About the capacity licensing model
Capacity licensing is based on the total amount of data that NetBackup protects on the client or agent. When the capacity licensing model is used, NetBackup automatically gathers the information in one of two methods:
By getting the information from the backup image header. If a policy type is not yet supported for the accurate licensing method, this method is used.
By using the accurate licensing method.
NetBackup automatically uses this method if the policy type supports accurate licensing. Each supported policy type uses a unique mechanism at backup time to calculate the size of the data that the policy is protecting. This information is gathered and then stored in the NetBackup database.
The following policy types report data size using accurate licensing:
MS-Windows
Standard
MS-Exchange-Server
MS-SQL-Server
VMware
NDMP
Oracle
BigData
Accurate licensing enables the user to have the following:
Faster performance of the nbdeployutil tool to gather and generate capacity licensing report as NetBackup stores the front-end size of backup data.
Precise Front-end Terabytes (FETBs). If multiple backup copies are created, only the first copy is considered.
Table: NetBackup client versions and supported policy types
NetBackup client version | Supported policy types |
|---|---|
8.0 | MS-Windows, Standard, MS-Exchange-Server, MS-SQL-Server |
8.1 | MS-Windows, Standard, MS-Exchange-Server, MS-SQL-Server, VMware, NDMP, Oracle, BigData (for Hadoop HDFS and Nutanix Acropolis Hypervisor) |
The capacity licensing report includes details about the mechanism that is used based on the policy type. nbdeployutil securely communicates with the master server to gather the protected data sizes and generate reports. The report is generated only for full backups and user-directed backups (including expired backups) for the last 90 days per the license agreement.
All of the clients included in the policy must be updated to NetBackup 8.1 or later when accurate licensing is used. The reporting data for any clients that run older NetBackup versions is not included in the calculation of protected data. For these clients, the capacity licensing numbers are generated using the legacy method of backup image header.
The data size that is reported in the Itemization sheet of the report under Storage Types, for example, Tape, BasicDisk, PureDisk, etc., is the front-end data size that is backed up to that specific storage type and not the storage size that the backup consumes.
Users are charged based on the protected data size. If multiple backup copies are created using a single policy (a copy created and stored on disk, for example), only the first copy is considered for calculation. The other copies are not charged to the user.
If multiple policies of the same type protect the same data, the capacity report identifies the overlap. The user needs to calculate the actual data overlap and then configure the policies considering this overlap. The user can then change the report based on the overlap. The overlap is only applicable to data reported using accurate licensing.
To record protected data, an agent must have a valid certificate (issued by the master server) to securely connect with the master server. If the certificate is not generated and available on the client, the protected data is not recorded using accurate licensing. In this scenario, the data is reported using the backup image header in the capacity licensing report. After the certificate is available and protected data is recorded using accurate licensing, the method of using the backup image header is no longer used.
The user can generate the certificate by using the nbcertcmd command. For more information about this command, refer to the NetBackup Commands Reference Guide.