Introduction

This Software Compatibility List (SCL) document contains information for Symantec NetBackup 7.7 through 7.7.x. It covers NetBackup Server (which includes Enterprise Server and Server), Client, Bare Metal Restore (BMR), Clustered Master Server Compatibility and Storage Stacks, Dedupllication, File System Compatibility, Media Server Encryption Option (MSEO), NetBackup OpsCenter, NetBackup Access Control (NBAC), SAN Media Server/SAN Client/FT Media Server, Virtual System Compatibility and NetBackup Self Service Support. It is divided into bookmarks on the left that can be expanded.

For information about certain NetBackup features, functionality, 3rd-party product integration, Symantec product integration, applications, databases, and OS platforms that Symantec intends to replace with newer and improved functionality, or in some cases, discontinue without replacement, please see the widget titled "NetBackup Future Platform and Feature Plans" at https://sort.symantec.com/netbackup

Reference Article TECH59978 http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH59978 for links to all other NetBackup compatibility lists.

7.7 - 7.7.x OS Software Compatibility List Updates

Update Information

Operating Systems

Most operating system vendors provide patches and updates to their products. It is a best practice of NetBackup Quality Engineering to test with the latest service pack or patch level of the operating system when testing a platform. If a known problem exists on a specific service pack or patched OS level, this information is identified in the tables below. Any required operating system patches for specific releases of NetBackup are documented in the NetBackup Release Notes. The current patch versions of releases will work with NetBackup for the operating systems listed below unless otherwise noted. Symantec supports the standard un-altered kernel/operating system levels as indicated in the table, provided the OS Vendor still provides support for that level. Should an issue arise on a revised kernel, operating system, or virtual system environment, Symantec support may request the recreation of the problem with the standard operating environment distribution.

NetBackup Vault:
This option runs on the same operating systems and versions and in the same clustering environments as NetBackup unless otherwise noted in the NetBackup Release Notes. NetBackup restrictions and limitations related to systems, clusters, and peripherals also apply to Vault.
Exception: Vault does not support standalone drives.

Data at Rest Key Management Service (KMS):
This feature is a master server-based symmetric key management service that manages symmetric cryptography keys for tape drives that conform to the T10 standard (i.e. LTO4). Beginning in NetBackup 6.5.2, KMS is supported on all OS versions where the master server and media server are supported unless otherwise noted.

Support Definitions:
Symantec Maintenance/Support only applies to Symantec Licensed Software, assuming you have a current Symantec Maintenance/Support subscription for such software and such Symantec Licensed Software is operating in configurations which Symantec designates as supported. Symantec Maintenance/Support does not cover (and we have no responsibility for) providing technical support, installation services or other services for any other software or hardware products. Also, Symantec is not obligated to provide Maintenance/Support when your Symantec Licensed Software is operating in configurations Symantec does not designate as supportable/supported. Please see the current Symantec Technical Support Policy and your Symantec license agreement for more information, terms and limitations.

Supported Configurations:
For more information about technical notes in regards to Symantec supported configurations (such as operating system/levels, firmware levels, databases, devices, device drivers, applications, etc.), please refer to the Symantec Support website http://www.symantec.com/enterprise/support/ . Please note that while Symantec makes reasonable efforts to keep this information updated, we cannot assure that this information will be in all cases complete or the most current.

Third Party Products:
Where your problem may be related to product(s) from a third party vendor with whom we have a cooperative or collaborative relationship on such product(s), then Symantec may work with that vendor towards resolving your reported problem. Where Symantec does not have such a support relationship in place with the third party vendor, or where the vendor ceases to support such product(s), then our ability to support Symantec Licensed Software operating with such vendor's product(s) may be limited, affected, or prevented (and such third party product(s) may cease to be part of Symantec -supported configuration(s)). Symantec support may be limited by the hardware or software vendor due to their support lifecycle. Should a vendor announce End of Support for a product, Symantec support may be limited.

