie80]

All,
I hope you can clarify some things for me.
I'm trying to see if there is support to run Netbackup Master/media servers on Solaris LDOM technology, or dynamic domains technology (which exists on the SUN M-series servers).

I know that Solaris containers (local zones) are out of questions by this statement :

Solaris 10 Zone Support: The above support is for base Solaris 10 OS support. A new Solaris 10 feature, "Containers" or "Zones" allows the configuration of global and non-global zones. NetBackup Server is supported only in a global zone.  This is due to issues with block-level device support at the Operating System level with non-global zones.

Veritas Infrastructure Core Services (ICS) are only supported in the global zone.  This includes packages such as the Veritas Authentication service (VxAT) and the Veritas Authorization Service (VxAZ).  Attempts to install these packages in a local zone will fail during the installation.

But I'm still wondering if LDOM and dynamic domains might support Netbackup servers..
We currently have Netbackup 6.5 master and media servers running on separate SUN servers each and we are trying to see if we can consolidate this into a few 'virtual' servers inside one machine.

Appreciate your feedback or experiences with this sort of undertaking.

Thanks!

[Marianne]

Here's a more recent TechNote (dated Jan 2010): http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/315561.htm

Also have a look at these two documents:

Statement of Support for NetBackup 7 in a Virtual Environment ( Virtualization Technologies :(    http://support.veritas.com/docs/340091

Statement of Support for NetBackup 6.x in a Virtual Environment ( Virtualization Technologies :(    http://support.veritas.com/docs/312604

[posie80]

Hi Marianne,
Thank you for your very helpful response.

I had a look at the documents you posted and got some hope from this statement :

All NetBackup components supported with Solaris 10 SPARC physical servers are supported in a Solaris 10 LDoms Control Domain with the exception of Bare Metal Restore (server or client). Guest domain support is limited to standard client, database agents, master server and disk media server.


Only, I dont really understand the part about 'disk media server'. Does this mean that if I have a media server that connects to a physical tape library, this is not supported?

I currently have media servers connected to VTLs and also physical tape drives. I'm not sure whether these counts as 'disk media servers'....

Appreciate if you can clarify a little bit more. Thanks!

- Posie

[Andy_Welburn]

(EDIT: if it's going to be a media server) can only be a disk media server, not that it can only write to one. Your LDOM guest cannot be a tape media server.

[Marianne]

Guest: Basic and Advanced Disk Storage Unit only. Since VTL is presented to the O/S as tape it is not supported - no  Media Manager STU's.

[posie80]

Thank you Marianne and Andy, your replies have really clarified things. I guess Netbackup media servers like mine with STUs wont work in an LDOM guest...

That leaves only one thing for me - which is SUN Dynamic Domains (hard partitioning for SUN M-series servers).

I went through the docs again and couldnt find anything on Dynamic Domains.  AIX LPAR and vPAR are mentioned but no Dynamic Domains :

"For virtual environments, NetBackup supports backup and recovery of AIX
LPAR and HP-UX vPar hard partitions as if they were physical servers."

Any ideas if Dynamic Domains will also be treated by Netbackup as a physical server? Any thought on this one would be appreciated.

[Marianne · Accepted solution]

Not sure why it's not explicitly mentioned, but it's the same - hard partitions on M-series servers are seen as physical servers. We have a number of customers with M-series servers. You just need one license key for the footprint. So, if you have NBU Enterprise Server license for the M9000, you can install as many media servers as you like that occupy partitions on the physical machine.

[posie80]

Thank you Marianne!!
Thats great that only one license key for the whole server  is needed - I thought that it might treat a partition as one footprint/one separate license but glad I was wrong :)

Again, thanks a lot for everyone's assistance in this matter, you guys have been very helpful.

- Posie