Zsoldier's Tech Blog

Thought this was kind of a cool function of Netbackup 7.5.  It has the ability to post last good backup date to a vCenter custom attribute.  Here is the article: http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO71014 The short of it is to simply add the extensions ( Register extension, Unregister extension, Update extension ) permissions to your NBU role on top of those perms listed here: http://tech.zsoldier.com/2011/06/netbackup-perms-and-vsphere-4x.html and configuring vmware advanced attributes in netbackup 7.5+. http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO70998#v62458854 <-- Pointed out by Michael in comments. Cause I forgot to add it.  -->

Many moons ago back in April, I and several other vExperts were invited to Symantec HQ for an executive briefing.  What I thought was just going to be a sales pitch, turned into a deep discussion around virtualization philosophy and technical discussion around Symantec’s many products.  Hit the link to read more if you are interested in my experience.

Summary: Symantec has posted the specific rights needed for backup and restoration of VM's in vSphere.  It is very helpful if you do not want to grant blanket administrator rights to the service account used. Link: http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH130493 My previous post around this subject is a bit more detailed on which nodes in vCenter you'll want to apply this role.

Summary: Symantec will tell you that full administrator is needed to backup systems properly.  It is the easiest way, but I’m here to tell you that is not required.  There are two things that need to be done: Create a proper security role Apply that role to the various different nodes in vCenter Details: (Update to Role Perms can be found here.) Role Permissions needed (we’ll call it Netbackup Role): Privilege Group Privilege(s) to Enable Datastore Allocate Space Browse Datastore Low level file operations Global Licenses Configuration Add existing disk Add new disk Change resource Disk lease Remove disk Settings Provisioning Allow disk access Allow read-only disk access Allow virtual machine download State Create Snapshot Remove Snapshot Next, you need to apply permissions to the correct nodes in vCenter: Apply the Netbackup service account w/ the Netbackup Role to the vCenter Node. Propagate down if you want everything under the vCent...