Active Directory Support

Active Directory is supported via the standard Windows file system agent when specifying System State:\ or Shadow Copy Components:\. Since it is a part of the standard system components, backup and recovery of Active Directory is supported on all Windows server platforms which NetBackup supports as a client.

Active Directory Granular Restore is a special restore option enabled by a policy selection. This option is also supported on all platforms in which Active Directory is supported by NetBackup.

Where support is shown for “Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2" it is implied that Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition, Datacenter Edition, and Web Edition are supported.

Where support is shown for "Windows Server 2012 or Windows Server 2012 R2" it is implied that Standard Edition, Datacenter Edition, Essentials Edition, and Foundation Edition are supported.

In IPV6-enabled NetBackup 7.7 and later environments, Granular Recovery Technology (GRT) is not supported for Active Directory.

Bare Metal Restore (BMR)

General Information
* Bare Metal Restore Server (BMR server) is a feature of the Master Server.

BMR Boot Server
* BMR Boot Server is supported on the same Operating Systems as the BMR client. In case of Windows, BMR Boot Server bitness is not relevant. I.E., a Windows x86 boot server can boot x86 and x64 servers and visa-versa.

BMR Boot Server Requirements
Please Reference the Requirements for Bare Metal Restore (BMR) Boot Servers document for comprehensive information, http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH87607.

Bare Metal Restore File System/Volume Manager Support

Listed in the table below are the available File Systems and Logical Volume Managers compatible with Bare Metal Restore 7.7 through 7.7.x. Support is conditional according to the published notes corresponding to the individual OS platforms.

The table below contains scenarios that have been thoroughly tested with NetBackup. Due to the number of combinations, it is not possible to test all combinations for compatibility. If a particular scenario is not listed, it may work fine, but has not been explicitly tested by Symantec.

Minimum NetBackup Level
The information in this column is the minimum level of NetBackup that must be installed on the BMR Client to support the associated OS platform.

Where support is shown for "Windows Server 2008” or "Windows Server 2008 R2" it is implied that Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition, Datacenter Edition, and Web Edition are supported.

Where support is shown for "Windows Server 2012” or "Windows Server 2012 R2" it is implied that Foundation Edition, Essentials Edition, Standard Edition, and Datacenter Edition are supported.

Acronyms
LDM - Logical Disk Manager
LVM - Logical Volume Manager
SFW - Storage Foundation for Windows
SRT - Shared Resource Tool
SVM - Solaris Volume Manager
VxFS - Veritas File System
VxVM - Veritas Volume Manager

Client Selections for Backup Policies

The information in the Client Selection column of the table below is the client type that should be selected when installing NetBackup as a client on the Operating System/Version and Architecture listed in this table.

Where support is shown for "Windows Server 2008" or "Windows Server 2008 R2" it is implied that Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition, Datacenter Edition, and Web Edition are supported.

Where support is shown for "Windows Server 2012" or "Windows Server 2012 R2" it is implied that Standard Edition, Datacenter Edition, Essentials Edition, and Foundation Edition are supported.

Clustered Master Server Compatibility

See NetBackup High Availability Administrator's Guide http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC5332 for details. Cluster compatibility is only listed for NetBackup Components that are cluster aware. NetBackup clients and agents are supported in cluster environments but are not cluster aware.

For Linux distributions shown in the tables below, NetBackup is supported on all "editions" and on all vendor GA updates (n.1, n.2, etc.) or service packs (SP1, SP2, etc.) unless otherwise footnoted in this document or in the NetBackup OS Compatibility List. http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH76648

For information about certain NetBackup features, functionality, 3rd-party product integration, Symantec product integration, applications, databases, and OS platforms that Symantec intends to replace with newer and improved functionality, or in some cases, discontinue without replacement, please see the widget titled "NetBackup Future Platform and Feature Plans" at https://sort.symantec.com/netbackup

