Veritas™ Flex 5340

Appliance with Pure

Storage® FlashBlade™

Best Practices and Deployment

 Veritas Flex 5340 Appliance with Pure Storage FlashBlade Best Practices and Deployment

Contents
CONTENTS............................................................................................................................................................................. 2

REVISION HISTORY .............................................................................................................................................................. 2

INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................................................................... 3

SOLUTION INTEGRATION .................................................................................................................................................... 3

BEST PRACTICES ................................................................................................................................................................. 4

Provisioning for Deduplicated Data ..................................................................................................................................... 4
MaxCacheSize .................................................................................................................................................................... 4
NFS Options ........................................................................................................................................................................ 5
Networking .......................................................................................................................................................................... 5
Compression ....................................................................................................................................................................... 5
Encryption ........................................................................................................................................................................... 5
Disaster Recovery ............................................................................................................................................................... 5
Planning .............................................................................................................................................................................. 6
Sizing ................................................................................................................................................................................... 6
DEPLOYMENT........................................................................................................................................................................ 6
FlashBlade Configuration .................................................................................................................................................... 7
Flex 5340 Appliance Configuration ..................................................................................................................................... 8
REFERENCES ...................................................................................................................................................................... 16

Revision History
Rev 1.0 15 October 2020 Initial version

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 Veritas Flex 5340 Appliance with Pure Storage FlashBlade Best Practices and Deployment

Introduction
Veritas™ Flex 5340 Appliance support of Pure Storage® FlashBlade™ as an NFS storage target for NetBackup images
offers a solution for customers requiring the use of flash technology for rapid restore. This document provides the
deployment and best practices for Flex 5340 Appliance with FlashBlade.

For more information on the solution, refer to the technical whitepaper Veritas Flex 5340 Appliance with Pure Storage
FlashBlade Right-Sized Recovery for Enterprise Workloads.

Solution Integration
Support for Pure Storage FlashBlade with the Flex 5340 Appliance offers recovery of organizations mission critical data
from an all flash storage platform. Customers now have an option to choose the storage platform where their backup
images reside and select the “right-sized” recovery options. The Flex 5340 Appliance can store backup data on flash, hard
disks, tape, compatible storage targets using Open Storage Technology (OST), private and/or private clouds depending
on their recovery and retention requirements. Illustrated in Figure 1 is a sample data flow where the backup is sent to the
media server where it will be deduplicated and unique data is sent to a FlashBlade via NFS v3 or sent to the Flex 5340
Appliance. A SLP (storage lifecycle policy) can also be defined to duplicate the deduplicated data to the Flex 5340
Appliance.

Figure 1 - Sample Data Flow of the Flex 5340 Appliance with FlashBlade

Requirements of this integration solution include:

• Pure Storage FlashBlade Purity//FB 3.0.2 - NFS version 3

• Flex 5340 Appliance version 1.3 or later
• Flex NetBackup images version 8.2 or later
• Flex Add-Ons for NetBackup 8.2: Hotfix - MSDP EEB Bundle (Etrack 3981133) and Flex add-on netfs.
(NOTE: These add-ons are included as part of NetBackup 8.3.0.1 release)

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 Veritas Flex 5340 Appliance with Pure Storage FlashBlade Best Practices and Deployment

The supported deployment of the Flex 5340 Appliance with FlashBlade MSDP-NFS allows for FlashBlade MSDP-NFS to
store 20% of backup images for critical workloads and 80% to reside on the Flex 5340 Appliance storage server. For
instance, if a 200 TB MSDP-NFS FlashBlade is defined then 800 TB of the Flex 5340 Appliance MSDP would need to be
configured. In this model, backups of workloads that require rapid restore would be backed up on MSDP-NFS FlashBlade
and then an optimized duplicated copy of image be placed on the Flex 5340 Appliance MSDP.

The maximum supported aggregate size of the media server deduplication pool(s) on a FlashBlade is 250 TB. NetBackup
features such as client-side and server deduplication, Accelerator, and Auto Image Replication (AIR) are supported with
this integration, however, Veritas Instant Access, Instant Recovery and Universal Shares are not supported.

Best Practices
Some recommendations and best practices on deploying the Flex 5340 Appliance with FlashBlade as an MSDP-NFS
storage are discussed in this section. Considering these best practices assists in the planning and architecting of this
integrated solution. In addition, it is also advisable to refer to the Flex 5340 Appliance Best Practice Guide.

