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NetBackup™ Administrator's Guide, Volume II

Last Published: 2024-09-30

Product(s): NetBackup (10.5)

Manually generating licensing reports

You can manually generate reports for either the capacity or the traditional reporting model. The tool is located in the following directory:

On Windows: install_path\NetBackup\bin\admincmd\

On UNIX: /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/admincmd/

You cannot manually generate the NetBackup Enterprise Virtual Client Edition (NEVC) licensing report.

Generating reports based on the licensing model

It is recommended to run the netbackup_deployment_insights, command. You can continue using the nbdeployutil command with the same options.

If you use capacity-based licensing, run the following commands:

netbackup_deployment_insights

For gather: netbackup_deployment_insights --gather --capacity
For reports: netbackup_deployment_insights --report --capacity

If you use traditional based licensing, run the following commands:

netbackup_deployment_insights

For gather: netbackup_deployment_insights --gather --traditional
For reports: netbackup_deployment_insights --report --traditional

The tool generates the report in multiple steps. Data is gathered in the first step, and then analyzed and presented.

Table: Steps to gather and report licensing information

Step	Action	Description
Step 1	Complete prerequisites.	If you want to gather data from one primary for other remote primary servers, ensure that you have granted the necessary access across all servers: See Requirements before gathering data for multiple primary servers in capacity licensing. Multiple primary servers are only supported in capacity licensing. For back-level primary servers, load the engineering binary that is associated with netbackup_deployment_insights onto all primary servers for which you want to gather information.
	Gather the backup size data	The tool uses the following options to gather data from one or more primary servers. netbackup_deployment_insights --gather [--output=DIRECTORY] <--capacity \| --traditional> [--hoursago=N] [--start="mm/dd/yyyy HH:MM:SS" [--end="mm/dd/yyyy HH:MM:SS"]] [--master=HOSTNAME[,...]] [--log=FILENAME] [--runtimestats] [--nolog] [--bpimagelist=OPTIONS] [--use-bpflist] [--apikey-file=<APIKEYFILE path>] You can continue using the nbdeployutil command with the same options.
Step 2	Analyze the data and prepare the report	The netbackup_deployment_insights commands uses the following options to analyze the gathered data and prepare the report: netbackup_deployment_insights --report <--capacity \| --traditional> <directory> ... [--dirlist=FILENAME \| --parentdir=DIRECTORY] [--capacity] [--debug-inputs] [--log=FILENAME] [--day-boundary=TIME] [--runtimestats] [--nolog] [--overlap-details] [--anonymize \| --anonymize -anon-master=SOME_NAME] For a traditional report, run: netbackup_deployment_insights --report --traditional For a capacity report, run: netbackup_deployment_insights --report --capacity You can continue using the nbdeployutil command with the same options. Note: For NetBackup 8.0 and later, this step requires that you provide the web service credentials.
Step 3	Examine the report and make adjustments.

Authentication using web service credentials

If you do not use [--apikey-file=APIKEYFILE path], then you must manually enter the credential information.

See Providing web service credentials for the capacity or traditional licensing reports.

If you use [--apikey-file=APIKEYFILE path], use the apikey file for authentication.

See Providing API Key as credentials.

If you have enforced multifactor authentication or have configured multifactor authentication, you must use the apikey file - [--apikey-file=APIKEYFILE path]

For more information, refer to the 'Configuring multifactor authentication' chapter from the NetBackup Web UI Administrator's Guide.

Note:

In a multi-primary server scenario, if you use the apikey file, ensure that you add API keys of all the primary servers.

Providing web service credentials for the capacity or traditional licensing reports

When you manually run the tool for the gather operation in capacity or traditional licensing, you must enter the following credential information for authentication of the NetBackup web management service:

Table: Required credential information

Option	Description
Domain Type	Enter a domain type value from NIS, NISPLUS, WINDOWS, vx, unixpwd, ldap. This value is case-sensitive.
Domain Name	Name of the domain that the primary server host belongs to. If the primary server does not belong to any domain, enter the name of the primary server.
User name	Name of the user that has administrator privileges. For a custom user, ensure that you select the View permission for the Licensing namespace within the NetBackup Web UI. Go to Security > RBAC. For more information about RBAC, refer to the `NetBackup Web UI Administrator's Guide`.
Password	Password of the same user that has administrator privileges. When you enter the password, characters are intentionally not displayed in the command line.

Note:

In a multi-primary server scenario, you must enter the credentials for all the primary servers that are mentioned with the gather command.

Providing API Key as credentials

When you manually run the tool for gather operation, you can use the apikey file for authentication of the NetBackup web management service.