1. FlashBackup is not currently supported when using Storage Foundation 6 or greater volume manager.
2. RHEL 5 Update 3 or later required.
3. RHEL 6 Update 1 or later required.
4. RHEL 5 Update 5 or later required.
5. RHEL 6 Update 3 or later required.
6. Minimum OS level is Solaris 11 SRU1.
7. Solaris 11.1 requires VCS 6.0.3 or later.
8. SLES 10 SP3 or later SP required.
9. SLES 11 SP1 or later SP required.
10. SLES 11 SP2 or later SP required.
11. VSS based snapshot at a volume-level is supported, but snapshots at a LUN level will not work due to a Microsoft issue.
12. Windows Server Failover Cluster (WSFC), formerly MSCS.

Clustered Master Server Storage Stacks

The table below captures the NetBackup clustering solution supported volume manager on shared disk. For example, when configuring NetBackup on a Linux OS VCS cluster, the only supported volume manager for the shared disk used by NetBackup is VxVM.

Note that the table below does not include OS versions. Please see the preceding table for specific OS version support.

NetBackup support of the FlashBackup policy with Storage Foundation 6 volume manager is scheduled for a future NetBackup release.

NetBackup support of Storage Foundation 6 features of Deduplication and Compression is scheduled for a future NetBackup release.

1. Supported on all OS versions as noted in the preceding table.
2. With VCS 6.0 (VCSW/SFWHA 6.0) VSS based snapshot at a volume-level is supported, but snapshots at a LUN level will not work due to a Microsoft issue.

Deduplication Supported Operating Systems

If you are looking for information regarding PureDisk support, and not media server deduplication, reference article TECH139108 http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH139108

Reference Article; TECH77575 NetBackup Deduplication: Additional Usage Information: http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH77575 for further details on recommended hardware.

Where support is shown for "Windows Server 2008" or "Windows Server 2008 R2" it is implied that Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition, Datacenter Edition, and Web Edition are supported.

Where support is shown for "Windows Server 2012", or "Windows Server 2012 R2" it is implied that Foundation Edition, Essentials Edition, Standard Edition, and Datacenter Edition are supported.

1. ZFS file system is not supported as a backend storage location for a MSDP disk pool.
2. For NetBackup releases 7.5.0.3 and earlier, see Reference Article; TECH167050 http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH167050 for configuration information
3. See the File System Compatibility table for support details regarding the Windows 2012 NTFS data deduplication feature, and the ReFS file system.

File System Compatibility

NetBackup supports backing up file data on all POSIX compliant file systems. The table below represents the platform configurations that have been tested for compatibility with ACLs and other extended attributes. Unless otherwise noted in the table below, ACLs and other extended attributes are not supported.

NetBackup has improved its integration with the Veritas File System (VxFS) product to ensure interoperability on all compatible VxFS versions. If you run a VxFS version that is older than VxFS 4.0 then you need to install new VxFS libraries on the client to back up the systems that run VxFS. You can search and download the appropriate VxFS libraries to your system from Patch Central on the Symantec Support Web site. See, https://sort.symantec.com/labs/patch. See, http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH87371.

Note :
? For Linux Operating Systems,the backup and restore of extended attributes set by the chattr command on XFS, ZFS, BTRFS etc. is not supported
? Cross platform restore of extended attributes is not supported.

NetBackup Media Server Encryption Option (MSEO)

Operating system requirements are the same for both MSEO key management server and media server installations.

The Media Server Encryption Option and its documentation is available for download at https://symantec.flexnetoperations.com/.

Where support is shown for "Windows Server 2008" it is implied that Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition, Datacenter Edition, and Web Edition are supported.

Where support is shown for "Windows Server 2008 R2" it is implied that Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition, Datacenter Edition, and Web Edition are supported.

Where support is shown for "Windows Server 2012" it is implied that Standard Edition, Datacenter Edition, Essentials Edition, and Foundation Edition are supported.

