Prerequisites
Prerequisites for using CDP
CDP for VMware exclusively supports accelerator-based backup. So, CDP needs accelerator-compliant storage units based on MSDP or OST-based storage.
CDP uses a file system as a staging area on the CDP gateway. See the Software compatibility list for the supported file systems.
The media server that is associated with MSDP should have NetBackup version 9.1 or higher.
Capacity-based and traditional license for enabling the feature.
The port 33056 on the CDP gateway must be open for the ESXi server to communicate to the CDP gateway.
VMware server credentials need privileges for NetBackup to start, stop, restart, and refresh the Common Information Model (CIM) service on the ESXi host.
You can configure a CDP gateway on the RHEL-based NetBackup media server platform.
Create a VMware storage policy for replication using the VAIO component. Attach the storage policy to each disk of the VMs that you want to protect using CDP. For details, see the Veritas Technical Support knowledge base article on How to create vtstap storage policy in VMware vCenter.
You can download and deploy the VAIO drivers package, version 4.0.0, to use with your CDP deployment. Refer to the Software compatibility list for the latest version and information on how to download it.
You must install the vSphere Installation Bundle (VIB) on the vCenter cluster before configuring protection in NetBackup. Note that you do not need to deploy VIB on vCenter for restore purposes. See the Veritas Technical Support knowledge base article on Deploying an IO Filter solution to a cluster using VMware MOB.
Before you can deploy CDP, you need to create a VM storage policy. The storage policy must have a component chosen as "Replication" and a provider as "vtstap". This policy must be attached to each disk of the VM to be protected. Otherwise, backup jobs fail. For details, see the Veritas Support knowledge base article on How to create vtstap storage policy in VMware vCenter
Note:
Detaching the storage policy results in loss of protection for the VM. If you detach the Veritas IO filter storage policy from a VM, I/O tapping for the VM is stopped, so the data from this VM does not get saved in the CDP gateway. Hence, the consequent backup jobs remain blank backup jobs, even after all the data from the CDP staging area is moved to the backup storage. So, we recommend removing protection of the VM(s) from the NetBackup protection plan once you detach the vtstap policy from the VM(s).