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instances in Flex appliance

Dav1234
Level 5

Hello Experts,

I am new on Flex appliance. is instances are mandate to create on netbackup flex appliance?

cant we perform backups from headunit?

6 REPLIES 6

davidmoline
Level 6
Employee

Hi @Dav1234 

The Flex appliance simply provides the infrastructure to run NetBackup instances. To be able to back anything up, you will be required to create a NetBackup instance (media server/WORM storage server).

You can liken the relationship between the Flex and the instances it runs to an ESX server and the VM guests that run on it (there is little you can do with the ESX server by itself). 

Hope this helps
David

 

 

Hello David,

Thank you for information but cant we backup the data with head unit only instead of instances?

No. To run NetBackup on the Flex appliance you must first create instances. 

There is no NetBackup installed on the Flex node. The instances do in effect run on this node but only as guests (or more correctly as containers). 

David

Thanks again David,

So, how many instances we can create on one Flex node means what is the best practise so that we can get better performance?

And the storage server will be created by the instances we create? And the disk pool will also be created for each instance?

Hi @Dav1234 

The number instances depends on the Flex model you use. For a Flex 5250 or 5150, I would suggest limiting the number of instances to 2. For the more powerful Flex appliances (5340 or 5350), you can run more instances but I would suggest limiting to 6 or less. 

The actual number you can run also depends on the workload and number of jobs - so it is not an simple one answer fits all. Talk to the account team that sold the Flex, they will have a better understand of your environment and what the particular Flex can support. 

As for the setup - in the WebUI, you create a media server instance and assign storage for MSDP and/or Advanced Disk. Once that is done, the storage server creation and diskpool creation is done via the NetBackup UI (either Java or Web) in much the same way you would for a BYO media server. When you are creating the storage server and diskpool, you will need to seledct the correct storage location for the storage type from the instance created.

Have you read any of the Flex Getting Started and Administration guides and NetBackup Application Guilde for Flex Appliances? I'm sure all the above is covered there.

Cheers
David

 

EnriquePereira
Level 5
Partner Accredited

Hi,

 

You should follow the recommendations from @davidmoline. You can read for more information on the flex whitepaper at:

 

https://www.veritas.com/content/support/en_US/doc/NetBackupFlexAppliances_BestPractices

 

Regards,

 

Enrique