NetBackup™ Deployment Guide for Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS) Cluster

Last Published:
Product(s): NetBackup (10.0.0.1)
  1. Introduction to NetBackup on AKS
    1.  
      About NetBackup deployment on Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS) cluster
    2.  
      Required terminology
    3.  
      User roles and permissions
    4.  
      About MSDP Scaleout
    5.  
      About MSDP Scaleout components
    6.  
      Limitations in MSDP Scaleout
  2. Deployment with environment operators
    1. About deployment with the environment operator
      1.  
        Prerequisites
      2.  
        Contents of the TAR file
      3.  
        Known limitations
    2.  
      Deploying using the deploy.sh file
    3.  
      Deploying the operators manually
    4.  
      Deploying NetBackup and MSDP Scaleout manually
    5.  
      Configuring the environment.yaml file
    6.  
      Uninstalling NetBackup environment and the operators
    7.  
      Applying security patches
  3. Assessing cluster configuration before deployment
    1.  
      How does the Config-Checker utility work
    2.  
      Config-Checker execution and status details
  4. Deploying NetBackup
    1.  
      Preparing the environment for NetBackup installation on AKS
    2.  
      Recommendations of NetBackup deployment on AKS
    3.  
      Limitations of NetBackup deployment on AKS
    4. About primary server CR and media server CR
      1.  
        After installing primary server CR
      2.  
        After Installing the media server CR
    5.  
      Monitoring the status of the CRs
    6.  
      Updating the CRs
    7.  
      Deleting the CRs
    8.  
      Configuring NetBackup IT Analytics for NetBackup deployment
    9.  
      Managing NetBackup deployment using VxUpdate
    10.  
      Migrating the node pool for primary or media servers
  5. Upgrading NetBackup
    1.  
      Preparing for NetBackup upgrade
    2.  
      Upgrading NetBackup operator
    3.  
      Upgrading NetBackup application
    4.  
      Procedure to rollback when upgrade fails
  6. Deploying MSDP Scaleout
    1.  
      Deploying MSDP Scaleout
    2.  
      Prerequisites
    3.  
      Installing the docker images and binaries
    4.  
      Initializing the MSDP operator
    5.  
      Configuring MSDP Scaleout
    6.  
      Using MSDP Scaleout as a single storage pool in NetBackup
    7.  
      Configuring the MSDP cloud in MSDP Scaleout
  7. Upgrading MSDP Scaleout
    1.  
      Upgrading MSDP Scaleout
  8. Monitoring NetBackup
    1.  
      Monitoring the application health
    2.  
      Telemetry reporting
    3.  
      About NetBackup operator logs
    4.  
      Expanding storage volumes
    5.  
      Allocating static PV for Primary and Media pods
  9. Monitoring MSDP Scaleout
    1.  
      About MSDP Scaleout status and events
    2.  
      Monitoring with Azure Container insights
    3.  
      The Kubernetes resources for MSDP Scaleout and MSDP operator
  10. Managing the Load Balancer service
    1.  
      About the Load Balancer service
    2.  
      Notes for Load Balancer service
    3.  
      Opening the ports from the Load Balancer service
  11. Performing catalog backup and recovery
    1.  
      Backing up a catalog
    2.  
      Restoring a catalog
  12. Managing MSDP Scaleout
    1.  
      Adding MSDP engines
    2.  
      Adding data volumes
    3. Expanding existing data or catalog volumes
      1.  
        Manual storage expansion
    4.  
      MSDP Scaleout scaling recommendations
    5. MSDP Cloud backup and disaster recovery
      1.  
        About the reserved storage space
      2.  
        Cloud LSU disaster recovery
    6.  
      MSDP multi-domain support
    7.  
      Configuring Auto Image Replication
    8. About MSDP Scaleout logging and troubleshooting
      1.  
        Collecting the logs and the inspection information
  13. About MSDP Scaleout maintenance
    1.  
      Pausing the MSDP Scaleout operator for maintenance
    2.  
      Logging in to the pods
    3.  
      Reinstalling MSDP Scaleout operator
    4.  
      Migrating the MSDP Scaleout to another node pool
  14. Uninstalling MSDP Scaleout from AKS
    1.  
      Cleaning up MSDP Scaleout
    2.  
      Cleaning up the MSDP Scaleout operator
  15. Troubleshooting
    1.  
      View the list of operator resources
    2.  
      View the list of product resources
    3.  
      View operator logs
    4.  
      View primary logs
    5.  
      Pod restart failure due to liveness probe time-out
    6.  
      Socket connection failure
    7.  
      Resolving an invalid license key issue
    8.  
      Resolving an issue where external IP address is not assigned to a NetBackup server's load balancer services
    9.  
      Resolving the issue where the NetBackup server pod is not scheduled for long time
    10.  
      Resolving an issue where the Storage class does not exist
    11.  
      Resolving an issue where the primary server or media server deployment does not proceed
    12.  
      Resolving an issue of failed probes
    13.  
      Resolving token issues
    14.  
      Resolving an issue related to insufficient storage
    15.  
      Resolving an issue related to invalid nodepool
    16.  
      Resolving a token expiry issue
    17.  
      Resolve an issue related to inconsistency in file ownership
    18.  
      Resolve an issue related to KMS database
    19.  
      Resolve an issue related to pulling an image from the container registry
    20.  
      Resolving an issue related to recovery of data
    21.  
      Check primary server status
    22.  
      Pod status field shows as pending
    23.  
      Ensure that the container is running the patched image
    24.  
      Getting EEB information from an image, a running container, or persistent data
    25.  
      Resolving the certificate error issue in NetBackup operator pod logs
  16. Appendix A. CR template
    1.  
      Secret
    2.  
      MSDP Scaleout CR