Provisioning for Deduplicated Data

It has been observed that performance increases when employing multiple NFS file systems exported to multiple shares
with different data virtual IP addresses and combined to be one media server deduplication pool (MSDP) on a single
media server. Implementing multiple NFS file systems allows for additional parallelism and paths to FlashBlade. As a
best practice the minimum file system size that can be created should be at the minimum 10 TB when utilizing multiple file
systems in a single MSDP. Also, the number of file systems per MSDP should be limited to no more than twelve. As
previously mentioned, the maximum size of an MSDP supported for FlashBlade NFS is 250 TB. When deploying MSDP
in this fashion, it is recommended that a separate NFS file system be created for the MSDP metadata.

If multiple file systems are aggregated to create an MSDP pool, it is recommended that each NFS file system be of the
same size and that the file system grows at the same rate. For example, if there are 8 NFS file systems created and it is
desired to grow MSDP by 80 TB, then each file system should be expanded by 10 TB. One of the criteria to send data to
which file system is based upon the available capacity on that file system in order to provide an even distribution of the
data across file systems. If growing the existing NFS file system, just refresh the storage server view on the NetBackup
administration server to detect the additional space adding. There is another option to grow the MSDP pool by adding
another file system, however, not as advisable due to criteria mentioned. If this is the desire approach, it is advisable to
have the same size as existing file systems. Also, if adding additional NFS file system shares, it would require the
following steps:

• Add the additional NFS share to the /mnt/nbdata/vxos/etc/fstab and mount inside the media server instance.
• Conduct a resize on the media server instance to detect the additional space.

MaxCacheSize
The MaxCacheSize setting determines the number of fingerprint indices that can be cached in memory per container and
is a factor in the deduplication ratio. Incoming data fingerprints are compared with the existing fingerprint that is present in
the physical memory cache. If the fingerprint is not present, then data is not a candidate for deduplication. As a best
practice, allocate 0.75 to 1 GB of RAM for each TiB of storage allocated to the container. By default, the Flex 5340

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 Veritas Flex 5340 Appliance with Pure Storage FlashBlade Best Practices and Deployment

Appliance has 768 GB of memory and the MaxCacheSize percentage is set to 60% of physical memory by default inside
the instance when MSDP or CloudCatalyst storage server is created. NOTE: If creating more than one instance, this
setting needs to be adjusted per instance and not to exceed a total of 60% for all instances to avoid memory starvation as
a result of excessive swapping.

NFS Options
When using FlashBlade for NetBackup deduplicated data, the following nfs options are not allowed:

• Disabling client-side attributes caching with options: actimeo=0, acregmin=0, acdirmin=0, acdirmax=0
• Use of the soft option
NetBackup deduplication technology design does not allow for these options and may cause issues. It is recommended
that these options be kept at their default settings when mounting. The following is the recommended nfs mount option to
obtain the optimized performance which on the Flex 5340 is the default setting when mounting.

● hard
● rsize=524288,wsize=524288
For security, specify the IP address or DNS names of media server instance that the file system will be mounted on when
exporting it on the FlashBlade.

Networking
By default, both the Flex 5340 Appliance and FlashBlade when connected to the switch are configured as LACP (Link
Aggregate Configuration Protocol). The Flex 5340 have ten 10 GbE network interfaces and FlashBlade have four network
interfaces that are configurable to 4x10Gb/s or 1x40Gb/s per port. It is advisable to refer to the best practices of the
network switch used. For instance, when using a Cisco switch, it is recommended to not use more than 8 interfaces
within an LACP configuration. Also set MTU (maximum transmission unit) to the same size on switch and when
configuring the network interfaces on both the Flex 5340 Appliance and the FlashBlade.

Compression
Both NetBackup and FlashBlade have compression enabled by default. It has been observed that when compression is
enabled on both NetBackup and FlashBlade, data consumption on FlashBlade reduces by 30% hence keeping the low
TCO. As a best practice, keep the defaults settings for compression on NetBackup for deduplicated data.

Encryption
FlashBlade encryption is enabled by default for data at rest and keys are distributed over all the blades, however, if
encryption is required “in flight” to the storage target, then utilizing NetBackup encryption should be implemented as well.
NetBackup offers policy-based encryption and encryption for deduplicated data.

Disaster Recovery
As a best practice, a disaster recovery plan should be in place in case of catastrophic events. NetBackup Auto Image
Replication (AIR) is supported when using FlashBlade as an NFS target for deduplicated data. AIR allows the NetBackup
catalogs and data from one domain to be replicated asynchronously to another NetBackup domain in one or several
geographical sites for disaster recovery. There are other ways to protect NetBackup from accidental deletion or
corruption such as conducting regular backups of the NetBackup and MSDP catalog.

