Cant add host to filestorage Group

The filestorage group is ONLY for LUNs that are used by the file (NAS data mover)

It does not make sense to add a Windows server to it – if we were to allow it could cause data loss – that’s why its prevent

Please review what you want to do and why

Hi thanks for your reply!

I need my windows server to be able to see the LUNS associated with the file storage group for backup.  We are using Symantec NetBackup 7.7 to setup SAN Client and Fibre Transport.

This server needs to be physically connected to the SAN for this to work right.  I already have it zoned and initiated.  This is for HIGH-SPEED backups.   Eliminating the LAN and utilizing the SAN.

Perhaps there is another way?  do i need to use Navisphere CLI?  i've done this before in my other job but we were using Commvault instead of Netbackup.  I figured it was the same proceedure.   Except in my other job, I was adding VMFS (VMware File System) LUNS and not FILE Level LUNS

Is there documentation from Symantec NetBackup that supports this and that Netbackup is able to understand the VNX file system ?

Please provide a reference that NetBackup supports this with NAS storage mentioning VNX compatibility and support.

From all I know with 12 years of Celerra/VNX experience that isn’t supported for NAS systems.

IF NetBackup is indeed supporting direct block access to a VNX uxfs type file system (slightly simplified – there is also a volume manager in between that Netbackup would have to understand) and has added code to understand it then the Symantec docs should provide instructions on how to make the LUNs in the filestorage group accessible.

BTW we do not use Windows MBR / partition table or Windows NTFS on these LUNs so even if you could make them available to a Windows host then Windows disk management would just see them as unitialized disks – unless Symantec has written some magic to understand our diskmarks

Via NDMP - that is the preferred method of NAS backup and supported by Netbackup

You could also backup via CIFS but that is most likely slower than NDMP

yes of course, i am using the guide now.  But the Server still needs to be able to see direct mapping of the LUNs as it were attached to the server as an actual disk drive in disk managment mmc

i have never done it when the LUNs i am trying to map to the server are CIFS server LUNs.  I thought i could map any LUN I wanted on my EMC VNX5300 SAN to any Server (host).

im looking into it, but how then does anyone backup data on a CIFS Server Share hosted on the VNX???

Are you telling me that the luns have to bee removed from the file storage group in order for them to be accessible to a host??

I thought they could be presented as Read-Only LUNS that appear OFFLINE in disk managment and the NetBackup client running on the server connected to the SAN would be able to backup the data over fibre using SAN Mode.

As Rainer described, this is not the way to back up the LUNs associated with the filesystem.  This isn't unique to EMC, this would be the same for Netapp or other NAS vendors.  A Netbackup server - Linux, Windows or any other OS - would not be able to read the filesystem format on NAS LUNs - they are unique/specific to each NAS vendor.

Symantec Netbackup supports NDMP, a method to backup the filesystems on the NAS.  Netbackup has a very detailed guide for configuring NDMP backups - you'll need to reach out to your Symantec sales team to ensure you have the necessary licenses to backup your NAS devices.

Let us know if that helps!

Karl

thanks for the explanation Karl

Rainer

how do i verify if NDMP is enabled on my EMC VNX 5300??????????????????

Its always enabled by default

You can verify by telnet‘ing to the NDMP port or looking at server_netstat

Did you find out if NDMP is working ?