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NetBackup™ Snapshot Manager Install and Upgrade Guide

Last Published: 2023-03-31

Product(s): NetBackup (10.2)

Deciding where to run NetBackup Snapshot Manager

You can deploy NetBackup Snapshot Manager in the following ways:

Deploy NetBackup Snapshot Manager in a cloud and manage assets in that cloud.
Deploy NetBackup Snapshot Manager in a cloud and manage assets in multiple clouds.

Veritas recommends that you deploy NetBackup Snapshot Manager on cloud to protect your cloud assets. If you wish to protect assets in a cloud, deploy the NetBackup Snapshot Manager host instance in the same cloud environment.

Similarly, if you wish to protect on-premise assets, deploy the NetBackup Snapshot Manager host in the same on-premise environment. For detailed information about the on-premise content, refer to the NetBackup Snapshot Manager for Data Center Administrator's Guide.

You can deploy NetBackup Snapshot Manager in a NetBackup media server, but not in a NetBackup primary server.

If you install NetBackup Snapshot Manager on multiple hosts, we strongly recommend that each NetBackup Snapshot Manager instance manage separate resources. For example, two NetBackup Snapshot Manager instances should not manage the same AWS account or the same Azure subscription. The following scenario illustrates why having two NetBackup Snapshot Manager instances manage the same resources creates problems:

NetBackup Snapshot Manager instance A and NetBackup Snapshot Manager instance B both manage the assets of the same AWS account.
On NetBackup Snapshot Manager instance A, the administrator takes a snapshot of an AWS virtual machine. The database on NetBackup Snapshot Manager instance A stores the virtual machine's metadata. This metadata includes the virtual machine's storage size and its disk configuration.
Later, on NetBackup Snapshot Manager instance B, the administrator restores the virtual machine snapshot. NetBackup Snapshot Manager instance B does not have access to the virtual machine's metadata. It restores the snapshot, but it does not know the virtual machine's specific configuration. Instead, it substitutes default values for the storage size configuration. The result is a restored virtual machine that does not match the original.

If you host the NetBackup Snapshot Manager and media server in the same host, do the following for proper functioning of the backup from snapshot jobs:

Assign distinct IPs and NBU client names to the NetBackup Snapshot Manager and the media server so that they can obtain different NetBackup Certificates. This is required so as have different NetBackup host ID certificates for communication. Use the following configuration:
- Configure host with two network adapters
- Edit the /etc/hosts file and enter the details as mentioned in the following example:
```
<IP Address MediaServer Host1>  < MediaServer Host1>
<IP Address NetBackup Snapshot Manager Host2>  <NetBackup Snapshot Manager Host2>
```
- Provide the MediaServer Host1 which is mentioned in the/etc/hosts file during the Media server installation for Media server name.
- Similarly select the NetBackup Snapshot Manager Host 2 from the /etc/hosts file during the NetBackup Snapshot Manager installation with non-default port other than 443.
- Start NetBackup Snapshot Manager and Media services and register it with NetBackup primary server.
Once the NetBackup Snapshot Manager is registered, ensure that it has a different HOST DB entry.
Before performing the backup from snapshot jobs, perform the following optimization: DISABLE SHM and NOSHM. See: https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/article.100016170

This will ensure that NetBackup does not use shared memory for communicating between NetBackup data mover processes.