NetBackup Administration Consoles

The NetBackup Java Administration Console is an interface to configure and manage NetBackup installed on the same machine. The interface can run on any NetBackup Java-capable system.

The Backup Archive and Restore (BAR) console is an interface to the NetBackup client. The Backup, Archive, and Restore utility performs backups and archives for the system on which it is installed and restores for this system and other clients.

For information on how to install the consoles mentioned above reference the NetBackup Installation Guides. And for information on usage reference the NetBackup Administrator's Guides.

The table below is a list of the platforms that support the NetBackup-Java Administration Console and the Backup Archive and Restore Interface.
Note,if a supported NetBackup client is not listed in the table below the client is supported for backup and restore, but it does not support any of the available graphical interfaces.

Where support is shown for "Windows Server 2008" or "Windows Server 2008 R2", it is implied that Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition, Datacenter Edition, and Web Edition are supported.

Where support is shown for "Windows Server 2012" it is implied that Standard Edition, Datacenter Edition, Essentials Edition, and Foundation Edition are supported.

1. Reference Article; TECH63372 Windows 7 Java Console Disappearing http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH63372 for further details.

NetBackup OpsCenter Backup Product Support

There are two OpsCenter products: Symantec NetBackup OpsCenter and Symantec NetBackup OpsCenter Analytics.

OpsCenter does not require any license and is included with the NetBackup Enterprise Server and Server products. OpsCenter provides single deployment configuration and user interface for monitoring, alerting, and reporting functionality. It provides monitoring, management and administration capabilities for NetBackup as well as operational reporting for other products as designated in the following table.

OpsCenter Analytics is the licensed version of OpsCenter. In addition to the features available in the unlicensed OpsCenter version, Analytics offers report customization, chargeback reporting and support for third-party data protection products as designated in the following table. The primary objectives of this product are to help organizations assess their compliance with business standards, e.g., service level agreements, and assist in effective business planning, e.g., future backup requirements via backup trend analysis.

Listed in the table below are the backup and archiving products and versions supported by OpsCenter and OpsCenter Analytics.

NetBackup OpsCenter Operating System Requirements

OpsCenter Analytics has the same Operating System requirements as OpsCenter.

Check the Operating Systems server table for the exact version of NetBackup in which OpsCenter server support started.

Veritas Cluster Server (VCS) support for OpsCenter 7.1 Server, OpsCenter 7.5 Server and OpsCenter 7.6 Server in cluster mode:
VCS versions 4.3, 5.0 MP3 and 5.1 on Solaris
VCS versions 4.2 RP2, 5.1 and 5.1 SP1 on Windows

OpsCenter Agent and OpsCenter View Builder installations are not supported in a cluster environment.
32-bit View Builder binaries are used on 64-bit platforms.

1. SP2 and forward

NetBackup OpsCenter Web Browser Requirements

SAN Media Server/SAN Client/FT Media Server

? Unless otherwise noted the minimum NetBackup level for SAN Client support is NetBackup 6.5 GA.

SAN style backups via SAN Media Server

SAN media servers are NetBackup media servers that back up their own data. SAN media servers cannot back up data that resides on other clients. SAN media servers are useful for certain situations. For example, a SAN media server is useful if the data volume consumes so much network bandwidth that it affects your network negatively.
? Enables LAN-free data protection with high performance access to shared resources.
? Can share tape resources with NetBackup Master and Media Servers.
? Can only back itself up, not other clients.
? Software is installed stand-alone on each cluster node and linked to the virtual host via an application cluster.
? When you define a backup policy for a SAN media server, add only the SAN media server as the client.
? The NetBackup Shared Storage Option is able to use NetBackup SAN media servers.
? There is no platform restriction regarding SAN Media Servers - any Media Server can be a SAN Media Server. The only difference is in the license authentication mechanism. Application and DB Agents are supported with the SAN Media Server.

