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

MSDP Scaleout scaling recommendations

Following are the scaling recommendations for the MSDP Scaleout:

  • Allocate the data volumes of the similar sizes for MSDP to have better load balancing performance.

  • Each data volume size is more than 4 TB.

  • Have multiple data volumes for each engine to gain better throughput.

  • Split a bigger backup policy to smaller ones

    In most cases, one backup job goes to one MSDP engine at the same time even if multistream is enabled for the backup policy. If the current MSDP engine, which is taking a backup job hits the high space watermark, the following backup data would be sent to a second MSDP engine. If the backup data is too big for up to 2 MSDP engines to persist, the backup job fails. When more MSDP engines are added, the backup jobs may not be evenly balanced on each MSDP engine at the first a few hours or days. If the situation keeps longer beyond your expectation, consider to re-plan the backup policies, by splitting a bigger backup policy to two smaller ones, to help MSDP Scaleout to balance the new backup jobs more faster.

  • After scaling up, the memory and CPU of the existing node pool may not meet the performance requirements anymore. In this case, you can add more memory and CPU by upgrading to the higher instance type to improve the existing node pool performance or create another node pool with higher instance type and update the node-selector for the CR accordingly. If you create another node pool, the new node-selector does not take effect until you manually delete the pods and deployments from the old node pool, or delete the old node pool directly to have the pods re-scheduled to the new node pool.

  • Ensure that each AKS node supports mounting the number of data volumes plus 5 of the data disks.

    For example, if you have 16 data volumes for each engine, then each your AKS node should support mounting at least 21 data disks. The additional 5 data disks are for the potential MDS pod, Controller pod or MSDP operator pod to run on the same node with MSDP engine.