Doc to help understand Networker licensing? 1

[goony]

I've been using Networker for a few years and now I want to do some upgrading. I don't particularly trust the reseller that we use to deliver me good answers, so I want to understand how some of the licensing issues work so that I can double-check their work. Examples:

[ul]
[li]I have almost 1TB of Disk Backup, and I want to go to 2TB - do I get an "upgrade" license to go from 1TB to 2TB, or am I throwing away (wasting) my 1TB license when I go to a 2TB license?[/li]
[li]Similar question about a larger jukebox (slots) license - am I throwing away money when I upgrade to a larger license?[/li]
[li]I want to start doing archiving on most of my 30+ nodes... how do I figure what license(s) will be needed?[/li]
[li]I want to add a storage node... which license do I need?[/li]
[li]Can I transfer existing tape jukebox and disk backup licenses to the new storage node?[/li]
[/ul]

I tried using the EMC Powerlink to search for a document that could help me, but I just ended up with search results as if I had entered a search for any doc with a vowel in it - 22,000+ search returns. Blech.

 

[605]

- Disk backup enablers are stackable, so there is no problem.
- Jukebox licenses are not stackable. However, i think there is a program to just charge you for the difference.
- Archiving: There is one license per data zone. However, you must very carefully look what you want to do - in my opinion, you don't need it at all. The basic enabler covers the functionality in general.
- Each storage node needs its additional license which must be of the same NW "edition"
- Of course NW is not interested "where" the licenses are used.

Unfortunately, because it may become very complicated, you will find no consolidated doc about licensing. But there are fragments in the Admin Guide.

 

[goony]

- Archiving: There is one license per data zone. However, you must very carefully look what you want to do - in my opinion, you don't need it at all. The basic enabler covers the functionality in general.

OK, color me confused I'm not sure I understand "basic enabler" when it comes to archiving... is that automatically part of the base license or is it something extra?


On my Unix Networker server under Configuration --> Registrations I have NETWORKER SERVER NETWORK EDITION UNIX and the other usual stuff needed for additional clients, tape jukebox and for disk backup.

So, are you saying that in the above base license I should have some kind of basic archiving functionality? If so, I cannot tell from the docs what I can do natively and what requires an extra license.

I labeled a tape in an Archive pool and tried to run nwarchive and select a few files and it came back with [tt]The feature "Networker Archive Modules/1" is not properly enabled[/tt] i.e. Naa, baby naa!.

Thanks for the help!

 

[605]

O.K., let's talk technical facts and history:

NW's first archiving functionality was nothing else but:
- Backup without keeping the file index information
- Full compare of the backed up files with the originals
- Deletion of the original files
- Setting the retention date to "never"

The intention was to move the data, not just a backup by bypassing the browse period. This made sense as such file index would otherwise most likely never be deleted. The reason for the archiving funtionality was to "extend" the disk capacity.

Of course, you could do all these things manually or via a script - the archive functionality just eases the automatism and the usage.

Today, with disk capacities beyond all limits which existed at the time NW archiving was invented, you usually do not need to take care of your file index size any longer. Thus, NW now also allows to archive with this index data if you use the Archive Index pool.

So, in general, you already get all functionalities with the basic NW server/data zone enabler. However, the archiving "comfort" needs a special license.

Does this make sense?

 

[goony]

Explained very well and exactly what I needed!

It is sometimes difficult to separate in the documentation what is "extra functionality ($)" and what is capable with the base product.