The apikey file must be in the following format:

For a single primary server:

<server1>:<apikey1>

For example,

Primary.netbackup.server.com:
AwBfDO9xbd5RDuu-foifdxE_rRBjEIzbtfxdU2O6B0gP4H5rUbK-UTYfXXglji9ix6s

For multiple primary servers:

            <server1>:<apikey1> 
            <server2>:<apikey2> 
            .        .        .
            .        .        . 
            <serverN>:<apikeyN>

For example,

PrimaryOne.netbackup.server.com:
A9FA7cuygCW6TKxj7xB0JXOQf5CVwUMXOaZoOfjUpbLtmYyaSpulS5G0-ANnHE4C7d

PrimaryTwo.netbackup.server.com:
A9ciKsdtjhfd60GGFOZK5425nXpFJigOXUfLtszA1IHLxh2hL-OV7NEiPGG01Ewe_eK

PrimaryThree.netbackup.server.com:
A4sJ5RlXnhuSIGCfpjvRUlg2WguiYKusbbVJnPgUqS_PdyCt4Dlw9nfXlo2wblppm

For more information, refer to the Using access keys, API keys, and access codes chapter from the NetBackup Web UI Administrator's Guide.

Here is an example of gathering information for the local primary server using the apikey file.

C:\Program Files\Veritas\NetBackup\bin\admincmd>netbackup_deployment_insights --gather --traditional --apikey-file="C:\Users\Administrator\Documents\apikey.txt" 
NetBackup Deployment Insights, version 10.3Beta1 
Gathering license deployment information... 
Discovered master server xxxyyyzzz.host1.com 
Output for xxxyyyzzz.host1.com at: C:\Program Files\Veritas\netbackup\var\global\reports\20230821_135252_ xxxyyyzzz.host1.com
Gather DONE 
Execution time: 6 secs 
To create a report for this master server, run the following: 
netbackup_deployment_insights --report --traditional "C:\Program Files\Veritas\netbackup\var\global\reports\20230821_135252_ xxxyyyzzz.host1.com "

Performance of the usage reporting tool

The performance of the tool is dependent on the system running it as well as the size of the NetBackup catalog. The --gather option only executes as quickly as the bpimagelist command can run on 90 days of images. The speed of report generation is dependent on the number of images and fragments. The operating system running the command also affects the tool's performance.

Depending on the environment, the tool can take from several seconds to several minutes to run the --gather or the --report options.

Scanning a large number of clients increases the execution time of the usage reporting tool run accordingly. The clients that are scanned in the current run (for which the machine type is collected) are not scanned again in the subsequent runs. This reduces the execution time of netbackup_deployment_insights

Overlap detection for any data that NetBackup protects with multiple policies

For capacity licensing reports for any agents that support the accurate licensing method, use the overlap option to detect any data that NetBackup protects with multiple policies. To enable overlap detection, run the netbackup_deployment_insights report with the --overlap-details option.

You can continue using the nbdeployutil command with the same options.

Table: Description of overlap detection option

Command line option	Description
--overlap-details	This option searches for any duplicate backup selections in policies of the same type. The results are noted in the Duplicate Selections column of the report. Note: The backup selection data must contain only ASCII or English-only characters. This option displays the actual backup selection data in the report.

Using scripts to automate data gathering in NetBackup 8.0 or later

If you used scripts to automate data gathering before NetBackup 8.0, these scripts must be updated when you upgrade. The data gathering process requires that you enter the credentials for the NetBackup web service.

Example: Gathering information for the local primary server

In this example, the tool gathers information for the local primary server.

C:\Program Files\Veritas\NetBackup\bin\
admincmd>netbackup_deployment_insights --gather
NetBackup Deployment Insights, version 9.1
Gathering license deployment information...
  Discovered master server pnnbcsm5b38v002

Enter credentials for Master Server(s):

Master Server:pnnbcsm5b38v002
Domain Type (NIS, NISPLUS, WINDOWS, vx, unixpwd, ldap):WINDOWS
Domain Name  :pnnbcsm5b38v002
User Name    :administrator
Password     :

Data gather is in progress. This process might take some time.
  Output for pnnbcsm5b38v002 at:
C:\Program Files\Veritas\netbackup\var\global\reports\
20210319_020925_pnnbcsm5b38v002
Gather DONE
Execution time: 1 min 30 secs
To create a report for this master server, run one of the following:
  capacity   : netbackup_deployment_insights.exe --report --capacity
"C:\Program Files\Veritas\netbackup\var\global\reports\
20210319_020925_pnnbcsm5b38v002"
  traditional: netbackup_deployment_insights.exe --report --traditional
"C:\Program Files\Veritas\netbackup\var\global\reports\
20210319_020925_pnnbcsm5b38v002"

You can continue using the nbdeployutil command with the same options.

The tool generates a log file named nbdeployutil-gather-timestamp.log during the gathering operation. By default, the log file is created in the directory where the gathered data resides.

Example: Gathering information for a remote primary server

netbackup_deployment_insights --gather --master=sidon.example.com