SAN style backups via SAN Client

A NetBackup SAN client is a NetBackup client on which the Fibre Transport service is activated. The SAN client is similar to the SAN media server that is used for the Shared Storage Option; it backs up its own data. However, the SAN client is based on the smaller NetBackup client installation package, so it has fewer administration requirements and uses fewer system resources.
? It connects to a NetBackup media server over Fibre Channel.
? The NetBackup SAN Client Fibre Transport Service manages the connectivity and the data transfers for the FT pipe on the SAN clients. The SAN client FT service also discovers FT target mode devices on the NetBackup media servers and notifies the FT Service Manager about them.
? Requires SAN connectivity with a Media Server running Fibre Transport Services (reference additional information below in regards to the FT Media Server).

SAN client does not support the following types of backup:
? SharePoint
? Enterprise Vault
? Exchange DAG or CCR backups through a passive node of an Exchange cluster
? All other application and database agents are supported with the SAN Client.

Note: SAN client does support the use of FlashBackup but all restores from FlashBackup backups will use the LAN connection, not the SAN connection.

SAN client and NetBackup Deduplication

? SAN Client is a NetBackup optional feature that provides high speed backups and restores of NetBackup clients. Fibre Transport is the name of the NetBackup high-speed data transport method that is part of the SAN Client feature. The backup and restore traffic occurs over a SAN.
? SAN clients can be used with the deduplication option; however, the deduplication must occur on the media server, not the client. Configure the media server to be both a deduplication storage server (or load balancing server) and an FT media server. The SAN client backups are then sent over the SAN to the deduplication server/FT media server host. At that media server, the backup stream is deduplicated.
? Do not enable client deduplication on SAN Clients. The data processing for deduplication is incompatible with the high-speed transport method of Fibre Transport. Client-side deduplication relies on two-way communication over the LAN with the media server. A SAN client streams the data to the FT media server at a high rate over the SAN.

FT Media Server

A NetBackup FT media server is a NetBackup media server on which the Fibre Transport services are activated. NetBackup FT media servers accept connections from SAN clients and send data to the disk storage. The host bus adapters (HBAs) that accept connections from the SAN clients use a special NetBackup target mode driver to process FT traffic. The media server FT service controls data flow, processes SCSI commands, and manages data buffers for the server side of the FT pipe. It also manages the target mode driver for the host bus adaptors.

Reference the HCL document Fibre Transport Media Server HBAs section for supported Operating Systems and HBAs. http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH76495

NetBackup Self Service Support

Symantec NetBackup Self Service offers large enterprises and service providers a single store front for all backup and recovery service offerings. Customers and business users can perform self-service backup and restore operations using intuitive, custom-designed interface themes. A single instance supports the registration of multiple tenants or business units to allow secure separation between clients. Codeless, visually-designed forms and process workflows cater to most self-service needs. Service Level Agreement (SLA) measurement, notification, chargeback, and reporting make it easy to manage the service.

NetBackup 7.6.1 Self Service Documentation:

? Release Notes: http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC8214
? Installation Guide: http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC8215
? Configuration Guide: http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC8216
? All NetBackup 7.6.1 Self Service PDFs in a single .zip file: http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC8228

Virtual Systems Compatibility

This Statement of Support for NetBackup in a Virtual Environment document describes the extent of support for NetBackup within a virtual environment. Ideally, every NetBackup configuration supported in a traditional physical environment would also be supported in any virtual environment without qualification. While that is our mission, it is not always possible.

Therefore, the purpose of this document is to:
? Clarify differences between NetBackup support in physical vs. virtual environments
? Describe general guidelines for support in virtual environments
? Describe impact upon specific NetBackup components: clients, servers, options, etc.
? Provide references to related information

Operating Systems No Longer Supported by NetBackup

NetBackup 7.7 Reference Article: TECH76770 the Additional Operational Notes (expect there will be a new Technote) http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH76770

The NetBackup 7.7 dropped support for specific OS Versions/Architectures indicated in the table below.