On Thu, May 11, 2006 at 12:36:13PM -0500, Rob Worman wrote:
> FYI on this topic of NBU support and RedHat 3 in particular...
> 
> Ed, you wrote that:
> 
> <snip>
> > Fact:  NetBackup 6.5, targeted for release in February, 2007, will drop
> > support for RHEL 3.  RHEL 3 started shipping in October, 2003 and will
> > be supported by Red Hat through October, 2010.  Symantec will cut you
> > off with its current release nearly 4 years before Red Hat stops
> > supporting the OS.  On the other hand, Windows 2000, which was released
> > 2 1/2 years earlier than RHEL 3, will still be supported by NetBackup
> > 6.5.
> </snip>
> 
> I must respectfully disagree with this "Fact:".
> 
> The relevant Symantec publication on this topic seems to be p.3-4 of
> the NetBackup 6 OS Supportability Matrix, found here:
> 
> http://ftp.support.veritas.com/pub/support/products/NetBackup_Enterprise_Server/278064.pdf
> 
> In particular, references to RH 3 include a footnote that reads,
> 
>   "Next major release following NetBackup 6.0
>    will not support this OS Version.  This status
>    could change if market and/or vendor support
>    positions change."
> 
> For the past 8 years that I've been using NBU and reading these
> supportability statements, the phrase "next major release" has
> consistently referred to the next major version number.  i.e.,
> NetBackup 7.0 (or NBU 8, or NBU 2008, or whatever TPTB decide to call
> it).

I've spoken with our Symantec Sales Account Manager and had it confirmed
by our Symantec Systems Engineer that in this case, the next major
release is 6.5.  I also had this confirmed by the local SE Manager.

> So I'm quite confident that these questions don't apply to 6.5.

Symantec is saying differently.  If you're running RHEL 3, please
contact Symantec and see if you get the same answer.  I'd sure
appreciate confirmation.

> In my experience, NBU has been good about fully supporting an OS
> revision for AT LEAST as long as the OS vendor is still providing
> general fixes for that version.  For RH3, I think that will be true
> until November of this year.  Reference:
> 
> http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/errata/

I've checked that and Red Hat will provide security fixes through
October 31, 2010.  That's how long Red Hat expects customers to still be
running this release.  Again, note that GENERAL support for Win2K has
already ended yet NetBackup will support it in their next major release.

        .../Ed

-- 
Ed Wilts, Mounds View, MN, USA
mailto:ewilts AT ewilts DOT org