HP StoreOnce 6500 Backup Installation Planning and Preparation Guide

4 Connecting to your network
IMPORTANT: Please take time to read this chapter before completing the Network checklist at
the front of this document, see Network requirements (page 9).
Each couplet is a paired combination of two nodes that are directly connected in failover pairs. If
one node fails, the system is designed to failover to the other node without any external interaction
from the customer. The HP StoreOnce Backup System uses a concept called a Virtual Network
Interface (VIF) to make this possible.
In very simple terms:
• The physical IP addresses relate to the physical ports that are used to connect the HP StoreOnce
Backup System to the customer's network.
• The Virtual Network Interface (VIF) addresses are the IP addresses that the customer uses to
connect to the StoreOnce Management Console and to target backup and replication jobs.
Because these are never directly linked to a physical port they continue to function correctly
in the event of node failure.
For a more detailed discussion of how VIFs and IP addresses are used see Understanding VIF
addresses (page 24).
What is currently supported
• IPv4 is supported.
• DNS is supported.
• There may be only one Management subnet and that must be configured on a portset that is
not VLAN enabled. This is typically on a 1GbE network. Data may also be sent across this
network, if configured to do so.
• In a network environment that makes use only of physical LANs, up to two further subnets may
be configured for Data. For example, backups may be configured across the pair of 10GbE
network ports, and StoreOnce Catalyst copy and replication across the remaining pair of
1GbE network ports.
• In a network environment that makes use of virtual LANs, up to 128 VLAN subnets may be
configured for Data.
• A network gateway may be optionally configured in all subnets. One subnet must be designated
as containing the default gateway. This default network gateway will attempt to route any
network traffic to IP addresses that are not in the configured subnets.
• The network configuration applies to all nodes in the cluster. For example, you cannot have
separate network configurations for each couplet in the cluster.
• The IPsec protocol is supported for subnet Data In Flight encryption. This feature requires a
Security Pack license on each couplet in the cluster.
What is not currently supported
• IPv6 is not supported.
• DHCP is not supported.
• There is no VTL support on Ethernet using the iSCSI protocol.
What is currently supported 19