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 Veritas Flex 5340 Appliance with Pure Storage FlashBlade Best Practices and Deployment

Planning
Utilizing multiple media servers to load balance the fingerprint calculation does improve overall throughput, however, add
a load balancing media server only if observing high CPU utilization on the media server acting as a storage server.

There is a known limitation that the media server can be in a hung state when the FlashBlade NFS mount being used as a
storage target for deduplicated data is broken. Thus, it is advisable to configure a dedicated media server solely for the
use as an NFS target since in some cases the server may need to be rebooted.

Sizing
Depending on a customers’ requirements on performance and capacity would dictate the number of Flex 5340 Appliances
and number of storage shelves and FlashBlade deployed. Some parameters that may affect these requirements include
size of source data, daily change rate of data, annual storage growth, desired retention, deduplication rate, and
conducting weekly, daily, or monthly incremental and/or full backups. It is best to work with the Veritas and Pure account
teams who have tools to appropriately size the environment based on desired requirements. For performance data
relating to this integrated solution, refer to the Veritas Flex 5340 Appliance with Pure Storage FlashBlade Right-Sized
Recovery for Enterprise Workloads solution whitepaper.

In the context of storage consumption on FlashBlade with NetBackup, there is overhead associated with the backup
images such as the directory structure and the metadata stored with the backup images, however, these are minuscule.
Although with deduplication, there is additional metadata that resides by default on the same storage target as the
deduplicated data. As a best practice, it is best to specify a different NFS file system to hold this metadata if utilizing
multiple NFS file system in one MSDP disk pool. During configuration of the MSDP, there is an option to specify an
alternate location for this metadata.

Deployment
An example of how to deploy MSDP-NFS FlashBlade with Flex 5340 Appliance is described in this section. It is assumed
that the Pure Storage FlashBlade and Flex 5340 Appliance has been installed and networked. For more specific
installation, administration and configuration details, refer to the Veritas Flex 5340 Appliance Product and Pure
FlashBlade documentation. A summary of steps discussed include:

• FlashBlade Configuration
o Define multiple virtual IP addresses
o Create file system(s) to export
• Flex 5340 Appliance Configuration
o Create media server instance as part of an existing NBU domain and if using NetBackup 8.2 images,
install MSDP EEB Bundle ET3981133 and Flex netfs add-on. These add-ons are needed if using
NetBackup 8.3.0.1, since they are included in the release.
o Mount the NFS file systems exported on media server
o From Master Server Java graphical user interface, create the MSDP pool using the NFS file systems
mounted on the media server.
Assumptions:
• Master server already configured and deployed.
• DNS or /etc/fstab is defined.

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 Veritas Flex 5340 Appliance with Pure Storage FlashBlade Best Practices and Deployment

• Flex 5340 Appliance and FlashBlade are connected on the same network
• The subnet in the network settings on the FlashBlade has already been created

FlashBlade Configuration
Step 1) Logon to the FlashBlade web console (e.g. https://<managementIP_or_DNSname>/ . Create network interface.
a) Click on Settings on left pane, b) click on Network tab c) click on Add Interface. Enter name, IP address, and select
services type data. Repeat this step for the other interfaces providing it a different name and different IP address. In this
example, there are 5 interfaces created, 4 for the NFS file system shares for MSDP data and 1 for the MSDP catalog.

Step 3) Create the file system and NFS file system shares indicating the name and share options. a) Click on Storage on
left pane, b) click on File System and c) click on the “+” sign on far right. Fill in the name, size, and export rules. Turn on
Hard Limit, NFSv3 and Fast Remove and turn off Snapshot. d) Then, Click Create. Repeat this step for the other NFS
share with different names for the shares.

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 Veritas Flex 5340 Appliance with Pure Storage FlashBlade Best Practices and Deployment

Flex 5340 Appliance Configuration

Step 1) Login to “Veritas Flex Appliance Console” using web user interface (e.g. https://<flex_mgmt_ip_or_dnsname>/)

Step 2) If using NetBackup 8.2, add the MSDP EEB Bundle ET3981133 and Flex netfs add-on into the repository. NOTE:
These binaries would need to be downloaded from the Veritas support site. a) Click on Repository icon on left pane and
then b) click on Application Add-On tab. c) Click on Add-image button and select EEB ET3981133 from the folder you
downloaded the images. Click on Add-image again to add the Flex netfs add-on.

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 Veritas Flex 5340 Appliance with Pure Storage FlashBlade Best Practices and Deployment

Step 3) Prior to creating the instance, it is assumed that the name of the media server is added in the Host Properties and
tokens are created on the master server. To create the media server instance, a) click on System Topology icon on left
frame and b) click on Create Instance and in next pane select a NetBackup 8.2 media server and click Next.

