Hi,



The backup target is currently a FC VTL, attached to the backup server. No
possibility of converting it to iSCSI.



I had come to the same conclusion for the backup server being able to write
to tape. (While VMDirectPath I/O could potentially do this, VMware doesn't
officially support FC tape, and I don't like the idea of configuring based
on edge cases)

NetWorker version—lets says the current release of 8.x. Right now at 7.6,
but we would plan to upgrade as part of the reconfiguration.



However, given that the only thing that the NetWorker server *must* write
locally are bootstrap and index backups, I was thinking that someone else
may have run into this issue.

I'm not concerned about backups—we'll send those to tape via physical
storage nodes; that is more and more a recommended architecture by EMC for
larger configurations to reduce load on the backup server anyways.



We are considering using a local diskdevice, but I'm concerned about adding
complexity to the configuration:

--Having to monitor the local AFTD (disk space and diskbackup license) as
the index backups grow

--Having to stage index and bootstrap backups to tape.

--Whether we can restore indexes backed up to a storage node. (I haven't
validated this, but I suspect it'll work fine)

--Ensuring that we can do easy mmrecoveries. I have a dim memory of testing
trying to do this from a storage node, but that was somewhere in the
5.5/6.0 days, and I don't trust my memory.





Thanks,



Dave



*From:* Punitsingh Suryawanshi [mailto:punit.suryawanshi AT gmail DOT com]
*Sent:* Wednesday, June 19, 2013 4:58 PM
*To:* EMC NetWorker discussion; dave2 AT cambridgecomputer DOT com
*Subject:* Re: [Networker] networker server as VM



Hi Dave,



What is your backup target? Is it DataDomain or other disk?

VM is out of question if you backup to tape.



What is your Networker version?



What do you mean by local device for indexes and bootstrap? A tape drive or
disk?



Regards,

-Punit



On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 11:40 PM, <dave2 AT cambridgecomputer DOT com> wrote:

Hi,



I was wondering what folks experience was with having their NetWorker
server configured as a VM?



I'm specifically thinking about the need to have a local device for indexes
and bootstraps. How have you dealt with that in an all tape (or FC-only
VTL) environment?



--Dave





Dave Gold

Sr. Technical Consultant

Cambridge Computer Services

dgold AT cambridgecomputer DOT com

781-250-3260