Veritas NetBackup™ Flex Scale Best Practices and Troubleshooting Guide

Last Published:
Product(s): Appliances (3.1)
Platform: NetBackup Flex Scale OS
  1. Introduction
    1.  
      Scope and intended audience
    2.  
      About NetBackup Flex Scale
    3.  
      About NetBackup Flex Scale nodes
  2. Configuration requirements
    1.  
      Physical environment
    2.  
      NetBackup Flex Scale configuration requirements
    3.  
      Firewall and network ports requirements
    4.  
      Considerations for using IPv6 addresses
  3. Best practices
    1.  
      Management network connectivity
    2.  
      Private network connectivity
    3.  
      Configuring AutoSupport for the appliance
    4.  
      Necessary software
  4. NetBackup Flex Scale tuning and sizing
    1.  
      Assigning media servers to a storage server
    2.  
      NetBackup Flex Scale tuning
  5. Troubleshooting NetBackup Flex Scale
    1.  
      NetBackup Flex Scale logs
    2.  
      Services management
    3.  
      Audit logs
    4. Collecting logs for cluster nodes
      1.  
        Uploading logs to Veritas Support
      2.  
        Downloading logs
    5.  
      Error messages displayed during the pre-upgrade check
    6. Troubleshooting NetBackup Flex Scale issues
      1.  
        If cluster configuration fails (for example because an IP address that was already in use is specified) and you try to reconfigure the cluster, the UI displays an error but the configuration process continues to run
      2.  
        Validation error while adding VMware credentials to NetBackup
      3.  
        NetBackup Web UI incorrectly displays some NetBackup Flex Scale processes as failed
      4.  
        Unable to create BMR Shared Resource Tree (SRT) on NetBackup Flex Scale Appliance
      5.  
        NetBackup configuration files are not persistent across operations that require restarting the system
      6.  
        Connection timeout errors during patch installs, upgrades, and rollback operations
      7.  
        Initial configuration wizard displays a driver node not selected error
      8.  
        Initial configuration wizard displays a license error after successfully configuring the cluster

Configuring AutoSupport for the appliance

Veritas recommends that you configure AutoSupport for improved customer support experience and reduced downtime in case of failures.

The AutoSupport service allows for proactive monitoring, management, and support of the cluster's health and performance. It identifies the probable risks and issues in the environment and provides alerts to admin users and service engineers. This mechanism lets you manage such issues before they have an adverse effect on your production environment.

You must enable Call Home to allow your appliance to connect with a Veritas AutoSupport server and upload hardware and software information. Call Home alerts you and Veritas in the event of critical conditions that may affect the operational capability of the system, such as hardware component failure. Call Home uploads hardware and software information to a secure Veritas AutoSupport server when an alert is detected. This information may be used by Veritas to proactively open a support case with Technical Support. A Technical Support Engineer contacts you to further diagnose the issue, such as gathering logs and to arrange for replacement field service of the reported component, if needed. The collected hardware information generally includes the information about the appliance hardware and software state, events, configuration, and performance data. The appliance uses the HTTPS protocol and uses port 443 to connect to the Veritas server.

Call Home monitors the following hardware components as they apply to your specific appliance model:

  • CPU

    Fan

  • Disk

  • Power supplies

  • DIMM

  • Firmware

  • Environmental telemetry data

    • System temperature

    • System voltages

    • Fan speeds

    • BBU charge status

    • RAID controllers

    • RAID volume groups

    • System board components by the Integrated Platform Management Interface (IPMI) and the Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) chip

  • Storage subsystems (shelves and interconnects)

If Call Home is disabled and an alert condition occurs, the appliance only generates a local email or an SNMP trap to notify you of the alert.

SMTP configuration is required for alerting your internal teams to any hardware or software issues affecting the appliance. You must either configure your mail server to allow the appliance to use it as a mail relay or create an account for the appliance on your mail server and supply login credentials.