Re: [Veritas-bu] NetBackup Fibre Transport Client Backups

Licensing, for one. The reduced administration would be another big plus for me to look at SAN clients.

Rusty Major, MCSE, BCFP, VCS ▪ Sr. Storage Engineer ▪ SunGard Availability Services ▪ 757 N. Eldridge Suite 200, Houston TX 77079 ▪ 281-584-4693
Keeping People and Information Connected® ▪ http://availability.sungard.com/
P Think before you print
CONFIDENTIALITY: This e-mail (including any attachments) may contain confidential, proprietary and privileged information, and unauthorized disclosure or use is prohibited. If you received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender and delete this e-mail from your system.

"Donaldson, Mark" <Mark.Donaldson AT Staples DOT com>
Sent by: <veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu>

10/20/2009 11:13 AM

To	<william.d.brown AT gsk DOT com>, "VERITAS-BU AT MAILMAN.ENG.AUBURN DOT EDU" <VERITAS-BU AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu>
cc
Subject	Re: [Veritas-bu] NetBackup Fibre Transport Client Backups

Given the very narrow range of hardware & OS, why not simply use SAN Media Server? Data over the SAN, meta-data over the network - seems like nearly the same with far less implementation problems. -M -----Original Message----- From: veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu [mailto:veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu] On Behalf Of william.d.brown AT gsk DOT com Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 1:22 PM To: VERITAS-BU AT MAILMAN.ENG.AUBURN DOT EDU Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] NetBackup Fibre Transport Client Backups Simon, I think that some of the replies on the list are not quite correct. We are implementing the SAN Client/FT Media Server for a production data centre, and I've spent several months working on it in our test labs. It's true that the documentation is slightly confusing, especially if you don't get the latest versions. The book to read is the Shared Storage Guide that was updated at 6.5.4. There is also a technote with troubleshooting information. The *licence* for the SAN Client is the same Enterprise Client licence as allows you to run the SAN Media Server, and this naming causes a lot of confusion. You do indeed need an 'FT Media Server', which is a normal media server that has some very specific fibre HBAs installed. There is a *very* narrow support matrix. The only supported platforms at the moment are Solaris/SPARC and Linux (I think RHEL4, and that is new at 6.5.4). We are using Solaris/SPARC. We are using Sun-badged Qlogic HBAs; the HBAs must be Qlogic, and again only some are supported. These HBAs are reconfigured as part of the setup to work in target mode. This incidentally causes various tools like 'fcinfo' to not see them at all any more. You can do this 'card marking' in a server other then the one you want to use as an FT Media Server, e.g. to cut down downtime. Once marked the HBAs can be installed where you want. *But* on Solaris only target HBAs on one PCI bus will be used, so you need to choose a server that not only has a fast PCI-X or PCIe bus but also enough slots on that bus for your needs. There are limits on the number of ports an FT Media Server can support, about 4 I think (2 x dual-port cards). A special driver by jungo is attached to these HBAs in the FT Media Server when you enable the function. You will then have a couple more NetBackup processes running, and the server will be presenting to the SAN two 'ARCHIVE Python' tape targets per HBA port. You must create touch files in /usr/openv/netbackup/db/config: NUMBER_DATA_BUFFERS_FT - should be 16, maybe 32 on Solaris, but on RHEL there are other limits, read the technotes. SIZE_DATA_BUFFERS_FT - set to 262144, fail to do this and it uses the value in SIZE_DATA_BUFFERS if writing to tape and SIZE_DATA_BUFFERS_DISK if writing to disk; but FT fails if the value it uses is above 512K. The SAN Client uses the Standard Client install (even though it uses the same licence as SAN Media Server, it does not use the same code). This is one of the plus points, smaller code and it is just the normal client, very easy to manage and update. You zone the HBAs on the client to the FT Media Server(s) target ports. As usual, don't mix tape & disk on the client HBA port; but you can use *any* HBA in the SAN Client. You have to configure the OS to find the drives, varies by OS. The Device Configuration Guide now has information on SAN Client, though it took me some time to work it out. I could give you more detail off-list and I'm only the other end of Gunnels Wood Road. Windows and AIX were very easy. Once the OS can see the ARCHIVE Python devices, you can enable SAN Client function. Entry in bp.conf, or there is a CLI command to enable it. Then run bp.start_all, which reports 'starting FT client' whether it is enabled or not! Many reasons for it immediately shutting down: 1) No SAN Client licence on Master Server 2) Trying to run on a server that has a 'server' install, not just the client ...more... Performance can be good, it depends on how slow your LAN is. Our GbE LAN can be as fast as the SAN Client, because the limiting factor becomes the speed the Media Server can write the data to disk or tape. It should be faster, it should use less resource on the SAN Client as the Ethernet overhead is gone - but if you used TOE cards it would make less difference. But if a server was on 100Mb, then backing up over 2Gb fibre would be a lot quicker. Our plan is to eliminate SAN Media Servers and SSO. There is a lot of small print about multiplexing, which is a bit different. There are a number of new OIDs to learn for logging. You will want to find the 'nbrbutil -listOrphanedPipes' command. I found at least on WIndows that the bpbkar log had some new information when logging was turned up about retries and errors on the fibre links. William D L Brown "WEAVER, Simon (external)" <simon.weaver AT astrium.eads DOT net> Sent by: veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu 13-Oct-2009 17:20 To "VERITAS-BU AT MAILMAN.ENG.AUBURN DOT EDU" <VERITAS-BU AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu> cc Subject [Veritas-bu] NetBackup Fibre Transport Client Backups Hi All Currently looking into the SAN Client / Fibre Transport clients. Wondered if anyone else has implemented this on 6.5 and any pros cons? While readin the SS Guide - it seems to imply you need a "Media" Server, but does not really explain if you can use a "Master" Server for this (even though a Master / Media Server is on the same box)? From the looks, it seems that I need an FT Media Server to handle this ! Any comments would be appreicated, even if it is a "dont do it" :-) Regards Simon This email (including any attachments) may contain confidential and/or privileged information or information otherwise protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately, do not copy this message or any attachments and do not use it for any purpose or disclose its content to any person, but delete this message and any attachments from your system. Astrium disclaims any and all liability if this email transmission was virus corrupted, altered or falsified. -o- Astrium Limited, Registered in England and Wales No. 2449259 Registered Office: Gunnels Wood Road, Stevenage, Hertfordshire, SG1 2AS, England _______________________________________________ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu ----------------------------------------------------------- This e-mail was sent by GlaxoSmithKline Services Unlimited (registered in England and Wales No. 1047315), which is a member of the GlaxoSmithKline group of companies. The registered address of GlaxoSmithKline Services Unlimited is 980 Great West Road, Brentford, Middlesex TW8 9GS. ----------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu _______________________________________________ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu

_______________________________________________
Veritas-bu maillist  -  Veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu