Veritas NetBackup™ OpenStorage Solutions Guide for Disk

Last Published:
Product(s): NetBackup (8.2, 8.1.1, 8.1)
  1. Introducing disk appliance storage solutions
    1.  
      About storage solutions for backups to disk
    2.  
      About the NetBackup OpenStorage option
    3.  
      About control of the storage
    4.  
      About replication to OpenStorage devices
  2. Planning your deployment
    1.  
      Planning your OpenStorage deployment
    2.  
      About OpenStorage requirements and limitations
    3.  
      About OpenStorage storage servers for backups
    4.  
      About OpenStorage server credentials
    5.  
      About OpenStorage data movers for backups
    6.  
      About the OpenStorage plug-in
    7. About OpenStorage disk pools for backups
      1.  
        About spanning volumes in OpenStorage disk pools
    8.  
      About OpenStorage optimized duplication and replication
    9.  
      About OpenStorage optimized synthetic backups
    10.  
      About storage unit groups for OpenStorage
    11. About OpenStorage direct to tape
      1.  
        About NDMP requirements for OpenStorage direct to tape
      2.  
        About media server requirements for OpenStorage direct to tape
      3.  
        About media server recommendations for OpenStorage direct to tape
      4.  
        About OpenStorage direct to tape limitations
      5.  
        About the OpenStorage direct to tape process
  3. Provisioning the storage
    1.  
      About provisioning the disk appliance storage
    2.  
      Installing the disk appliance plug-in
  4. Licensing OpenStorage
    1.  
      About the OpenStorage license
    2.  
      Licensing OpenStorage
  5. Configuring OpenStorage in NetBackup
    1.  
      Configuring OpenStorage disk appliance storage
    2.  
      Configuring an OpenStorage storage server for backups
    3. Configuring an OpenStorage disk pool for backups
      1.  
        OpenStorage disk pool properties
    4. Configuring an OpenStorage storage unit
      1.  
        OpenStorage storage unit properties
      2. About OpenStorage storage unit recommendations
        1.  
          About configuring a favorable client-to-server ratio with OpenStorage
        2.  
          About separating OpenStorage SAN client traffic
        3.  
          About throttling OpenStorage traffic to the media servers
    5.  
      Configuring OpenStorage optimized synthetic backups
    6.  
      Configuring OpenStorage direct to tape
    7. Configuring optimized duplication to an OpenStorage device within the same NetBackup domain
      1.  
        About OpenStorage optimized duplication within the same domain
      2. Configuring NetBackup optimized duplication or replication behavior
        1.  
          Setting NetBackup configuration options by using the command line
    8. Configuring replication to an OpenStorage device in a different domain
      1. About NetBackup Auto Image Replication
        1.  
          One-to-many Auto Image Replication model
        2.  
          Cascading Auto Image Replication model
        3.  
          About the domain relationship for replication
        4.  
          About the replication topology for Auto Image Replication
        5. Viewing the replication topology for Auto Image Replication
          1.  
            Sample volume properties output for OpenStorage backup replication
    9.  
      About storage lifecycle policies
    10.  
      About the storage lifecycle policies required for Auto Image Replication
    11. Creating a storage lifecycle policy
      1.  
        Storage Lifecycle Policy dialog box settings
    12.  
      Creating a backup policy
    13.  
      Adding OpenStorage functionality to an existing environment
  6. Managing OpenStorage
    1. Managing OpenStorage storage servers
      1.  
        Viewing OpenStorage storage servers
      2.  
        Determining OpenStorage storage server state
      3.  
        Changing OpenStorage storage server properties
      4.  
        Setting OpenStorage storage server attributes
      5.  
        Removing OpenStorage storage server attributes
      6.  
        Updating an OpenStorage storage server to reflect plug-in updates
      7.  
        Deleting an OpenStorage storage server
    2. Managing OpenStorage server credentials
      1.  
        Determining if OpenStorage server credentials exist
      2.  
        Adding OpenStorage server credentials
      3.  
        Changing OpenStorage server credentials
      4.  
        Deleting the OpenStorage server credentials of a data mover
    3. Managing OpenStorage data movers
      1.  
        Adding an OpenStorage data mover
      2.  
        Retiring an OpenStorage data mover
    4. Managing OpenStorage disk pools
      1.  
        Viewing OpenStorage disk pools
      2.  
        Determining OpenStorage disk pool state
      3.  
        Changing OpenStorage disk pool state
      4.  
        Determining OpenStorage disk volume state
      5.  
        Changing OpenStorage disk volume state
      6. Changing OpenStorage disk pool properties
        1.  
          How to resolve volume changes for Auto Image Replication
      7.  
        Setting OpenStorage disk pool attributes
      8.  
        Removing OpenStorage disk pool attributes
      9.  
        Adding volumes to an OpenStorage disk pool
      10.  
        Merging OpenStorage disk pools
      11.  
        Removing a volume from an OpenStorage disk pool
      12.  
        Updating an OpenStorage disk pool to reflect plug-in updates
      13.  
        Deleting an OpenStorage disk pool
    5.  
      Monitoring OpenStorage storage capacity and usage
    6.  
      Viewing OpenStorage disk reports
    7.  
      Reporting on Auto Image Replication jobs
    8.  
      About catalog backups to OpenStorage devices
    9.  
      About restoring from OpenStorage backup copies
    10.  
      About restoring from a backup at a target master domain
  7. Troubleshooting
    1. About unified logging
      1.  
        About using the vxlogview command to view unified logs
      2.  
        Examples of using vxlogview to view unified logs
    2. About legacy logging
      1.  
        Creating NetBackup log file directories for OpenStorage
    3.  
      NetBackup OpenStorage log files
    4.  
      Troubleshooting OpenStorage credentials creation

About OpenStorage optimized duplication within the same domain

With duplication to another disk appliance within the same domain, the disk appliances manage the deduplication. The ability to duplicate backups to storage in other locations, often across various geographical sites, helps facilitate disaster recovery.

The following are some benefits of optimized, off-host duplication:

  • Reduced workload on the NetBackup media servers. More backups can be performed.

  • Faster duplication. Duplication can occur in the background, simultaneously with ongoing backup jobs.

  • Reduced bandwidth. If the appliance supports deduplication, the copy process may send only changed blocks.

NetBackup supports two optimized duplication methods for OpenStorage. The optimized duplication method that NetBackup uses depends on the capability that the vendor's OpenStorage plug-in exposes, as follows:

Optimized duplication

NetBackup optimized duplication is extent-based; NetBackup transfers data in 256-KB chunks.

For optimized duplication, the NetBackup bpstsinfo command output that shows the storage server capabilities shows the following flag:

STS_SRVC_COPY_EXTENT

Whole image optimized duplication

Whole image optimized duplication uses the storage unit Maximum fragment size for the data chunk size. Veritas refers to this type of operation as whole image optimized duplication because an entire NetBackup image fragment is transferred.

Because larger chunks of data are transferred, fewer copy management requests occur and performance improves. Also, the storage device controls progress reporting. The storage device may report progress when system load is low rather than consume the resources that are better used for duplication. Or, the storage device may report progress at short intervals, updating the NetBackup user as frequently as NetBackup would for extent-based optimized duplication.

For whole image optimized duplication, the NetBackup bpstsinfo command output that shows the storage server capabilities shows the following two flags:

STS_SRVC_COPY_EXTENT
STS_SRVC_COPY_EXTENT_WHOLEIMAGE

The following is the syntax for the bpstsinfo command that shows the storage server capabilities:

bpstsinfo -storage_server host_name -stype vendor_string

More information about the bpstsinfo command is available.

See the NetBackup Commands Reference Guide:

The following are the requirements and limitations of optimized duplication with the same domain:

Optimized duplication requirements

  • The vendor must expose the off-host data movement capability in their plug-in.

  • Both the source and the destination disk pools must be the same OpenStorage vendor type.

  • One or more NetBackup media servers must connect to the source appliance and the destination appliance.

Optimized duplication limitations

  • If the optimized duplication fails, the job is not retried.

    To configure NetBackup to do normal duplication if the optimized job fails, add the following entry to the bp.conf file on the NetBackup master server:

    RESUME_ORIG_DUP_ON_OPT_DUP_FAIL = TRUE

  • The copy operation uses the maximum fragment size of the source storage unit, not the setting for the destination storage unit. The optimized duplication copies the image fragments as is. For greater efficiency, the duplication does not resize and reshuffle the images into a different set of fragments on the destination storage unit.

  • To confirm the image copy, a media server must have connectivity to the destination appliance.

  • A storage unit group cannot be a destination for optimized duplication. The destination must be a storage unit that represents an OpenStorage appliance of the same type as the source appliance.