Step 4) Fill in appropriate details such as name, IP Address, domain name, name servers, master server, license, etc. in
the page and click on next buttons in further pages to create media server container. NOTE: Keep MSDP size to 0, since
this media server will host the MSDP-NFS from the FlashBlade that will be mounted in later steps. Click Next and Finish
to complete the media server instance creation.

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 Veritas Flex 5340 Appliance with Pure Storage FlashBlade Best Practices and Deployment

Step 5) If using NetBackup 8.2, do steps 5 thru 8. Click the a) System Topology icon on left pane and b) click on the
newly created media server instance, c) click on Stop button to turn off instance, and d) click on Manage and select
Install add-ons.

Step 6) Click on Install and add on.

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 Veritas Flex 5340 Appliance with Pure Storage FlashBlade Best Practices and Deployment

Step 7) If using NetBackup 8.2, select the EEB ET3981133 and netfs add-ons. The EEB ET3981133 should be installed
first and then the netfs add-on. Click Install.

Step 8) Click on System Topology icon, b) select the media server instance created for MSDP-NFS and click Start to
startup the instance.

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 Veritas Flex 5340 Appliance with Pure Storage FlashBlade Best Practices and Deployment

Step 9) Mounting of the FlashBlade NFS file system shares is conducted in this step. Logon to media server instance
using ssh as appadmin. If prompted, change the password and re-logon. Using sudo and vi commands, create file
/mnt/nbdata/vxos/etc/fstab and enter the FlashBlade NFS file systems exported to be use as the MSDP in the following
format: <virtual_ip_or_dns:/nfs_sharename> /mnt/msdp/vol0 nfs v3,rw,x-mount.mkdir. In the image below, 4 multiple
mountpoints for MSDP and one mountpoint for the MSDP catalog are specified. Mount the NFS file systems by executing
the command: sudo /bin/mount -a --fork --fstab /mnt/nbdata/vxos/etc/fstab

Step 10) Run df to show the mounts.

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 Veritas Flex 5340 Appliance with Pure Storage FlashBlade Best Practices and Deployment

Step 11) From the master server remote administration Java console, create the MSDP pool as one would normally
create for any media server container. Click Configure Disk Storage Servers

Step 12) Select Media Server Deduplication Pool and click Next. In next pane, enter media server acting as the
FlashBlade MSDP-NFS storage server and enter credentials.

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 Veritas Flex 5340 Appliance with Pure Storage FlashBlade Best Practices and Deployment

Step 13) Specify the storage path /mnt/msdp/vol0 for Flex Appliance. Only specify /mnt/msdp/vol0 even when multiple
mountpoints are configured. If desired, specify the alternate path for the MSDP database. In this example it is an NFS file
system on FlashBlade mounted on /mnt/msdp/cat. Click Next and Next.

Step 14) Select Create a disk pool. Click Next to create the disk pool. Specify the disk pool name and click Next.

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 Veritas Flex 5340 Appliance with Pure Storage FlashBlade Best Practices and Deployment

Step 15) Select Create storage unit. Click Next to create the storage unit. Specify name of storage unit and click Next.
Click Finish in next pane.

Step 16) Validate that the disk pool and storage unit has been created.

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 Veritas Flex 5340 Appliance with Pure Storage FlashBlade Best Practices and Deployment

References
• Veritas
o Flex 5340 Appliance Documentation
▪ Landing Page for all Flex 5340 Documentation -
https://sort.veritas.com/documents/doc_details/FAPP/1.3/Veritas%205340/Documentation/
▪ Datasheet - https://www.veritas.com/content/dam/Veritas/docs/data-
sheets/V0632_GA_ENT_DS_Veritas-Flex-5340-Appliance-EN.pdf
o Veritas NetBackup 8.2 Deduplication Guide
▪ https://sort.veritas.com/DocPortal/pdf/25074086-136046432-1
o Veritas NetBackup 8.2 Administration Guide I and II
▪ https://sort.veritas.com/DocPortal/pdf/18716246-136359032-1
▪ https://sort.veritas.com/DocPortal/pdf/24437881-136359133-1
o NetBackup Compatibility List and Documentation
▪ https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/article.100040093
• Pure Storage
o FlashBlade datasheet
▪ https://www.purestorage.com/content/dam/purestorage/pdf/datasheets/pure_FlashBlade_ds4p_0
1.pdf
o FlashBlade Technical Reports
▪ https://support.purestorage.com/FlashBlade
o Other Documents (need account login)
▪ https://support.purestorage.com/FlashBlade

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 Veritas Flex 5340 Appliance with Pure Storage FlashBlade Best Practices and Deployment

ABOUT VERITAS

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