Configure tsm4ve for hotadd

[DanGiles]

Hi all. I am setting up a new TSM 7.1.1 environment and am testing tsm4ve. I want to try the hotadd feature, but no where can I find what one has to do to VMware and the proxy to enable this. I also want to try nbd, but I need the incoming VMware data to go through the VMware network while the data to the TSM server should go through the backup network.

Can anyone point me to the proper documentation on how to actually configure these? I am not a VMware person.

Thanks in advance.

 

[rgg]

Well, this should answer hotadd question: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowl...t_tuning_tsm4ve_select_transport.html?lang=en

You don't really need to do anything to vmware that I'm aware of - the backup proxy just has to be a VM on the host in question to use hotadd. If you have multiple hosts under the vcenter, only the host with the backup proxy will use hotadd - the others should use ndb, assuming you specify hotadd:nbd as your transport method.

I'm not sure how much this matters for an nbd backup (ie I don't think you need to do anything, it's going to go over the backup network): "I also want to try nbd, but I need the incoming VMware data to go through the VMware network while the data to the TSM server should go through the backup network." ....but I don't know the answer for sure.

P.S. - make sure you use NBD and not NBDSSL if possible, SSL is slow.

 

[DanGiles]

rgg, I know all that. When I try hotadd I get

04/02/2015 08:51:15 ANS9365E VMware vStorage API error for virtual machine 'TRDWMFT1'.
TSM function name : VixDiskLib_Open
TSM file : vmvddksdk.cpp (1669)
API return code : 13
API error message : You do not have access rights to this file
04/02/2015 08:51:16 ANS1228E Sending of object 'TRDWMFT1' failed.
04/02/2015 08:51:16 ANS5283E The operation was unsuccessful.

And I can't find anything useful. From what I can find, it appears that iSCSI needs to be configured on VMware/ESX machines. I should have access "rights", but I've seen a lot of error messages in my time that has nothing to do with the error!

 

[rgg]

hrmm...haven't seen that one before. Looks like it could be a bunch of things, but I'm guessing they need to be SCSI disks somehow (not iSCSI).

Maybe you'll find some help here...not sure:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21673756
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21662673
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/mi...nguage=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1035096

I guess I'd run a tsm trace next and see if it is actually complaining about the disk type...if not, it's gotta be something else.

 

[rgg]

...you could also look at the settings for the TRDWMFT1 virtual machine and see if any IDE disks are defined/configured. I've never done this before, but VMware has a doc that talks about converting IDE disks to SCSI:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/mi...nguage=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1016192

 

[DanGiles]

No, we definitely do not use IDE disks. I've seen all these documents.

Now, I've stated several times from the get go to the designers and builders that the proxy needed access to all of the data stores, but this may not be the case. I'm verifying this now...

 

[Jarzi]

You don't need to do anything special to use hotadd, although obviously the datamover can't backup VM's it can't access. iSCSI is not needed for backups.

Can you backup any system with hotadd?

"You don't really need to do anything to vmware that I'm aware of - the backup proxy just has to be a VM on the host in question to use hotadd. If you have multiple hosts under the vcenter, only the host with the backup proxy will use hotadd - the others should use ndb, assuming you specify hotadd:nbd as your transport method."

Datamover doesn't need to be on the same host, it just requires access to datastore.

 

[DanGiles]

It looks like they just didn't do as I said Will be putting another data mover in on the cluster we're trying to back up.