Prerequisites

A working Azure Kubernetes cluster (AKS cluster)

  • Azure Kubernetes cluster

    • Your Azure Kubernetes cluster must be created with appropriate network and configuration settings.

      Supported Azure Kubernetes cluster version is 1.21.x and later.

    • Availability zone for AKS cluster must be disabled.

    • At least one storage class is backed with Azure disk CSI storage driver "disk.csi.azure.com", and allows volume expansion. It must be in LRS category with Premium SSD. For example, the built-in storage class "managed-csi-premium". It is recommended that the storage class has "Retain" reclaim.

    • Cert-Manager must be installed.

    • A Kubernetes Secret that contains the MSDP credentials is required.

      See Secret.

    • Enable AKS Uptime SLA.

      AKS Uptime SLA is recommended for a better resiliency.

      For information about AKS Uptime SLA and to enable it, see Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Uptime SLA.

  • Azure container registry (ACR)

    Use existing ACR or create a new one. Your Kubernetes cluster must be able to access this registry to pull the images from.

  • Node Pool

    You must have a dedicated node pool for MSDP Scaleout created. Azure availability zone must be disabled.

    The Azure autoscaling allows your node pool to scale dynamically as required. If Azure autoscaling is not enabled, ensure the node number is not less than MSDP Scaleout size.

    It is recommended that you set the minimum node number to 1 or more to bypass some limitations in AKS.

  • Client machine to access AKS cluster

    • A separate computer that can access and manage your AKS cluster and ACR.

    • It must have Linux operating system.

    • It must have Docker daemon, the Kubernetes command-line tool (kubectl), and Azure CLI installed.

      The Docker storage size must be more than 6 GB. The version of kubectl must be v1.19.x or later. The version of Azure CLI must meet the AKS cluster requirements.

    • If AKS is a private cluster, see Create a private Azure Kubernetes Service cluster.

  • Static Internal IPs

    If the internal IPs are used, reserve the internal IPs (avoid the IPs that are reserved by other systems) for MSDP Scaleout and add DNS records for all of them in your DNS configuration.

    The Azure static public IPs can be used but is not recommended.

    If Azure static public IPs are used, create them in the node resource group for the AKS cluster. A DNS name must be assigned to each static public IP. The IPs must be in the same location of the AKS cluster.

Existing NetBackup environment

MSDP Scaleout connects to the existing NetBackup environment with the required network ports 1556 and 443. The NetBackup primary server should be 10.0 or later. The NetBackup environment can be anywhere, locally or remotely. It may or may not be in AKS cluster. It may or may not be in the same AKS cluster.

If the NetBackup servers are on Azure cloud, besides the NetBackup configuration requirements, the following settings are recommended. They are not MSDP-specific requirements, they just help your NetBackup environment run smoothly on Azure cloud.

  • Add the following in /usr/openv/netbackup/bp.conf 

    HOST_HAS_NAT_ENDPOINTS = YES

  • Tune sysctl parameters as follows:

    net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_time=120

net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range = 14000 65535

net.core.somaxconn = 1024

    Tune the max open files to 1048576 if you run concurrent jobs.